None but
confirmed cynics will belittle the refreshing change for the better, noticed in recent
weeks in the atmospherics which generally surround Indo-Pakistan relations.
There is greater
civility and less rhetoric in the language used, there is greater generosity in
applauding each other’s moments of triumph as was seen during the recent Indian tour
of the Pakistani cricket team, there is a greater readiness to discuss issues, such as
Kashmir, bilateral trade, supply of power etc, than in the past and there is a greater
courage in interacting with and responding to gestures from each other instead of all the
time nervously looking over the shoulders for the reactions of the compulsive
baiters of each other in the two countries as was seen in the spontaneity with which Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif proposed a visit to Pakistan in the inaugural bus service from New
Delhi to Lahore on February 20 by the Indian Prime Minister and the alacrity with which
the latter accepted it without an agonising humming and hawing as normally would have been
the case.
The welcome change
could be attributed partly to the greater measure of self-confidence in the ruling
political leaderships of the two countries, partly to a sense of fatigue in large sections
of the population in the two countries over the tendency of their political leadership,
bureaucracy and even many moulders of public opinion to over-satanise each other as the
source of all ailments affecting them and partly to tentative indicators of Pakistan
coming to terms with reality in its relations with India.
The growing
self-confidence of the Indian leadership derives from the success with which it has
managed the diplomatic and economic consequences of its decision to carry out nuclear
tests in May,1998, its success (of the previous as well as the present Governments)
in dealing with Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir and the long-enduring terrorism in
parts of the North-East and in neutralising the activities of the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan in other parts of India and the gradual return to normalcy
of ordinary life of the citizens in Kashmir.
Violence is still
continuing in Kashmir largely due to foreign mercenaries infiltrated from Pakistan, but on
a significantly lower scale than in the past and the rest of the country has been
significantly free, since the Coimbatore blasts of February,1998, of major acts of
terrorism due to the activities of Islamic extremist elements. There have been many
explosions in Delhi and other parts of the North and periodic recoveries of sophisticated
explosives of Pakistani origin, but these have not been on the same scale as in the
past.
Thus, there is an
air of growing confidence in New Delhi that India has got the better of the proxy war
launched by Pakistan against it in 1989. With this confidence and with the sense of
the greater responsibility for more mature reactions as befitting a nuclear power has come
the realisation that the time has come to let bygones be bygones and bring in
magnanimity as an important ingredient in bilateral relations. The decision of the
Government to defer the promised publication of a White Paper on the activities of
the ISI in India has to be seen in this context as motivated by a desire not to foul up
the improving atmosphere.
As the ground
situation has improved, there is a greater willingness on the part of the public and
moulders of public opinion to subject the security bureaucracy’s allegations of the
ISI involvement in many acts of violence to a more objective scrutiny in marked contrast
to their past tendency to uncritically accept them. One could see in the columns of
eminent analysts expressions like ISI-mongering by the security bureaucracy which
were rarely heard of in the past.
During his
participation in a seminar on national security in Mumbai last October, this writer noted
with interest that of the six retired senior officers of the Indian
intelligence community, who attended the seminar, five underlined the lack of wisdom in
the tendency of the political leadership and the bureaucracy to over-play the
ISI’s role in all the problems confronting us.
Another aspect to
be noted is the greater respect commanded by the Pakistani scientific community in Indian
scientific and strategic analysts’ circles after its successful test of its Ghauri
missile in April,1998, and the nuclear tests in May,1998. During his 30 years in New
Delhi, this writer had not failed to notice the air of skepticism with which large
sections of the Indian scientific and strategic analysts’ communities treated reports
of Pakistan’s scientific capability and its advances in the nuclear and missile
fields.
Their belief was
that despite the generous help received by Pakistan from China and the success of its
clandestine procurement efforts, its scientific community might not be able to match
India’s capability. Chagai has proved this belief to have been misplaced and
hopefully injected a greater sense of realism in these communities.
The Pakistani
political leadership’s newly-exhibited self-confidence can be attributed to its
success in wresting from the army the primacy in decision-making in nuclear and missile
matters, the successful and timely testing of the nuclear devices thereby proving not only
to Indian and international public opinion, but also to large sections of its own
public opinion, which had misgivings about the capability of their scientific community,
that Pakistan had the ability to give a matching response to India, its success in
managing the diplomatic and economic consequences of the tests and in establishing a
linkage in the eyes of international opinion between the perceived nuclear race in the
sub-continent and the unresolved Kashmir issue.
In Pakistan , there
was a tendency in the past to project India and its intelligence communities as the
instigators of all its problems in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and the North-West Frontier
Province (NWFP). But, large sections of public opinion, not only in the non-Punjabi
provinces, but also in Punjab itself, were disinclined to accept the official version. The
political leadership has, therefore, realised that blaming India for all its internal
trouble was not carrying conviction with the people.
There are also
indications that the Pakistani leadership is gradually coming to terms with the reality of
the ground situation, which can be summed up as follows:
*firstly, the proxy
war has failed to change the status quo in Kashmir and the law of diminishing returns has
set in;
*secondly,
while the US and other countries recognise the importance of Kashmir for an enduring peace
in the sub-continent, they are not prepared to push India in the direction desired by
Pakistan despite their unhappiness with India over its nuclear tests;
*thirdly, even if the US lifts its economic sanctions against Pakistan, there could be no
qualitative improvement in its economic situation so long as the ethnic violence in
Karachi, which contributes more than 60 per cent of Pakistan’s tax revenue, and the
sectarian violence in Punjab, which feeds the Pakistani population and whose cotton keeps
the textile mills of Sindh and Punjab working, do not end and;
*fourthly, the ground situation in these provinces would not improve so long as the
Pakistani intelligence agencies continue to give financial and arms assistance to
sectarian and Islamic extremist organisations. Though this assistance is being given for
being used against India, part of it is being diverted by these organisations for use in
the inter-ethnic and inter-sectarian quarrels inside Pakistan itself. Thus, permanent
confrontation with India is fuelling extremism inside Pakistan itself.
The more moderate
language consequently emanating from Pakistan should not be misinterpreted in India
to mean that a less confrontational and more mutually accommodating relationship between
India and Pakistan is round the corner. During the two years of his present tenure, as
also during the three years of his first tenure, Nawaz Sharif had shown himself to be a
man of often unpredictable reactions—whether internally or externally—swinging
overnight from one extreme of confrontation to the other extreme of moderation and then,
inexplicably, swinging back to confrontation.
On paper, his political
position is more secure than that of any other Prime Minister of Pakistan since the death
of Zia Ul-Haq in 1988. He has a President, a chief of the army staff, a
Director-General of the ISI and a chief of the Intelligence Bureau all
hand-picked by him. He has tightened his control over the intelligence community.
Despite all this,
there are clear indications that Nawaz Sharif and the intelligence chiefs chosen by him
and loyal to him are facing difficulty in reining in the middle and even senior
level officers of the community. This was seen recently in their non-implementation
of the orders not to let Osama Bin Laden have access to the international press through
Peshawar-based Pakistani correspondents and not to flirt with Muslim extremist elements
from Xinjiang and assist them, which has been causing difficulties in Pakistan’s
relations with China.
The Islamic extremist
parties in Pakistan generally command only about 3 per cent of the popular vote, but
thanks to the military training and arms and ammunition given to them by Zia for using
them in Afghanistan, they have considerable armed street power disproportionate to
their popular support.
The close nexus
built up during Zia’s days between these extremist jihadi elements on the one side
and the trans-national Islamic elements in the Army and the ISI on the other still
endures.
Unless and until
Nawaz Sharif breaks up this nexus and succeeds in making these elements go along with him
in any policy of accommodation with India, India cannot be certain that the winds of
change in Indo-Pakistan relations would endure.
