Author: B.Raman
Publication:
Date: June 5, 2001
(The writer is Additional Secretary
(retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and presently, Director, Institute
For Topical Studies, Chennai.)
Gen.Pervez Musharraf, the self-styled
Chief Executive of Pakistan, is as good a communicator as the late Gen.
Zia-ul-Haq, but with a difference. Whereas Zia effectively concealed his
ambitions and arrogance behind a veneer of humility, Gen.Musharraf makes
no effort to conceal his personal ambitions and his perception of himself
as Pakistan's man and General of the hour to whom the nation has turned
for its salvation in the hour of its greatest crisis and who owes it to
the nation to fulfil his mission of making Pakistan a re-invigorated political,
economic and military power, capable of holding its own against India.
Since seizing power on October 12,1999,
he has been projecting himself as a rational thinker uninfluenced in his
policies and actions by religious considerations, but having been closely
associated with Osama bin Laden and the various Afghan Mujahideen groups
before 1996 and with the medieval Taliban thereafter, he understands the
power of religion and its utility for achieving the strategic designs of
Pakistan vis-à-vis India.
Though he often stresses the need
to forget the past in Pakistan's relations with India and to look to the
future, his actions, like those of other Corps Commanders of the Pakistan
Army, are strongly motivated by a desire to avenge what they look upon
as Pakistan's humiliation at the hands of India in 1971 in the then East
Pakistan and again in 1984 in Siachen .
He doesn't deny his role in clandestinely
mounting the Kargil operation in 1999, but projects it as a justified riposte
for "Siachen-1984". Similarly, he doesn't deny that he often resorts to
craft and deception in national interest in dealing with India, but justifies
it as the only way of dealing with what he looks upon as the crafty and
devious India.
The attitude of the Pakistan Army
towards India has always been governed by a curious amalgam of feelings
of psychological insecurity and professional over-confidence. Their feelings
of insecurity arise from what they consider as India's military superiority
in terms of numbers and the quality of equipment and its typical (in their
eyes) Hindu cunning and their professional over-confidence from their conviction
that a Hindu soldier is no match for a Muslim and lacks the will to succeed
in the battle field without which all its acquired military equipment would
be of no avail.
While they feel confident that they
can , any day, in any terrain, hold their own against the Indian Army,
they feel diffident about their ability to detect and counter what they
fear as the typical Hindu cunning. The Pakistan Army has a greater respect
for and fear of the Indian political class than it has for Pakistan's.
They think that in Kargil a set-back on the ground for the Indian Army
was converted into a strategic political victory by the Indian Prime Minister,
Shri A.B.Vajpayee, through his deft handling and look upon their political
leadership as no match for India's.
Its Generals are not prepared to
admit that they suffered a decisive military defeat at the hands of the
Indian Army in East Pakistan in 1971 due to professional inadequacies.
They believe that the 1971 defeat was brought about not by the superior
skills of the Indian Army, but by the incompetence of their own political
leadership and the consequent unfavourable circumstances on the ground
in East Pakistan.
Gen.Musharraf looks upon Afghanistan
as his and the Pakistan Army's greatest success story since 1947 and, like
other Generals, has convinced himself that this success can be repeated
in Jammu & Kashmir. He and his Corps Commanders interpret the sudden
turn around in the attitude of India towards him and the initiative of
India in inviting him to New Delhi as indicators of the onset of battle
fatigue in the Indian security forces, but they are not certain whether
there has been a simultaneous weakening of the will of the Indian political
leadership to retain Jammu & Kashmir.
They look upon the present situation
vis-à-vis J & K as similar to the situation in Afghanistan in
1987-88, when, in their view, a battle-fatigued Soviet Army started pressing
its political leadership to look for ways of an honourable exit from Afghanistan
and Zia provided them such an exit without a loss of face for Moscow through
the proximity talks in Geneva. They feel they succeeded because Moscow
had at that time a political leadership without strong ideological and
nationalist convictions.
They realise that the 2001 ruling
Indian political leadership cannot be compared to the 1987-88 one in Moscow.
In their eyes, the present political leadership in New Delhi has very strong
ideological and nationalist convictions and will not bend as Moscow's did
in 1987-88. Their memories of what they see as Pakistan's political defeat
in Kargil in 1999 continue to trouble them and they are wary of Kargil
repeating itself in the political and diplomatic arena in the months to
come.
Gen.Musharraf thinks that any perception
in Pakistan that he threw away at the table in New Delhi what the jehadis
had achieved through their blood on the ground in J & K could mark
the beginning of the end of the present phase of the Army's political ascendancy
in Pakistan.
He and his kitchen Cabinet of Lt.Gen.
(retd) Moinudeen Haider, the Interior Minister, Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, the
Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt.Gen.Muzaffar
Usmani, the recently-designated Deputy Chief of the Army Staff, and Lt.Gen.Mohammed
Yousef Khan, the Chief of the General Staff, realise the importance of
economic strength as a core component of national security. They also realise
that religious fanaticism-jehad is a double-edged sword or a boomerang.
While they are able to use it against India today, it could turn against
Pakistan itself tomorrow.
They are not convinced that normal
trade relations with India constitute the answer to their economic problems.
They are deterred by the experience of Bangla Desh, which, they think,
has become a captive market for India's cheap and poor quality goods. They
would rather become a captive market of China than of India.
At the same time, they see in the
proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline a part solution to their economic
problems-- in the form of an annual transit fee of US $ 600 million from
Teheran and concessional oil supplies to meet Pakistan's growing needs.
Hence, their desire to treat the pipeline as a stand-alone issue without
linking it to normal trade relations.
One should not, however, underestimate
Pakistan's willingness and ability to undergo hardships if considered necessary
in national interests. Its economic difficulties originated with the 1990
sanctions under the Pressler Amendment. Despite this, they have refused
to bend to outside pressure on the nuclear issue.
Similarly, despite strong criticism
of their support to the jehadis in J & K and to the Taliban from the
US and other countries, they have not moderated their policy. They feel
that for the first time since 1971, they have an opportunity of changing
the status quo in J & K, thanks to the jehadis, and that if they let
go this opportunity, they would not get another like it again. They, therefore,
seem determined to continue their support to the jehadis even if it meant
continued diplomatic isolation and economic hardships. India should not
nurse the illusion that the forthcoming summit or the economic pressure
on it by the other countries could make Islamabad change its policy.
How to continue to use the jehadis
against India till they achieve their objective in J & K without their
becoming a Frankenstein for Pakistan? This question is being intensely
debated in the GHQ without any answer being found.
Despite the military leadership's
harping on the theme of a nuclear flashpoint, it feels confident of its
ability to prevent any irrational or accidental use of its nuclear capability.
It feels confident of India's ability too in that regard. As a result,
the subject of nuclear confidence building measures does not enjoy the
same priority in the debate in Pakistan (outside the seminar circuit) as
it does in New Delhi. Nonetheless, India has a vital interest in progress
on this issue, keeping in view the increase in the jehadi hordes in Pakistan.
How to avoid an euphoria over and
a romanticisation of the forthcoming summit? How to keep the summit businesslike
without unwise exuberance and ecstasy? How to drouse undue expectations?
How to keep the bilateral dialogue sustained at various levels without
getting caught in a quagmire over J & K? How to provide greater focus
to the nuclear confidence-building issue? How to benefit from the Iranian
gas without adding to the resources of Pakistan which could be diverted
to the jehad? How to disabuse the General of any false impression that
India is looking for an honourable exit from J & K? How to ensure that
India's realpolitik of dealing with a military dictator does not damage
the cause of democracy in Pakistan?
These are the questions which should
engage the attention of our policy-makers between now and the visit of
the self-styled Chief Executive.
