Author: K Subrahmanyam
Publication: The Times Of India
Date: July 30, 2001
But, Formulate Realistic Strategies
BARRING the views of some fringe
elements, there is unanimity in this country on the imperative need to
engage Pakistan. This is also influenced by the fact that India and its
neighbour are nuclear weapon states with mutual hostility going back to
1940 when the two-nation theory was proclaimed in the Lahore resolution.
For any engagement to be fruitful and result-oriented, it should be based
on harsh reality, not sentiment. The talk of engagement between two countries
arises only when they have or expect to have long-term unfriendly relations
which need to be improved. Such engagements are, therefore, necessarily
prolonged processes and cannot lend themselves to overnight resolution
of conflicts. Such a strategy of engagement is called for where there is
an acute confidence deficit as in the case of India and Pakistan, and engagement
is necessary to build up confidence over a period of time.
After dealing with Pakistan in seven
summits, the Lahore declaration was signed. Now we know that even as he
was signing the declaration, the Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif
had initiated the Kargil aggression. Indian political leaders, not adequately
versed in international politics could not believe that Mr Sharif could
have done that and they defended him, laying all the blame on general Musharraf.
They had to be reminded that even as Nazi-Soviet pact was being signed,
Hitler had no intention of abiding by it. When ambassador Kurusu was negotiating
in Washington in December 1941, the Japanese imperial navy had set sail
to bomb Pearl Harbour. As Mr Henry Kissinger was negotiating peace with
his Vietnamese counterpart, he was urging president Nixon to intensify
the bombing of North Vietnam.
These historical developments teach
us that it was totally unrealistic to have expected to sign a joint declaration
or statement with the Pakistani leadership after a few hours of talks between
the two leaders who were meeting for the first time after a war which was
viewed as a betrayal by India and by Pakistan as a victory snatched away
by the Nawaz Sharif-Clinton parleys. Was it necessary to have a joint declaration
in Agra? There is a widespread but erroneous impression among leaders of
various political parties in India that the failure to arrive at a joint
declaration was due to inadequate homework. General Musharraf had clarified
that such homework was superfluous since he had only a one point agenda
- to extract from India a public recognition that Kashmir was the core
issue without Pakistan agreeing to address India's core concerns. He had
been hammering it home every day to Indian, Pakistan and international
mediapersons.
In other instances, when leaders
of nations meet for the first time they do not always issue a joint declaration
or a statement. President Bush met president Putin in Slovenia and both
of them treated it as a `getting acquainted' event. They met again at Genoa
and took an important decision on offensive and defensive missiles without
issuing a joint declaration. If it is made clear to Pakistan that there
will be no joint declarations and statements unless there is a breakthrough,
there will be less temptation for it to grandstand and convert every Indo-Pakistan
meeting at secretary, ministerial and summit level into an information
war battle.
The Indian foreign minister asserted
that Kashmir was the core of Indianhood. Obviously he meant that secular
India could not permit Pakistan to claim Kashmir on the basis of two-nation
theory. Undoubtedly, that is the national consensus in India. In that case,
why does India fight shy of asserting that Kashmir is not the core issue
but only a derivative of the Pakistani two-nation theory - now popularly
known as the clash of civilisations thesis. If the Pakistanis are serious
about the two-nation theory, then it will not be possible for the Pakistanis,
including general Musharraf's brother, to accept American citizenship.
The Mirpuris in Britain would be denied, under the two- nation theory,
all benefits of British citizenship and will forever remain aliens. Pakistan
does not accept its own citizens stranded in Bangladesh.
Engagement with Pakistan can take
two alternative routes. If there is a realistic assessment among the Indian
leadership that general Musharraf has the potential to lead Pakistan away
from the obsession over the two-nation theory and religious extremism,
then the engagement should be through low-key secret diplomacy. His intentions
could be monitored through the level of terroristic killings in Kashmir.
If the assessment is that he will not be able to steer Pakistan away from
the two-nation theory obsession, then the engagement has to be public and
take the form of public diplomacy conducted through information campaigns
to isolate Pakistan internationally while politically and diplomatically
engaging it.
Identifying Pakistan's two-nation
theory and its claim to Kashmir with the clash of civilisations thesis
would help to present the Kashmir issue in the correct perspective to the
international community and to expose Pakistan as an ideological threat
to multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic states and unions like
the US, European Union, Russia and China. Pakistan's fundamentalist jehadi
Islam is a threat to moderate Islamic states like Indonesia, Iran, Turkey,
Egypt, Central Asian Republics, Gulf states and others. One does not expect
the government of India to discuss its strategy in public, as many of our
intellectuals and mediapersons demand, but it should formulate a course
best suited to Indian national and security interests. In either case,
there is no place for joint statements and declarations at the end of every
meeting. That expectation, which still seems to linger in the minds of
the leadership even after the Agra experience, does not make sense at all.
As Altaf Gauhar wrote in his series
of articles Four wars and one assumption, Pakistan continues to believe
India is a soft state which cannot sustain its unity for long. Pakistan
has built a self-image of itself as a state which defeated a superpower
(Soviet Union) through jehadi means. They were able to build their nuclear
weapon by outwitting the international community. They have succeeded in
projecting to their people every defeat as a victory, the fruits of which
were denied to them by others. The basic issue between India and Pakistan
is not cross-border terrorism as the Indian prime minister avers or Kashmir
as general Musharraf holds. They are only derivatives of the basic problem
- the two-nation theory and the dream of Pakistanis that India can be broken
up.
