India has finally agreed to talk to Pakistan unconditionally. This is good news. The turnaround in New Delhi is due to several factors. First, as in 2002 when India’s armed forces were posted to the border to intimidate Pakistan but had to be pulled back when the policy yielded only costs and no benefits, it is a measure of India’s inability to browbeat Pakistan to do its bidding unconditionally after the Mumbai terrorist attack. Islamabad has palpably refused to crack down on the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Second, it is a measure of American pressure on India to assuage Pakistani insecurity on its eastern border and allow Islamabad to focus on the western border with Afghanistan as required by the international community. Third, it is an acknowledgement of the adverse consequences of trying to browbeat Pakistan’s military establishment without settling outstanding disputes, building trust and reducing security concerns.
In recent times, the Zardari government has been compelled by its military establishment to change its soft sell to India and adopt a hard line. Instead of constantly scraping the floor in an effort to restart the unconditional composite dialogue, the Pakistani foreign office has reversed its stance on one critical issue important to India: it has “gone back” on the achievements of back channel diplomacy during the Musharraf regime (a joint mechanism for administering both parts of Kashmir which would remain parts of India and Pakistan respectively) and reverted to the UN Resolution position on Kashmir (a plebiscite to determine whether it will be a part of India or Pakistan). Indeed, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, recently said that there was no record in his Foreign Office of any out-of-the-box progress made in this direction, a complete repudiation of what the former Pakistani Foreign Minister, Khurshid Kasuri, has been saying about the “positive results” of back channel diplomacy regarding the resolution of the Kashmir conflict.
This is anathema to New Delhi. Worse, from India’s point, the recent incline in Pakistan-sponsored militancy in Kashmir aimed at fueling the fire in the Valley sparked by the unaccountable high-handedness of India’s security forces, has served to undermine New Delhi’s policy of trying to appease and stabilize Kashmir by wooing and neutralizing secessionist forces. This the Indians tried to do through offerings of greater democracy and autonomy, including a thinning of security forces and planned offers of general amnesty to militants across the border. On the Pakistani side, fiery street outpourings by militant brigades of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other jihadi forces on Kashmir Day (February 5) in Azad Kashmir and elsewhere are a signal from the military establishment that if the Pakistan-based jihadi tap was turned off during the Musharraf era in response to conflict resolution progress with India, it can be turned on again in retaliation against Indian intransigence, inflexibility and threats during the Kayani era.
One consequence of India’s hard-line Pakistan policy is a new articulation of Pakistan’s military stance vis a vis India. General Kayani says that it is India’s soaring military capability rather than avowed peace intent that poses a security threat to Pakistan. Indeed, India’s Cold Start Doctrine is Pakistan-specific, not least after aggressive statements by the Indian army chief. Consequently, General Kayani has made three significant strategic articulations. First, that Pakistan has fashioned an appropriate military response under a “nuclear overhang” to India’s Cold Start Doctrine, firmly negating President Asif Zardari’s off-the-cuff remarks last year to an Indian TV channel that Pakistan had no first-use nuclear weapons doctrine. Second, that Pakistan seeks “soft strategic depth” in Afghanistan (a friendly Afghanistan with a pro-Pakistan security apparatus) and a transparent non-military Indian role in Afghanistan. Third, Pakistan has a right to be a core “player” in America’s “surge and exit strategy” in Afghanistan since it is a direct neighbour of Kabul (unlike India) and is willing and able to muster critical Taliban support for any future political dispensation in Kabul (without Al-Qaeda) sponsored by America.
India’s leadership knows its hard line posture has not yielded dividends. The first signal came during India’s general elections last year when Dr Manmohan Singh publicly claimed responsibility for successful back-channel diplomacy to resolve the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan. The second came after his meeting with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani at Sharm al Sheikh in Egypt when both sides agreed to get back to the table unconditionally. The initiative has now come to fruition following the appointment of India’s sophisticated former foreign secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, as National Security Advisor in place of the former hard line intelligence official, MK Narayanan. Mr Menon, who served as India’s High Commissioner to Pakistan, is the architect of a calibrated and flexible conflict resolution approach in the region and has Dr Singh’s ear.
Realism, it seems, is finally dawning all round. The Americans recognize Pakistan’s pivotal role in any Afghanistan strategy and have conveyed as much to New Delhi. India realizes that without US support, its hard line Pakistan policy could play into terrorist hands and lead to adverse consequences in Kashmir and elsewhere. Pakistan realizes that cooperation rather than provocation should be the name of the game in the region. This opportunity should be grasped by all players to solve problems rather than accentuate them out of cussedness or illusions of power.