Author: Chidanand Rajghatta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: May 29, 2002
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=11382903
World opinion has swung decisively
against Islamabad on the Jammu and Kashmir issue even as Pakistan itself
is cleaved between the country's moderates and liberals on the one hand
and the fundamentalists and militarists on the other.
In the past week, almost every major
country in the world, from the United States to Australia, has rejected
the Pakistani argument that it is innocent of the terrorism in Kashmir,
which it describes as a freedom struggle. Neither the Islamic world, nor
its closest ally, China, has backed Pakistan's position.
Unambiguously terming the violence
as terrorism and implicating Pakistan for it, world leaders have broadly
endorsed India's position that it will stand down from its military readiness
and address the issue only after Islamabad permanently dismantles the terrorist
network it has created.
A distressed Musharraf is sending
five separate diplomatic teams to various world capitals to argue Pakistan's
case. The diplomatic-military team of the just evicted envoy in New Delhi
Ashraf Jehangir Qazi and former army chief Jehangir Karamat, both polished
and sober interlocutors, are being sent to Washington, the centre of opinion-making.
Ahead of the lobbying, Pakistan's
effort to finesse its renunciation of violence by suggesting that it will
turn off the terrorist tap only in so far as India comes to the negotiating
table -- and will resume its support to violence if India does not -- has
also been sternly rejected by the US and UK.
Officials from both countries clearly
want Islamabad to allow India to restart the political process with the
state assembly elections first.
The two countries, as also high
officials of the UN, have indicated that they consider UN resolutions on
the issue non-operational and unimplementable, with the suggestion that
the two countries should look forward rather than look back. Pakistan's
own disastrous record with democracy weakens its plebiscite argument.
But flying in the face of world
opinion, Pakistan's military regime is reported to have decided that Kashmir
is ripe for picking from Indian hands.
"This military perception, enunciated
very recently by the Military Operations Directorate, Commander Corps 10,
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and other relevant military formations,
contributed to the General Musharraf's address to the nation, during which
he resolutely refused to give further concessions to the Indian military
on Monday," The News daily reported in its editions on Tuesday.
The report also quoted Pakistani
officials and terrorist leaders as saying Pakistan would be helped by a
friendly Muslim population in Kashmir and even disaffected minorities elsewhere
in India.
"Which army of the world can wage
war when it is being attacked by its own people from right, left, front
and the back," a senior Pakistani military source was quoted as saying.
A former US official with long dealings
in the region described the thinking as "dangerous delusional nonsense",
and said Pakistan evidently had learnt nothing from its past experience
when even the Islamic world, much less Indian Muslims, rejected such hopes.
Administration circles privately
expressed horror at this line of thinking even as they struggled to interpret
parts of Musharraf's speech that appeared aimed at stoking a religious
war in the region.
"Diabolical," is how one US official
characterised the developments, adding that many administration mandarins
were now on a "Kashmir 101" course to understand the issues that seemed
to go beyond the present political and diplomatic context. For that reason,
the US administration also appeared to be ingesting more inputs from the
United Kingdom in making its calls.
While the Pakistani military is
reported to be set on bleeding India in Kashmir even if it is forced to
back down momentarily because of adverse world opinion, Pakistani society
itself is deeply divided on the issue.
"For the first time in the history
of Pakistan, politicians and the public are refusing to rally around the
army as it faces the possibility of war again," Ahmed Rashid, the respected
author of the most authoritative book on the Taliban, has written in the
latest issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review.
Public confidence in Musharraf's
military regime, says Rashid, is at its lowest ebb following the April
30 referendum, widely condemned as rigged. Almost the entire political
spectrum has united in condemning the military, while extremist Islamic
parties have regrouped and are challenging Musharraf. To top it all, the
economic malaise has worsened.
The doubts and dissent are fully
reflected in the Pakistani media, a remarkably lively and free press despite
the military rule. Editorial columns, especially in respected publications
like the Dawn, have as many comments challenging the military leadership's
India policy as those supporting it.
"Just as it is absurd of New Delhi
to pretend that there is virtually no such thing as indigenous Kashmiri
militancy, it is ridiculous of Islamabad to insist that cross-border infiltration
is broadly a myth, or that jehadi groups manage to mount their operations
without any Pakistani assistance," editorial columnist Mahir Ali wrote
in the Dawn on Wednesday.
Ali argued that the Musharraf regime
should stamp out terrorism (which he said had not happened) "not out of
fear of India or because of American pressure, but because it is wrong
and counterproductive."
"Those responsible for acts of terrorism
in Kashmir -- regardless of whether their victims are Indian soldiers or
their families, or the likes of Abdul Ghani Lone -- are the enemies not
only of India but also of Kashmiris. What's more, they are the enemies
of Pakistan as well, given that their efforts over the past six months
seem singularly geared towards provoking a war. If they cannot be persuaded
to see the light, they must be stopped by force," he wrote.
Several Pakistani moderates have
also expressed horror and revulsion at the ease and comfort with which
the Pakistani militarists have invoked the use of nuclear weapons. Fire-
breathing radicals, including some former diplomats, have suggested that
Pakistan would prefer to use nuclear weapons and vapourise the region rather
than submit to perceived Indian hegemony.
Searching questions by the moderate
elements seeking to examine why Pakistan stands isolated in the world if
its position on Kashmir was strong or tenable has made little impression
on their ardour for war. The militarists are in complete denial over Pakistani
provocation and the universal opprobrium it has brought on the country.
Their diatribes are full of vitriol against India's machinations, US perfidy,
and fantastic plots involving Christian- Hindu-Jewish conspiracies.
Some of India's utterances are also
riling Pakistani moderates, who say it gives the militarists a handle to
pursue an extreme agenda. In a comment that was endorsed by US experts,
Pervez Hoodbuoy, the reputed Pakistani anti-nuclear peacenik, sharply criticised
New Delhi for trivialising the Pakistani nuclear capability and believing
it was not sufficiently potent.
