Paki-Bashing As Policy

If God were to grant a wish to Atal Behari Vajpayee and ask him how he would like the India-Pakistan issue resolved, would the Prime Minister have a clearly defined wish or would he by reflex refuse third party intervention?

More than God, it is the President of the United States who is likely to ask Mr Vajpayee this question on his visit to India. What could Mr Vajpayee's likely reply be? After reiterating the position that India brooks no outside interference in bilateral matters, would his reply consist only of accusations and lamentations of Pakistan's betrayal of India's trust and its duplicitous behaviour? The American President no doubt would become aware of Pakistan's perfidy, but would he be any wiser about India's policy towards Pakistan?

 

What indeed is India's policy towards Pakistan? Without denying the possibilities of engagement, India seems less than enthusiastic about a dialogue with a military government that does not enjoy the mandate of the people. Although Prime Minister Vajpayee's Lahore bus journey started a process of normalisation of relations with Pakistan, after the Kargil conflict and the hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft, the relations have hit a new low. New Delhi seems all the more convinced that no worthwhile progress can be made in the bilateral relationship unless Pakistan stops the export of terrorism. In this context, General Pervez Musharraf's statement that jehad could not be equated with terrorism is unlikely to endear him to India, leave alone create a conducive atmosphere for engagement.

For India, the pre-condition for any engagement with Pakistan would be whether its export of terrorism to India can be stemmed in a mutually verifiable way. If that were to happen, then it would not be possible for Pakistan to use the threat of violence in Kashmir in the hope of coercing India into a bad bargain. Bilateral engagement could then take place in a near normal atmosphere.

There are difficulties here. There is a widespread belief in Pakistan that if militancy in Kashmir is brought down then India can claim that the situation was normal and that, therefore, nothing needed to be done in Kashmir. The focus of the international community would also shift from Kashmir. Pakistan, therefore, will not pull its hand out of Kashmir and India will not engage with it till that happens. This then is the current stalemate.

The Indian foreign policy establishment views its refusal to engage with Musharraf's Pakistan with a certain amount of gleefulness because of the belief that the Pakistanis have finally painted themselves into a corner. It is doubtful, however, whether such an attitude can constitute the basis of a long term policy towards Pakistan. This is just the petulant reaction of an establishment which was caught with its pants down twice in six months once in Kargil and then in Amritsar during the hijacking.

However, such reactive posturing towards Pakistan is of a pattern and not typical only of the Vajpayee government. Since 1971, India has followed a largely reactive policy towards Pakistan. Indian reaction has ranged from military engagement at one extreme to a callous indifference to Pakistan at another. At best, Indian policy makers have tended to recognise Pakistan as an irritant on India's western borders (a monkey on India's back, as a strategic affairs expert described Pakistan on television) with whom India wants a near normal relationship at a low level of economic and political engagement.

Except for the diplomatic foray into Lahore, India has not had any proactive policy towards Pakistan. It has tended to wait for things to happen before reacting. The Lahore process too, in retrospect, can be best understood as an attempt to stave off international pressure in the wake of the overt nuclearisation of the subcontinent and, therefore, essentially reactive.

The trouble is that India does not seem to know what it wants with Pakistan. Does India want to fragment Pakistan into two or three states which are easier to deal with? Does India want democracy restored in Islamabad before embarking on any engagement with Pakistan? Does it want General Musharraf to somehow disappear and somebody else to take over because he is seen as the bad guy of Kargil? Does it have any say in who will take over from General Musharraf? Would the new leadership and it could be closer to Islamic fundamentalism than General Musharraf be any easier to deal with? Does India want Pakistan as a satellite country in a state of permanent dependency or as an equal with which it wants a long term treaty of friendship and trade?

In short, the question that needs to be

answered is: What is in India's n ational interest vis-a-vis Pakistan? Only when this question is answered can any foreign, military, economic

and political policy towards Pakistan can be formulated.

Whether we like it or not, India's Pakistan policy has to dovetail into its Kashmir policy and this

too will come up for discussion with President

Clinton. The Kashmir issue today stands internationalised. Merely claiming that it is a domestic issue does not make it so. Even on Kashmir,

India's position does not seem to be clear or consistent.

One positive fallout of the Kargil conflict for India was that there was widespread international recognition of the LoC as the de facto border between Indian Kashmir and PoK. There is also a belief in some reasonable sections of Indian and Pakistani opinion that the ultimate settlement between India and Pakistan may have to revolve around the LoC as the international border perhaps a soft border, with relatively greater autonomy being given to the inhabitants of the two parts of Kashmir.

If India believes in the sanctity of the LoC as described in the Simla Agreement, then all polemical statements about Pakistan vacating PoK ought to be avoided by the representatives of the Indian state and Pakistani violation of it publicised with all the moral force at India's command. However, Prime Minister Vajpayee chose to exhibit his new found belligerence at a public meeting in Jalandhar on February 6 by saying that what needs to be discussed with Pakistan is the return of PoK.

On the issue of Kashmir, could Mr Vajpayee tell the US President, without testing his credulity, that the problem lies only with Pakistan? Making such a claim while ignoring the disenchantment of the Kashmiri population with the Indian state would also mean that India only has a negative agenda on Kashmir. What the world wants to know is not only what Pakistan is doing wrong but also what is it that India is doing right.

This is possible if India has a policy on the Kashmir issue that goes beyond viewing it in a law and order perspective and situating it within a political framework. India needs to make the world believe that it genuinely recognises Kashmir as a problematic issue. It has to show that it has a

solution to offer to the problem and then tell Pakistan and the rest of the world what that solution is.

Perhaps, the only positive thing that the Prime Minister can tell President Bill Clinton is that his Government is finally making overtures to the Hurriyat Conference through unofficial channels using the good offices of experts like R. K. Mishra, P. N. Dhar and A. G. Noorani. This is a positive step forward.

Just as the Government has begun talking

to the Hurriyat leaders, so should such back-

channels of communication be opened with Pakistan. Continuous Paki-bashing without recourse to positive diplomacy would only

result in India being painted no more than a skinhead.