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In the run-up to the Musharraf-Vajpayee summit political comments in Pakistan have been marked by both excessive optimism and abundant caution in regard to the Kashmir dispute. Among the optimists, three schools of reasoning have emerged.
The chauvinist view is that India's offer has been motivated by weakness, originating from its government's and army's failure to militarily quell the decade-old freedom movement. The globalist view takes note of India's Security Council and big power ambitions that are perceived to require an early end to the Kashmir problem. It takes further note of international pressure for the two countries to agree on conflict-resolution measures.
There is also the economic view, which assumes that the compulsions of development have overtaken those of diplomacy and also that Pakistan's economy will benefit greatly from trade with India.
Those advising caution believe that without movement on Kashmir, which remains "the core issue", there is little meaning for Pakistan to have talks with India or for progress in wider areas of bilateral relations. This is the egocentric view, based on the premise that all interested parties, including India, share some of Pakistan's viewpoint in the matter and also its larger world vision.
This egocentric view forms the preponderance of influential opinion in Pakistan, as evidenced in the recent briefing for Gen Musharraf by several retried chiefs of army staff, former foreign ministers and secretaries and leading intellectuals. They have reiterated the popular one-point agenda that only if the "core issue" is tackled will there be a positive momentum for the resolution of many other bilateral problems.
When Gen Musharraf assumed charge in October 1999, another high-powered body of economists and establishment luminaries convinced him that a one-point agenda of tackling bank loan defaults would initiate a sequence of events that would not only solve many governance problems but would also step up economic revival.
The impracticability of this advice was soon exposed. At state level, even singular problems are multi-dimensional. The best way to solve such problems remains the tested method of breaking them into component parts and tackling each aspect separately.
Similarly, in the present situation, while there is no denying a linkage between Pakistan's foreign policy and its economic problems or of the need to lower tensions with India, it will be counter-productive to persist in a one-point agenda as the source of this linkage. This becomes necessary because the geopolitical picture has changed and so has Pakistan's position in the regional context. Its diplomatic and financial exigencies are multi-dimensional and multi-directional.
Although Kashmir remains the core issue with India, relations with India are no longer central to Pakistan's diplomacy. This becomes clear when the contentious diplomatic issues, the effects of reduced tensions with India on Pakistan's economy and the likelihood of international pressure for the settlement of the Kashmir problem are taken into account.
In foreign affairs, apart from the dispute with India, Pakistan remains on a divergent course: (a) with the military and economic powers of the Judeo-Christian tradition over its nuclear weapon programme, support to the Taliban and issues concerning "jihadi" militants; (b) with the major Asian powers (Russia and China and Japan); and with Iran over support to the Taliban and the Sunni "jihadi" militants; (c) with all of these over the reluctance or inability of Pakistan governments to curb the training and export of Islamic militants by seminaries and jihadists groups; (d) with several countries in the matter of controlling the narcotics trade.
A major concern among Pakistan's friends and allies remains their apprehension that internal political instability can create conditions whereby jihadist organizations can gain strength and take control of the state and incite rebethen in Muslim countries in the region by means of infiltration of jihadists. These hypothetical concerns, originating in bad governance and the rise of religious militancy in the country have assumed an aspect where strictly internal matters have become inter-linked with external concerns.
In regard to the economy, three aspects need to be mentioned. First, there should be no expectations of any decrease in defence expenditures. Lowering of tensions with India, even a settlement on Kashmir, do not necessarily mean a lowering of defence preparedness. On the contrary, increased allocations will be required for both the nuclear weapons programme and the conventional forces simply for reasons of maintenance and basic technological advancements.
Second, at the macro-economic level, the issue of defence expenditures is dwarfed by the major negative factor of debt servicing, the adverse balance of trade and dependence on capital inflows. These factors have multilateral origins and have no nexus with the bilateral Kashmir issue.
The accumulation of Pakistan's huge external and internal debt is the result of years of corruption, mismanagement and faulty planning and development priorities, not just high defence expenditures. The debt servicing and capital inflow problems have become aggravated by the economic sanctions imposed by the US after the 1998 nuclear tests.
Third is the motivation of trade with India. There is a belief that open bilateral trade will be of great benefit to Pakistan, which will gain access to a market of one billion people as opposed to one of 140 million for India. This is good in theory. In actual fact, Pakistani industry being inefficient, under capitalized and suffering from a chronic deficiency of professional management will not be able to take advantage of the new opportunities.
The main beneficiaries will be either the trading interests of the existing powerful business groups or the multinational companies that already have a strong presence in both countries and can be expected to synergize their operations, perhaps by closing down their manufacturing operations in the smaller Pakistan market, as many have already done. It can also be argued that Pakistani consumers might benefit from lower prices and a wider product choice, but in the existing and projected forex reserves position, the economy cannot afford yet another adverse balance of trade relationship.
There exists of course no realistic basis to expect international pressure or third-party mediation being applied in a manner favourable to Pakistan in respect of Kashmir. The position of the global majors is well known; none support the 1948 UN resolutions as a basis for a solution of the conflict, nor are they inclined to support Kashmiri aspirations so long as these remain linked to a religion -based nationalism. The OIC pays lip-service to the issue, but little more.
The adjoining influential Asian
powers - Russia and China - through the forum of the Shanghai 6, also lean
towards the status quo. They view with disfavour the prospect of a Sinkiang-bordering
Kashmir, seething with armed jihadists, becoming independent or part of
a Pakistan, whose several recent governments have not been to control religious
militancy within its existing borders.
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