India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

Vol. 16 :: No. 05 :: Feb. 27 - Mar. 12, 1999

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INDIA AND PAKISTAN

A not-so-smooth ride

Notwithstanding the pervasive optimism and the upsurge of goodwill at this point, it is not easy for governments of two adversarial neighbours to reverse course overnight.

SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN
at the Wagah Border

THE physical backdrop for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's crossing into Pakistan on February 20 was marked by colour and festivity. Schoolchildren waving flags lined the road from Amritsar to the Wagah border. A bhangra troupe preceded the Prime Minister's vehicle over the last stretch of its transit into Pakistan, dancing all the way into the neutral territory that separates the two countries. And all through the long wait for the Prime Minister and in the intervals between the ceremonial events, a Services band kept up a refrain of cheerful music.

Vajpayee's passage to Lahore was a conscious attempt to forget, to evoke the symbolic and revelatory power of a gesture to efface the bitterness of memory. But the opponents of reconciliation were seemingly intent on having their say. In stark contrast to the good cheer and bonhomie at the Wagah crossing, the symbolic backdrop for Vajpayee's visit to Pakistan was provided by another entry in the litany of bloodshed in Jammu and Kashmir - 20 civilians killed by unknown assailants in Rajouri and Udhampur districts just hours before Vajpayee embarked upon his visit.

Yet the warmth and goodwill that Vajpayee carried with him into Pakistan were apparent. Once the crossing was effected and the cordon around the border gate relaxed, it was besieged by a crowd of spectators, intent on catching a glimpse of events across the border. These remained obscured to view in large part, but there was nothing ambiguous about the sentiments of a 65-year-old grandmother who had travelled from Amritsar to witness the occasion: never since she made the traumatic passage from Peshawar in 1947 had she felt so close to the land where she was born; never before had she ever been quite as hopeful that the two estranged nations could live in peace and harmony.

The mood was apparent in myriad ways - the vocabulary of commentators covering the event for the official electronic media showed a profusion of the Persian and Urdu inflexions that they normally are at pains to avoid; industry associations put up massive banners along the route of the Prime Minister's journey, proclaiming the road to Lahore as the "Highway to Harmony"; a dour and taciturn Border Security Force jawan who had spent two hours restraining the exchange of banter between mediapersons across the frontier broke into excited cheers on seeing the bus cross into Pakistani territory.

IT is evident that there has been an upsurge of goodwill occasioned by the visit. This is partly on account of the sheer fatigue that has set in after over a decade of sharpening confrontation, which reached its logical and absurd culmination in the nuclear tests by the two countries in May 1998. Suddenly, the ideological and political contest which had been expressed in low intensity warfare and acrimonious verbal exchanges in international forums stood transformed into literally a matter of life and death for both countries.

The nuclear blasts also happened to coincide with a drastic revision in Pakistan's rules of engagement with the U.S. For long an ally in the Cold War pursuit of containing Communism, Pakistan had seemingly overplayed its hand in sponsoring a brand of Islamic medievalism in Afghanistan. After playing along with the Taliban militia for two years in the interests of restoring order in the strategic crossroads of Central Asia, the U.S. realised rather late that religious zealotry once unleashed could just as well turn against its patrons.

Concurrently, the BJP-led Government in India was signalling a far greater willingness than any of its predecessors to engage with the U.S. as a strategic partner. The refusal to sign away the nuclear option was once India's signal that it would not acquiesce in the unequal rules of engagement that the U.S. had scripted for the global nuclear order. This was accompanied by the commitment, reiterated at every opportunity, that the country opposed the nuclear arms spiral and would exert itself for the cause of universal disarmament.

Under the BJP, the active pursuit of the nuclear option became an earnest of India's intent to enter the U.S. nuclear imperium as a junior member. From years of deprecating nuclear deterrence as an impractical and unethical construct, India embraced the notion of "minimum deterrence" as an article of faith. And over successive rounds of a strategic dialogue with the U.S., an effort has been made to portray India's own nuclear ambitions as non-antagonistic to American interests.

By another fortuitous conjunction of events, the U.S. has since the warmth of President Bill Clinton's visit to Beijing last year, begun to turn increasingly testy in its relations with China. Having identified China as a threatening neighbourhood presence and one of the principal reasons for its nuclear tests, India stood to gain from this shift of emphasis in the U.S. foreign policy establishment. After U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott's last visit to Delhi, the two sides put out a joint statement which spoke glowingly of the possibility of a "new, broad-based relationship". The vistas of the dialogue between Talbott and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh were suddenly expanded. No longer was it only a means of restraining the prospect of a nuclear arms race in South Asia. Rather, it went far beyond, into exploring a new paradigm of relations between the U.S. and India.

HOW durable this new entente will be is uncertain. But, for the moment it is driving an effort at rapprochement in the neighbourhood. To pretend that the U.S. has nothing to do with the peace initiative in South Asia would be heroic, though remote from reality. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's invitation to Vajpayee to take the bus route to Lahore came immediately after Talbott had concluded the last phase of his shuttle diplomacy between Delhi and Islamabad. It bore the lingering effects of Sharif's own visit to Washington in December, when he was given an unmistakable signal that the traditional U.S. tilt towards Pakistan would not be a substantive influence in neighbourhood disputes with India.

Behind the rapid transition from the overt belligerence of May 1998 to the agreement in September to resume discussions, and the adoption of the Lahore Declaration, is the realisation that a South Asia that continued to remain riven by historical animosities would soon end up on the ash-pile of history. Progress since then has come not in a steady train, but spasmodically. In July 1998 the two Prime Ministers met on the sidelines of the South Asian summit in Colombo. The meeting broke up inconclusively, with the Indian Foreign Secretary characterising Pakistan's attitude towards the neighbourhood dialogue as "obsessive" and "neurotic".

Early in September, the two Foreign Secretaries met in an atmosphere of greater cordiality during the Non-Aligned summit in Durban to work out the modalities of resuming the bilateral dialogue. The formal announcement came after the Prime Ministers met later that month during the U.N. General Assembly session in New York. An agreement was drafted to resume the dialogue under a "two plus six" formulation of the agenda. Kashmir and the issue of peace and security in the region were separated from the other six contentious matters that divided the two countries. At the same time, an agreement was reached to start a bus service between Delhi and Lahore. Vajpayee was effusive, describing the clutch of agreements as a "new chapter" in relations on the sub continent.

It soon became apparent that the rosy prognosis was grossly premature. Discussions were held under the "two plus six" formula between October and November, without any tangible progress. But there was a new sobriety evident in the official explanations of failure, no longer the old tendency to descend to vituperation at the slightest provocation.

Inherent in the formulation of the agenda for talks on the basis of "two plus six" items is a notion that they are separable, that progress on one issue will not be held hostage to the others. This represents a certain degree of progress over the traditional attitude in mutual talks, when Kashmir was accorded the status of the core issue. Even today there are powerful sections within the Pakistani military establishment and public opinion who insist that progress in mutual relations is contingent on the resolution of the Kashmir issue. To consolidate on the gains of the Lahore Declaration the interlocutors would have to steer a careful course around this particular minefield.

A large part of this would depend upon the extent to which Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif are able to take domestic public opinion along with them. The Indian Prime Minister will have to deal with extremist elements within the ranks of his own party, as also its larger ideological fraternity of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. At a recent meeting in Ahmedabad, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) exhorted the Prime Minister to travel to Pakistan, though not in a bus. To maximise the impact of his visit, they advised Vajpayee to take along a battle-tank and if necessary a few nuclear devices.

S. ARNEJA
Nawaz Sharif at the Pakistani side of the border, waiting to open the gate for the bus to enter.

The equivalent views on the other side have been put forward by the Jamaat-e-Islami leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed. And even if these are fringe elements, the dialogue on such issues as Kashmir and peace and security may throw up practical details that could rankle the security establishment on either side. On Kashmir, for instance, there would be few reservations at a popular level with the proposition that contact between the people on either side of the border should be improved. This would go a long way towards mitigating some of the effects of the dislocation caused by several years of strife. The devil would lie in the details. The military and police establishments on either side would have to reconcile the ethical need of greater people-to-people contact with the security imperative of containing violence.

On the issue of Siachen again, the two sides have to deal with a legacy of miscued opportunities in the recent past. It is now known, for instance, that the two sides had agreed in late-1992 on a pullout of military forces from the area. The glacier was then to be declared a demilitarised zone and a regime of aerial inspection was to be worked out to enforce adherence. When it came to signing the agreement, there were unexpected political hurdles. Obviously, the political leadership on either side thought that the rewards from maintaining the pitch of confrontation outweighed those that might accrue from settling a dispute that takes a heavy toll of military resources and morale.

EXPECTATIONS on the eve of the Lahore meeting were necessarily modest, since it is not easy for governments of two adversarial neighbours to reverse course overnight. The most optimistic forecast was that the two leaders would be able to finalise a treaty of non-aggression. That prize has remained elusive, though the two Foreign Secretaries have initialled a Memorandum of Understanding which commits the two sides to "developing measures for confidence building in the nuclear and conventional fields, aimed at avoidance of conflicts."

An element of bilateral binding has been spelt out by the two sides agreeing to maintain their "respective unilateral moratorium" on nuclear testing, though an escape clause provides for resumption on grounds of "supreme" national interests. But if India expected to lock Pakistan into a "no first use" commitment, it has been disappointed. There is a pledge to reduce the risks of an "accidental or unauthorised" use of nuclear weapons, but this is of little more than symbolic value in a context where a nuclear tipped missile can reach the neighbours' territory in a matter of seconds.

In this sense, the Lahore meeting does not break any new ground as far as defusing the potential for conflict is concerned. Since the perceived stumbling block is India's superior conventional military strength, there would seem room for a bold initiative from the Indian side. This could come from a reaffirmation of the "no first use" principle, which could be further underlined with the pledge that nuclear weapons would not be inducted or deployed. But the BJP-led Government which remains wedded to a rather ill-defined concept of "minimum credible deterrence", seems disinclined to take this crucial step.

A factor that seems to be pushing the dialogue forward is the dire economic situation in both countries. Pakistan had to be bailed out by the International Monetary Fund last November when it seemed on the verge of defaulting on international debt repayments. India too has been on a slippery downward slope since May. Although not quite in danger of default, developmental credits have dried up and in a context of global financial turmoil, even these marginal quantities have had a disproportionate impact.

India faces the prospect of a rapid erosion of the authority of its institutions of governance. The long thwarted aspirations for material betterment have not been mollified by the visions of a great nation restored to ancient glories, which the BJP has been adept at evoking. In Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif faces a tough challenge in sustaining the authority of his Government, its massive legislative majority notwithstanding, against the encroachment of the military bureaucracy and other powerful elements of the ancien regime.

THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
July 16, 1989: Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi meets Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto at Sind House in Islamabad.

The peace dialogue is a bold initiative to deal with a situation of growing strife in both countries. Sustained progress would depend upon the political will of the main interlocutors and their ability to fight off the sections that have a vested interest in confrontation.

The budget session of Parliament commenced the day after Vajpayee's return from Lahore. The traditional address by the President, which opens the session, was amended to put in a laudatory reference to the visit and its outcome. India said that President K.R. Narayanan would soon initiate "far-reaching confidence building measures" with Pakistan and also seek to strengthen and deepen the historic ties of friendship with China.

Across the political spectrum, the reaction remained cautious. The Congress(I) had little to offer by way of comment, though the BJP spokesman M. Venkaiah Naidu, in congratulating the Prime Minister, also thought it necessary to add that Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is an integral part of India. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) issued a guarded statement of approval: "The visit of Prime Minister Vajpayee to Lahore and the discussions held with the Pakistani Prime Minister should help in creating a favourable atmosphere for carrying on the dialogue with Pakistan." It did say, however, that a greater initiative could have been taken on the nuclear front to achieve a decisive elimination of the threat of war. And in conclusion, the CPI(M) advised the BJP and its affiliated organisations in the saffron brotherhood to "desist from vitiating the atmosphere by indulging in anti-minority and communal anti-Pakistani propaganda."

For a party of infirm pacifist convictions, which still sees the creation of Pakistan as a historic injustice to India, this may yet prove the greatest challenge.