Good riddance to a listless process
By Ayaz Amir
THE juxtaposition would make anyone uncomfortable but looking at the latest weather bulletin of India-Pakistan relations, it is difficult not to feel that even from evil some good can come.
There are no words to condemn the Mumbai train blasts, an act of unmitigated evil. But this horrific incident has had the one good effect of leading to the suspension of the charade called the composite dialogue.
Nothing good was coming from this dialogue. Pakistan had entered into it with great, perhaps unrealistic, expectations, its generals who were playing at diplomacy convinced that mere goodwill was enough to turn the course of the rivers. Hopefully they, now stand educated. India for its part, true to form — and true to its past record of turning hairsplitting into an art form — turned the talks into another dialogue of the deaf.
Pakistan had ample reason to switch off the life-support system keeping this farce alive. It is good that India has done so, much to the relief of ordinary Pakistanis.
In India the hawks, perennially averse to the idea of any serious dialogue with Pakistan, are pleased. In Pakistan not just the hawks but also moderate opinion, alarmed at the one-sidedness of Musharraf’s peace overtures, is relieved. The feeling has been pretty widespread in Pakistan that the generals have proved to be poor musicians, playing on their India accordion an unbalanced tune.
Musharraf’s own peace-with-India champions, a dwindling crowd but still including Foreign Minister Kasuri — one of the sub-continent’s last diehard optimists — are reduced to an embarrassed silence.
Let it be stated for the record that most Pakistanis are for good relations with India but not for anything that talks, walks, and looks like a sellout or a one-sided show. And although most of them realise that Kashmir is hardly open to military conquest, they are made uneasy by the ill-considered proposals on Kashmir which Gen Pervez Musharraf has kept throwing from time to time.
These largely off-the-cuff proposals have elicited no serious response from India. But they have caused considerable harm. When they include suggestions that Pakistan could move beyond the UN resolutions on Kashmir or it could be willing to consider joint control or management of Kashmir (a proposal floated in the recent interview given by Gen Musharraf to A. G. Noorani for Frontline magazine) they lend credence to the perception that Pakistan is weakening its stand on Kashmir.
Even if a change in the status quo is not on the cards for the foreseeable future, it makes no sense to move away from your basic position — especially in a vacuum, for nothing in return.
Critics charge the Musharraf regime with failure on multiple fronts, domestic and foreign. But no failure is showcased more conspicuously than its India policy for which it has precious little to show.
Musharraf says he has “internationalised’ the Kashmir dispute. This is true only to the extent that Kashmir is now linked to “cross-border terrorism”. In a recent interview the Hezbollah leader, Hasan Nasrallah, said that Hezbollah was opposed to occupation wherever it occurred and in this context mentioned Palestine, Iraq, the Golan Heights, but not Kashmir.
When Pakistan’s leader himself shies away from the narrative of occupation and self-determination — on which Pakistan’s case rests — how can others be expected to take its Kashmir concerns seriously?
But if Pakistan’s failure is one of misplaced expectations, India’s failure is one of vision. Here was a Pakistani leader, a military one at that, under American prodding or of his own accord willing to go the extra mile to engage with India, transformed from hawk to dove, in his new avatar oozing goodwill and bombarding India with different proposals.
Granted that some of the proposals were half-baked, the instant thoughts of a military mind. But no one is saying India should have handed over Kashmir to Pakistan on a platter. It could, however, have been more forthcoming on other issues: Siachen, Baglihar, Sir Creek, etc.
An agreement on any of these issues, especially Siachen, could have been a trophy for Musharraf to wave around in Pakistan, a vindication of his India policy, a befitting answer to the skeptics who labelled him with the charge of one-sided concessions. He could have said that for the last fifty odd years of bitter rivalry guns had solved nothing but here was a concrete dividend of peace. Even the cynics would have been silenced and the idea of enduring peace between India and Pakistan would have received a tremendous boost.
But this would be to underestimate the subcontinental talent (widely-acknowledged) for screwing up the simple and obvious.
On Siachen the Indian military dragged their feet, on Baglihar the water engineers stuck to their positions, on Sir Creek God knows who did the screwing up. But the net result is that the composite dialogue has nothing to show for itself.
The technocrats and diplomats or, in the case of Siachen, the Indian military are not to blame. It is their business to take a blinkered view of their special interests. Political will was needed to break the logjam and it was this commodity in short supply in Delhi. Pakistan was willing, nay, perhaps was eager, to deal, but India just wasn’t interested.
India appropriates the bulk of the region’s geography. It also lays claim to a near-monopoly on subcontinental wisdom. So if events suggest that subcontinental intransigence has won out again, who is responsible for this outcome?
We say there is a trust deficit in the subcontinent. This cliche only partly explains our collective predicament. More likely there is an imagination deficit, an inability to see the wood for the trees. Often we tend to be overly clever and devious for our good.
India is still hammering away at the theme of “cross-border terrorism”. If all the trouble in Kashmir was coming from Pakistan, India should have nothing to worry about. Imported ‘terrorism’ is easy to lick. Look what happened when Pakistan tried to export guerrilla action to Kashmir in 1965. It didn’t work. The result was a disaster and a war Pakistan had not planned for.
In Kashmir now things are different. Indians get red in the face when reminded of this but they should get used to the idea that Kashmiri Muslims are totally alienated. They want nothing to do with India. If this were not so, there would have been peace in occupied Kashmir long ago. If over half a million Indian troops can’t secure peace, India sure has a problem on its hands.
This is not Pakistan’s doing. Even if Pakistan or its star intelligence agency, ISI, wanted to, it could not manufacture this alienation. It is the bankruptcy of India’s Kashmir policy that is responsible for this situation.
So there is no point in blaming Pakistan. Indeed, the more Musharraf bends over backwards to placate India, the more Pakistan loses influence in Kashmir. India’s name is anathema in the Valley. Soon, if Pakistan is not sensitive about Kashmiri feelings, its name too will invite similar loathing. The Kashmiris don’t want to be anyone’s pawn. All the signs from the Valley suggest that they want to take their destiny into their own hands.
Israeli intransigence has been the mother of Hamas and Hezbollah. India should beware of its intransigence begetting something similar in Kashmir. That would spell the beginning of an entirely new ball game.
Tailpiece: I was planning to read something on these lines at a seminar to which I was invited in Srinagar, arranged by the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi. I’ve never had problems getting a visa for other parts of India. But Kashmir I suppose is a different matter. I didn’t get a visa
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm
By Ayaz Amir
THE juxtaposition would make anyone uncomfortable but looking at the latest weather bulletin of India-Pakistan relations, it is difficult not to feel that even from evil some good can come.
There are no words to condemn the Mumbai train blasts, an act of unmitigated evil. But this horrific incident has had the one good effect of leading to the suspension of the charade called the composite dialogue.
Nothing good was coming from this dialogue. Pakistan had entered into it with great, perhaps unrealistic, expectations, its generals who were playing at diplomacy convinced that mere goodwill was enough to turn the course of the rivers. Hopefully they, now stand educated. India for its part, true to form — and true to its past record of turning hairsplitting into an art form — turned the talks into another dialogue of the deaf.
Pakistan had ample reason to switch off the life-support system keeping this farce alive. It is good that India has done so, much to the relief of ordinary Pakistanis.
In India the hawks, perennially averse to the idea of any serious dialogue with Pakistan, are pleased. In Pakistan not just the hawks but also moderate opinion, alarmed at the one-sidedness of Musharraf’s peace overtures, is relieved. The feeling has been pretty widespread in Pakistan that the generals have proved to be poor musicians, playing on their India accordion an unbalanced tune.
Musharraf’s own peace-with-India champions, a dwindling crowd but still including Foreign Minister Kasuri — one of the sub-continent’s last diehard optimists — are reduced to an embarrassed silence.
Let it be stated for the record that most Pakistanis are for good relations with India but not for anything that talks, walks, and looks like a sellout or a one-sided show. And although most of them realise that Kashmir is hardly open to military conquest, they are made uneasy by the ill-considered proposals on Kashmir which Gen Pervez Musharraf has kept throwing from time to time.
These largely off-the-cuff proposals have elicited no serious response from India. But they have caused considerable harm. When they include suggestions that Pakistan could move beyond the UN resolutions on Kashmir or it could be willing to consider joint control or management of Kashmir (a proposal floated in the recent interview given by Gen Musharraf to A. G. Noorani for Frontline magazine) they lend credence to the perception that Pakistan is weakening its stand on Kashmir.
Even if a change in the status quo is not on the cards for the foreseeable future, it makes no sense to move away from your basic position — especially in a vacuum, for nothing in return.
Critics charge the Musharraf regime with failure on multiple fronts, domestic and foreign. But no failure is showcased more conspicuously than its India policy for which it has precious little to show.
Musharraf says he has “internationalised’ the Kashmir dispute. This is true only to the extent that Kashmir is now linked to “cross-border terrorism”. In a recent interview the Hezbollah leader, Hasan Nasrallah, said that Hezbollah was opposed to occupation wherever it occurred and in this context mentioned Palestine, Iraq, the Golan Heights, but not Kashmir.
When Pakistan’s leader himself shies away from the narrative of occupation and self-determination — on which Pakistan’s case rests — how can others be expected to take its Kashmir concerns seriously?
But if Pakistan’s failure is one of misplaced expectations, India’s failure is one of vision. Here was a Pakistani leader, a military one at that, under American prodding or of his own accord willing to go the extra mile to engage with India, transformed from hawk to dove, in his new avatar oozing goodwill and bombarding India with different proposals.
Granted that some of the proposals were half-baked, the instant thoughts of a military mind. But no one is saying India should have handed over Kashmir to Pakistan on a platter. It could, however, have been more forthcoming on other issues: Siachen, Baglihar, Sir Creek, etc.
An agreement on any of these issues, especially Siachen, could have been a trophy for Musharraf to wave around in Pakistan, a vindication of his India policy, a befitting answer to the skeptics who labelled him with the charge of one-sided concessions. He could have said that for the last fifty odd years of bitter rivalry guns had solved nothing but here was a concrete dividend of peace. Even the cynics would have been silenced and the idea of enduring peace between India and Pakistan would have received a tremendous boost.
But this would be to underestimate the subcontinental talent (widely-acknowledged) for screwing up the simple and obvious.
On Siachen the Indian military dragged their feet, on Baglihar the water engineers stuck to their positions, on Sir Creek God knows who did the screwing up. But the net result is that the composite dialogue has nothing to show for itself.
The technocrats and diplomats or, in the case of Siachen, the Indian military are not to blame. It is their business to take a blinkered view of their special interests. Political will was needed to break the logjam and it was this commodity in short supply in Delhi. Pakistan was willing, nay, perhaps was eager, to deal, but India just wasn’t interested.
India appropriates the bulk of the region’s geography. It also lays claim to a near-monopoly on subcontinental wisdom. So if events suggest that subcontinental intransigence has won out again, who is responsible for this outcome?
We say there is a trust deficit in the subcontinent. This cliche only partly explains our collective predicament. More likely there is an imagination deficit, an inability to see the wood for the trees. Often we tend to be overly clever and devious for our good.
India is still hammering away at the theme of “cross-border terrorism”. If all the trouble in Kashmir was coming from Pakistan, India should have nothing to worry about. Imported ‘terrorism’ is easy to lick. Look what happened when Pakistan tried to export guerrilla action to Kashmir in 1965. It didn’t work. The result was a disaster and a war Pakistan had not planned for.
In Kashmir now things are different. Indians get red in the face when reminded of this but they should get used to the idea that Kashmiri Muslims are totally alienated. They want nothing to do with India. If this were not so, there would have been peace in occupied Kashmir long ago. If over half a million Indian troops can’t secure peace, India sure has a problem on its hands.
This is not Pakistan’s doing. Even if Pakistan or its star intelligence agency, ISI, wanted to, it could not manufacture this alienation. It is the bankruptcy of India’s Kashmir policy that is responsible for this situation.
So there is no point in blaming Pakistan. Indeed, the more Musharraf bends over backwards to placate India, the more Pakistan loses influence in Kashmir. India’s name is anathema in the Valley. Soon, if Pakistan is not sensitive about Kashmiri feelings, its name too will invite similar loathing. The Kashmiris don’t want to be anyone’s pawn. All the signs from the Valley suggest that they want to take their destiny into their own hands.
Israeli intransigence has been the mother of Hamas and Hezbollah. India should beware of its intransigence begetting something similar in Kashmir. That would spell the beginning of an entirely new ball game.
Tailpiece: I was planning to read something on these lines at a seminar to which I was invited in Srinagar, arranged by the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi. I’ve never had problems getting a visa for other parts of India. But Kashmir I suppose is a different matter. I didn’t get a visa
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm
Do you share the same feeling as Ayaz, who bile seem to have become uppity because of a denied visa?
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