Sub-Title: Reflection on Pakistan
revisited
Author: J. N. Dixit
Publications: The Indian Express,
Mumbai
Dated: February 21, 2001
I visited Pakistan late January
last to participate in a conference in which the Islamabad Policy Research
Institute and the Delhi Policy Group on Nuclear Risk Reduction participated.
Two events occurred during the visit highlighting the contrast between
the Indian and Pakistani approaches. India extended the cease-fire for
a second time. The apex body of the Pakistan-based terrorist groups rejected
it stating that 'Jehad' is the only way to resolve the Kashmir problem.
The Indian delegation had a meeting
with the foreign minister of Pakistan, Abdus Sattar, and the foreign secretary,
Inamul Haq. It was preceded by an hour-long briefing by the additional
secretary incharge of multilateral affairs of Pakistan's foreign office,
Riaz Hussain.
Hussain emphasised that efforts
at mutual restraint are rooted in the removal of the basic cause of tension,
namely the Kashmir issue. He stessed that nuclear risk reduction cannot
be consider in isolation as a separate issue affecting regional security.
When the Indian side pointed out that the rise of nuclear confrontation
is a more dangerous phenomenon than Pakistan viewing the Kashmir issue
as a territorial dispute, Hussain indulged in a colourful simile. He said
both India and Pakistan know that the water in the well of mutual peace
is dirty and poisoned. Just drawing out the dirty water will not result
in the well being cleaned because there is a dead dog in the well. The
dead dog is the Kashmir dispute. Unless we take out the dead dog and dispose
of it, we cannot hope for fresh water in the well.
The Indian side could have responded
to this bizarre simile by pointing out that it is Pakistan which killed
the dog and put it in the well, when it invaded Kashmir in 1948. But we
did not because the argument would not have led anywhere. A political point
made in this briefing was that Pakistan considers nuclear risk reduction
intrinsically linked with its views on Kashmir and thus an affirmation
that Pakistan's nuclear weaponisation in one dimension is an instrumentality
to further its Kashmir policies.
The Indian side presented structured
and written papers on three aspects of nuclear risk reduction; one on the
political and strategic context in which Indo-Pakistan confidence-building
measures have evolved since 1989. The second paper was on possible technical
proposals and measures which both sides could adopt to reduce the prospects
of nuclear confrontation or accidental nuclear conflict. The third paper
was on whether the contradictions between the Indian nuclear doctrine and
the Pakistani nuclear doctrine could be reconciled, given the Pakistani
doctrine of retaining the option of first strike and the Indian doctrine
of no-first-use of its nuclear weapons. The Indian presentations focussed
on this specific issue.
The Pakistani delegation, in contrast,
did not present any written paper. While the Indian approach was technical
and focussed, the Pakistani presentation consisted of broader political
perspectives from Pakistan's point of view. It was interesting to note
that in these intellectual exchanges the Pakistani side reflected the approach
outlined to us in the foreign office briefing. They emphasised with greater
vigour that nuclear risk reduction is dependent on and intrinsically linked
with Kashmir. -
The Pakistan delegation emphasised
that India's no-first-use doctrine and its abjuring the option of the first
strike have no meaning because a Pakistani first strike may obliterate
India's capacity for a second nuclear strike. Alternatively, India's no-fast-use
approach is a public relations exercise and in a conflict situation what
is there to prevent India from indulging in first strike?
The meetings at the other academic
institutes were even more revealing. In discussion on developments in Afghanistan
and its fallout on the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia, Pakistani
academics justified Taliban's Policies and objectives. The Indian apprehension
about Taliban exporting or conniving at cross-border terrorism in J&K
and in the Central Asian Republics was rejected with the assertion that
Taliban was not involved in such activities. It was a flat denial. As far
as Taliban's extremist domestic policies is concerned, the Pakistani view
was that external criticism was misinformed and was based on deliberate
misrepresentations. That such views were expressed by Pakistani academics
who have had exposure to foreign universities and media, left one wondering
about the vigour of conviction of the orthodoxy that influenced their thought
process.
The Pakistani academia at the strategic
institute proceeded to argue at great length that the world at large and
India in particular is deliberately labelling the intensively spiritual
and religious phenomenon of 'Jehad' to malign Pakistan. This argument was
further expanded with the assertion that the international community led
by the US is deliberate in its opposition to the rise of pan-Islamic movements
and Islamic religious resurgence in the world. Indian advocacies that Jehad
in the religious sense is different from militant separatist terrorism
and violence was polemically rejected.
When these discussions meandered
into the ups and draw of Indo-Pakistan relations, the Director of the Institute
of Strategic Studies justified the Pakistani intrusion into Kargil in 1999,
stating that India should evaluate the intrusion in contextual terms because
Pakistani moves in Kargil were justified as a retaliation to India's violation
of the Line of Control at Siachen in 1984. An additional point was made
that Pakistan would not have withdrawn from Kargil but for the US pressure.
The comparative analysis of the
experience in nation-building and building of institutions of state at
the foreign service academy was remarkable because the Pakistani participants
questioned the credibility of India's democracy and India's secularism
citing the contradictions of Indian civil society in terms of treatment
of minorities, the caste system, the fragmentation of political parties,
the rise of Hindu religious extremism in India etc. In contrast, discussions
with Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar and his colleagues were of comparative
relief to the Indian delegation. Sattar affirmed Pakistan's desire to restore
a dialogue with lndia.
The overall impression one came
away with can be summed up as follows: There is no intense anxiety among
the Pakistan elite to restore democracy. There seems to be a widespread
belief in these circles that India is getting exhausted in Kashmir and
that it will not be able to hold on to Kashmir for long and, therefore,
political and militant pressure should be continued on India. While there
is an awareness about dangers of nuclear confrontation, there is a parallel
feeling that the threat of such confrontation will become an incremental
pressure on India On the Kashmir issue.
