Author: B.Raman
Publication: South Asia Analysis
Group
Date: January 11, 2002
Writing in its issue of October
4 to 10, 2001, "Independent", a weekly journal of Pakistan, quoted an unidentified
leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami as saying as follows: " The Pakistani Army
is jehadi by philosophy. Its hidden policy is still pro-jehad and
pro-Taliban. What we see is just a posture and not a policy. The
military Government's support to the US is just a posture."
This assessment was proved correct
by the subsequent developments in the US-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan.
While pretending to co-operate with the US-led allies, the military-intelligence
establishment ensured that the top leadership of the Taliban and the Al
Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, escaped capture or decimation by the
US so that they could live to fight another day.
Large sections of public opinion
in Pakistan, including the "Independent", saw the initial anti-US demonstrations
by the religious parties and the subsequent arrests and detention of the
religious leaders as orchestrated by Musharraf to project himself
to the US as supporting the US-led war against terrorism at tremendous
risk to himself in order to win more lollipops.
Musharraf's expected telecast to
the Pakistani people on January 12 or 13, 2001, is likely to see a similar
change of posture and not mindset regarding Pakistan-sponsored terrorism
directed against India.
The forthcoming statement of Government
intentions would be a much more difficult tactical manoeuvre for Musharraf
to make than was the one he had made in September vis-a-vis the Taliban
and the Al Qaeda.
He has to carry conviction to India
and the rest of the international community that his recently declared
opposition to terrorism "in all its manifestations" and the arrests of
the leaders of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM)
underlined a definitive change of policy and mindset and not just a change
of posture as believed by India.
At the same time, he has to reassure
not only the Pakistani population, particularly the Punjabis, but
also the officers and other ranks in the military that his declaration
was only a change of posture and not of their policy of keeping India bleeding
through jehadis and avenging the humiliation of the Pakistani Army in
1971 by forcing India to agree to a change of the status quo in Jammu &
Kashmir (J&K).
Musharraf is a rattled man in a
quandary. He is rattled because Mr. A.B.Vajpayee, the Indian Prime
Minister, has called his nuclear bluff by mobilising the Indian Army in
a manner unprecedented since 1971 and thereby signalling his readiness
to consider the use of the military option as a last resort if left
with no other alternative for ending Pakistani sponsorship of terrorism.
Till December 13, 2001, the Pakistani
military leadership had convinced itself that its nuclear arsenal had insured
it against a possible Indian retaliation in its territory. This conviction
has been shaken by the Indian reaction and by the acceptance by the US
in public of India's right of self-defence against cross-border terrorism.
He is also rattled because the international
community has come to accept India's view that what has been happening
in J & K is largely the use of cross-border terrorism by the State
of Pakistan to achieve its strategic objective against India and not purely
the manifestation of a freedom-struggle by the Kashmiris as projected
by Musharraf.
He is in a quandary because after
the USA's failure to capture or kill large sections of the Taliban and
the Al Qaeda leadership and in the face of increasing indications of their
having taken shelter in Pakistani territory, which they could not have
done without the complicity of at least some sections of the Pakistani
military-intelligence coterie, the US and the UK seem to be coming round
to sharing India's perception that the root of the terrorism cancer is
to be found in the mindset of this coterie and in the territory of Pakistan.
They are not yet openly saying so
and continue to shower praise on Musharraf for his co-operation in the
"war" against terrorism and for the action already taken by him against
the jehadi organisations in his territory. The USA's conviction
that the alternative to Musharraf is too dangerous to contemplate and that
only the military leadership could prevent Pakistan's nuclear arsenal
from falling into the hands of the terrorists is still very strong.
In the USA's perception, it needs
a co-operative Musharraf to smoke out the still dangerous dregs of the
Taliban and the Al Qaeda from their hide-outs in Pakistan. He would also
be needed for making the region safe for US oil and gas interests after
making the world safe for US nationals, shown so vulnerable by 11/9.
At the same time, Washington is
coming round to the view that its continued high-profile support to Musharraf
should not be misinterpreted by the coterie as continued tolerance of his
use of terrorism against India so long as it did not threaten US nationals
and interests as was the US policy hitherto.
Washington has, therefore, been
adopting a two-pronged policy--- first, pressure to act against the jehadi
terrorists in order to respond to India's concerns and, second, public
projection of the jehadi terrorists as threatening India as well as Pakistan
in order to exonerate him of any responsibility for harbouring them in
violation of the UN Security Council Resolution No.1373.
In the face of this pressure, how
to publicly break with the jehadi terrorists, while continuing to ensure
the functioning of the weapon of terrorism against India? How to reassure
the public of Pakistan and the officers and other ranks of the military
that his public break with the jehadi terrorists would not mean a dilution
of the coterie's commitment to wrest J&K from India, by hook
or by crook? While changing the wielders of the weapon of terrorism on
Islamabad's behalf, how to ensure that the new wielders would be as effective
as those being replaced and would be viewed more benignly by the rest of
the world? How to ensure that his change of the wielders is not misinterpreted
by his own public and particularly the religious elements as yet another
diplomatic defeat after the earlier one in Afghanistan?
These are the questions now being
debated by the coterie and the Cabinet of Musharraf. An indication of the
likely new posture can be already seen in the resurrection of Abdul
Qayyum Khan, former President and Prime Minister of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir
(POK), who was forced by Musharraf in the middle of last year to renounce
his claim to the leadership of the State apparatus after the success of
his Muslim Conference in the elections.
Qayyum, a blue-blooded Kashmiri
who entered Kashmiri politics more or less at the same time as the late
Sheikh Abdullah, was a consistent critic of the post-1993 Afghanisation
of J&K by the military-intelligence establishment by inducting Pakistanis,
Arabs, Afghans and other mercenaries of Afghan war vintage into the State.
He was also a critic of the use of the Al Qaeda by the coterie for training
the jehadi terrorists.
Qayyum, who has wide non-Governmental
contacts in the West, attributes India's success in changing Western perceptions
to what he regards as the marginalisation by the coterie of the role
of the Kashmiris in J&K and of the Mirpuri diaspora abroad in the militant
and diplomatic campaign against India.
According to Qayyum, the post-1993
unwise policies of the military-intelligence establishment have created
before the eyes of the world the spectre of J&K turning into another
Afghanistan due to the depredations of the Pakistani jehadis inspired by
the Al Qaeda.
He felt that large sections of Western
non-governmental opinion favour the Kashmiri cause and they have to be
effectively mobilised in order to bring about a change in Western governmental
perceptions. He was also of the view that this non-governmental opinion
favoured the third option of independence for J&K and that, at least
as a tactical manoeuvre, Islamabad should show itself as having an open
mind on the third option in order to keep these sections on its side.
The reported appointment of Qayyum
as the head of a National Kashmir Committee, despite his past proximity
to Nawaz Sharif, Musharraf's bete noir, is an indicator that his views
have a greater acceptance in the coterie post-December 13. Moreover,
Qayyum has always been close to the Punjabi Generals and his come-back
speaks of the assertive role of these Generals in deciding on the coming
new posture.
Change the wielders, but not the
weapon. Continue to use the weapon, but more invisibly than before.
Stop the Afghanisation and promote the indigenisation of the jehad.
Change the style, but not the substance and objective of the political
and diplomatic campaign against India. Those are likely to be the
themes of the new posture.
(The writer is Additional Secretary
(retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: corde@vsnl.com )
