Author: M V Kamath
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: May 8, 2003
What are the chances for Indo-Pak
peace? Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee did the right thing when he
clarified his call for peace with Pakistan made in Srinagar with a subsequent
statement made in the Lok Sabha, that clearly said talks could only be
held when crossborder terrorism ceases for good.
That clarification needed to be
made considering that Pakistan-sponsored terrorism shows signs of abating.
Close on the heels of the Nadimarg massacre of 24 Hindus, mostly women
and children, come reports of more terrorist attacks. On April 15, six
Lashkar militants were killed in Banihal in Doda district. On April 17,
terrorists attacked a police post in Gool, Udhampur district killing one
policeman. On April 18, three militants and a policeman were killed in
Rajouri and another three killed in Yaripora in Anantnag. On April 20,
11 militants and a Superintendent of Police were killed. On April 22, five
civilians were killed in a bomb blast in Tral while 17 militants were killed
in Poonch and Rajouri.
And the Tral killings were at a
time when Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri was loudly
proclaiming that Pakistan "does not want cross-border activity" since violence
in Jammu & Kashmir against civilians was against Pakistan's interests
and was totally counter-productive.
Kasuri spoke loftily of peace. Strongly
commending Vajpayee's call for peace, he said: "I an an optimist. I like
to take things at face value, for that is the only way to approach a situation
with an open heart and an open mind. If one starts suspecting motives,
we won't be able to go anywhere."
The thrust of his and later Musharraf's
thinking is put in two words: "Trust us." Trust Pakistan? Trust a nation
which went to war against India three times? Trust a military leadership
which was planning Kargil when Vajpayee had gone to Lahore to talk peace?
What kind of people do Pakistani leaders think run India? And who believes
that Pakistan has no hold over the terrorists who are playing havoc in
Jammu Kashmir? If Pakistani leaders are honest then they should permit
Indian planes to bomb those camps just beyond the limits of the Line of
Control which are training infiltrators.
According to one report, there are
over 2,500 Pakistan-trained militants in Jammu & Kashmir and about
4,500 more terrorists are either ready to enter India or are under training
in Pakistan or Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Who does Kasuri think he is fooling?
If Indian Ambassador to Washington, Lalit Mansingh has been correctly reported,
he recently told a conference on Indo-US Relations at the University of
California, Los Angeles that close to a 100 training camps have been spotted
across the Line of Control, holding some 3,000 terrorists while an additional
1,500 trained terrorists are already on the Line of Control just waiting
to slip across with the active assistance of the Pakistani Armed Forces.
Under the circumstances, it is some
cheek on the part of Kasuri to say that Pakistan is not a party to violence.
Pakistan is very much a party to terrorism and only someone who is either
naive or a fool would take the Pakistan foreign minister at his word. If
India does not trust Pakistan, it is as a result of past experience. And
yet Vajpayee was undoubtedly serious when he offered his hand of friendship
to Islamabad.
How, then, is the matter to be settled?
Kasuri says that Pakistan has been asking for UN monitoring of both sides
of the Line of Control through a UN Military Observers Group. If India
is unwilling to entertain a UN presence, Kasuri says Pakistan is willing
to see the monitoring job done by "any five or six countries" agreed to
jointly by both Delhi and Islamabad. He may have a point there. For months
now Pakistan has been asking for talks but India was adamantly opposed
to them, using, in Kasuri's words "unacceptable words" and attaching pre-conditions.
Now while pre-conditions are still
attached, Kasuri finds the language 'acceptable" and he thinks the "change
in name is very important."
So where does that take us? Pakistan
says that it is ready to nominate a senior official to discuss the agenda
for "an unconditional and meaningful dialogue" if India is 'serious'.
A `senior official' is quoted as
saying: "Pakistan places a high priority on reduction of tension and normalisation
of relations with India. We believe that the only way forward in the interests
of the over a billion people is through sincere, unconditional, meaningful
and sustained dialogue addressing the key issues bedevilling relations
between the two countries and poisoning the atmosphere for peace and security
in the region." Great words.
Why is Pakistan so anxious for talks?
If it is really interested in peace and tranquillity it has only to drop
all claims to Jammu & Kashmir, halt cross-border terrorism and accept
the Shimla and Lahore Agreements in toto. The matter ends there. It is
possible that Musharraf cannot do the obvious for fear of jehadis and fundamentalists
and wants the fig-leaf of talks and possibly third-party involvement, in
the talks, so that he has an explanation to give to the fundamentalists.
If that is the case India should
be gracious enough to help Musharraf out of his predicament. But this can
only be done if all matters are settled prior to 'negotiations' and India
knows exactly where it stands. Perhaps, too, both the United States and
Russia should be brought secretly in the negotiations and, for all one
cares, France, Britain and China as well, as Permanent Members of the Security
Council.
India is rightly suspicious of UN
intervention, but behind-the-scene intervention is not at all a bad idea.
It is quite possible that Pakistan has realised that the game is up. Bleeding
India with a 'thousand cuts' sounds terrible on paper, but there is no
way India can give up Jammu & Kashmir and a million cuts still won't
bleed India. That is for sure. And with the United States taking a dim
view of cross-border terrorism even if this is not publicly stated, Pakistan
surely realises that coming to terms with India is a better option than
challenging it in open warfare.
According to military experts, Pakistan
does not stand the ghost of a chance in any war with India, its nuclear
armoury notwithstanding. According to Lt Gen K K Hazari, a former Vice
Chief of Army Staff, writing in Dialogue (Vol IV No. 3), "the Indian military
outnumbers by far the military resources that Pakistan can field in an
Indo-Pak conflict," the 'nuclear bluster' notwithstanding.
Writes Gen Hazari: "Each of the
Indian Army Corps tasked purely in the defensive role can muster more offensive
weaponry (tanks, artillery, ICVs and Special Forces) than either of Pakistan's
offensive formations and this in itself ensures that any offensive designs
by Islamabad can be easily contained and destroyed."
Further more adds Gen Hazari: "what,
however, tilts the equation in India's favour are its Air and Naval forces.
Other than about 20 remaining F-16s (without the benefit of adequate spares),
one newly commissioned Agosta Class submarine and a few overhauled frigates/destroyers
from the UK., Pakistan's naval and air forces are dependent on old vintage
weapon platforms that are comparable in quality or quantity with those
fielded by India. Pakistani forces are outnumbered and outgunned in every
sphere."
Then what is it that has prodded
certain analysts in India to come forward with a negative prognosis of
Indian military capabilities? Gen Hazari ventures three possible reasons:
One, a lack of understanding of how the military component, once it is
brought into play, can best be used. Two, the inability to maintain the
desirable level of coercive pressure on Pakistan for the duration of the
period the that the military was mobilised forward in 2002 and three, the
incapacity to accurately read Pakistan's nuclear strategic potential and
to be carried away by western propaganda showing Pakistan's strategic forces
in a more favourable light than India's. After summing up all the pluses
and the minuses, Gen Hazari writes: "What is important is that the military
equation between India and Pakistan is weighted heavily in India's favour
and that Gen Musharraf has no doubt that a decision to initiate a nuclear
strike would signal the end of Pakistan and all his dreams. A decision
he cannot afford to take knowing fully well that the Indian Defence minister
was not bluffing when he promised that India's response would annihilate
Pakistan.
The alacrity with which Pakistan
had reacted to Vajpayee's call for negotiations even attached with pre-conditions
indicates that the Pakistani military establishment is fully aware of its
limitations.
According to Seling Harrison, a
member of a US think-tank "despite clear evidence that Pakistan provided
North Korea with nuclear technology, the United States is doing nothing
either to punish Islamabad or to prevent it from continuing to help Pyongyang
and equally important, from selling nuclear technology to other would-be
nuclear powers like Saudi Arabia" (International Herald Tribune). But how
long can this indifference continue? According to Harrison, one should
not underestimate Musharraf's "deep dependence on his US connection both
for Pakistan's economic stability and for his personal political survival."
So, argues Harrison, the US must
follow a carrot-and stick policy towards Pakistan which is probably what
it plans to do if Musharraf does not come to terms with India. The question
is: what sort of terms? Given the circumstances one can be sure that even
as these words are being printed, serious discussions are going on behind
the scene in Washington, Islamabad and New Delhi on how to settle the 55-year
old quarrel between Pakistan and India. Obviously, then, one needs to carefully
watch the pronouncements of leaders and officials of all three countries
in the days and weeks to come. There can be no doubt that something is
brewing and that may not necessarily turn out to be poison for India.
