Editorial»
Making of history in Islamabad
JAN 14 - The Indo-Pakistan decision of January 6, 2004 to resume a “composite dialogue” on all issues including Kashmir just two years after nearly hurtling down the precipice of war, has by and large taken South Asia and the world pleasantly by surprise.
EUREKA
Predictably, the adjective “historic” has been much bandied about. Yet, as we are aware, the very same term was readily affixed to the instant, if regrettably short-lived, surge of Indo-Pakistan bonhomie be it at Lahore in February 1999 or in Agra in July 2001.
How and why did such a making of history occur?
Ostensibly, the dramatic decision to resume a dialogue on their outstanding differences including the prickly issue of Kashmir is the outcome of a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan in Islamabad on January 6, a result Musharraf described effusively as “history in the making.”
To recall, that came after a half-hour meeting a day earlier between Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart Zafarullah Khan Jamali, an occasion preceded by a bear hug that the former gave the latter.
Yet, since the two had taken considerable pains to keep pre-SAARC-XII, back-channel negotiations “completely under wraps”, as Pakistan’s suave Foreign Minister Kurshid Mahmud Kasuri has confirmed in an interview with Gulf News, there is much more to the dialogue decision than the Vajpayee-Musharraf tete-a-tete.
Indeed, as reports now indicate, the United States, among others, played more than a casual, if discreet, role. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US played a “quiet but influential” role in bringing about a meeting between Musharraf and Vajpayee.
Interestingly, as that account has it, diplomats in the Pakistani capital trace the meeting to secret talks involving India’s national security adviser Brajesh Mishra, the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ehsanul Haq, and the Bush administration.
The Times of India’s Manoj Joshi, usually well briefed on Indian security/foreign policy affairs, admits that Mishra’s January 1 meetings in Islamabad were keyed to finalizing the draft joint statement that was painstakingly being cobbled. As he has reported, “the key decision to go ahead with a meeting with Musharraf was taken only on January 4, after Jamali’s speech at the SAARC inaugural session avoided any mention of Kashmir or any contentious Indo-Pakistani issue.”
VICTORY FOR MODERATION
Be that as it may, it has been conventional wisdom among South Asian watchers for sometime that the United States, the European Union, the UK, Japan and even China, had helped “by keeping up discreet but steady pressure on India and Pakistan to bury the hatchet”, as IPS’s M.B.Naqvi discloses.
Even otherwise, Washington has hardly made a secret of its desire – post-9/11 – to pursue “deepened engagement” with both India and Pakistan. For instance, one may recall US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca’s address to the Confederation of Indian Industry in Delhi on September 12, 2003. Then, she stressed Indians should “welcome” a “soft landing” for Pakistan so that it “corrects disturbing trends, realigns its direction as a moderate Muslim state, and defeats definitively all terrorism emanating from its soil.”
In any case, even Jamali has admitted “the peace process was facilitated by other countries.” A direct role by the US was, however, discounted by Musharraf at a press conference in Islamabad shortly after the release of the joint press statement announcing the decision on a “composite dialogue.”
While one can understand Musharraf’s public rejection of the notion of direct US involvement, it is no doubt significant that he categorically stated that the decision to resume dialogue with India was “a victory for moderation.” So, too, is his warning against the dangers of “sabotage” by extremists on both sides.
Indeed, who doesn’t know there are dark forces in both countries that would love nothing more than to douse the much-delayed peace process that has been re-kindled? The current peace drive goes back to Vajpayee’s peace overture of April 18 last year and the succession of measures that have been undertaken since to normalise relations between the South Asian nuclear rivals.
Those have included the restoration of full diplomatic ties and the resumption of road and air-links between them, not to mention a whole slew of “people-to-people” exchanges, including politicians, business leaders and even film stars. To top it off was the agreement on a cease-fire along the Line of Control (LOC) in disputed Kashmir.
Analysts believe that the movement forward received a powerful fillip because of Pakistan’s willingness to participate with India in the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) treaty, along with the other five member states belonging to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Their argument is that a massive boost to intra-regional trade, especially between India and Pakistan, will create conditions of normality, increase people-to-people contacts and enhance prosperity in South Asia all of which will impact positively on, eventually, resolving the Kashmir dispute.
Furthermore, most observers also share the conviction that the SAARC-XII consensus on the Additional Protocol on the 1987 SAARC Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism has also contributed to the Indo-Pak peace process as it tackles the financing of terrorism.
TIMING, ETC
It is only commonsensical that the envisaged peace process can only be as sturdy as the desire for peace on both sides. Recent developments in both countries have, at this juncture, come together to create a climate congenial to such a process, including, as already mentioned, post 9/11 developments and the new global consensus on eliminating the scourge of terrorism.
I would venture to speculate that it has also a great deal to do with Vajpayee’s frail health and his desire to go down in history as the Indian leader who brought a new dawn of peace and prosperity not only to India but to the region as a whole.
Apparently, its timing is not unrelated to what India watchers now predict: snap general elections, possibly in March-April. The electoral strategy is partly to cash in on the BJP’s current popularity, as witnessed in three out of four recent state elections. It also conceivably connects with the “peace with Pakistan” plank, not to mention the “feel-good” phenomenon reportedly related to the impressive advances that India has recorded on the economic front.
For Pakistan, for one thing, it was becoming increasingly impossible, as Ayaz Amir of the Dawn has put it, “to ride with the Americans and run with the jihadis.” For another, there was a sense that Pakistan’s economic development was unnecessarily being held hostage to the continuing drag of Indo-Pak hostilities, not to mention India’s embarrassingly better performance on the economic front.
The last straw was the stark Christmas Day reminder that the deadly forces of extremism were out to get Musharraf. The grim possibility of Musharraf’s moderate Pakistan being replaced by a Pakistan dominated by Talibanesque figures out to do the bidding of the Osama bin Ladens of the world, must not have been lost on sober, moderate elements around the world, including within India and the Indian leadership.
That was, no doubt, the moment of truth that spurred the “history in the making” in Islamabad. Let’s all hope Indo-Pakistan peace is for real.
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