October
2, 2003
India,
Pakistan Spar Under a Lengthening Nuclear Shadow
This
past April 18, India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee raised
many hopes when he offered Pakistan "the hand of friendship" from
a public rally at Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir. The greatest
of these hopes was that South Asia's long, dark night of confrontation,
bitter hostility and dangerous brinkmanship that began with a terrorist
attack on India's Parliament building in December 2001 would soon
end. At the very least, the two states would restore their badly
damaged diplomatic relations and communication links. Optimists
even predicted a high-level dialogue for reconciliation.
Five
and a half months later, that hope is on the verge of turning into
despair. All that the two nuclear rivals have done is restore ambassador-level
relations and the Lahore-Delhi bus service, with a reduced, twice-weekly,
frequency. Air and rail links between them still remain severed.
Their embassies continue to work at half their original strength.
And legal trade between them, which holds the potential of prosperity
for both, remains non-existent.
Worse,
the two governments are back to trading abuses and insults in international
forums even as they accelerate their nuclear programmes and move
towards actually deploying missiles. Dangerously, especially
from the short-term point of view, there are growing skirmishes
between their soldiers along the Jammu and Kashmir border.
Ironically,
there is little pressure on New Delhi and Islamabad in favour of
restraint and nuclear and conventional crisis-diffusion. South Asia
rolls unfettered and unbridled towards the brink of what may be
yet another bloody confrontation.
The
week beginning September 22 saw both India and Pakistan unleash
a fusillade of hostile rhetoric and serious charges in the United
National General Assembly. Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf
fired the first shot when he attacked India for its "brutal suppression
of the Kashmiris' demand for self-determination and freedom from
Indian occupation" while urging the UN and the major powers to intervene
to resolve the "dangerous" dispute.
In
a tat-for-tat reply the next day, Vajpayee assailed Pakistan for
using "cross-border terrorism" as "a tool of blackmail". He also
accused Musharraf of having made "a public admission for the first
time that Pakistan is sponsoring terrorism in … Kashmir. After claiming
that there is an indigenous struggle in Kashmir, he has offered
to encourage a general cessation of violence… in return for 'reciprocal
obligations and restraints'."
Both
questioned each other's credentials as leaders of civilised and
responsible states. Musharraf demanded, without naming India, that
states which occupy and suppress other peoples, and defy the resolutions
of the [Security] Council have no credentials to aspire for [its]
permanent membership". Indian leaders dismissed these remarks as
"rubbish" and the result of Pakistan's "annual itch" on Kashmir.
Since then, the level of abuse has plumbed even lower depths, with
each calling the other "bloody-minded" and the "fountainhead" or
"mother" of "all terrorism".
Behind
this intense hostility is growing competition between New Delhi
and Islamabad to court Washington as a "strategic ally" at the cost
of marginalising each other, as well as domestic political factors.
India
believes that it may be near a break-through in persuading the United
States to open talks on three sensitive issues, which have encapsulated
the limits of their bilateral relationship so far: transfer of civilian
nuclear technology (which stands rejected and discredited in the
U.S. and most other developed countries); cooperation in space research;
and sale of dual-purpose technologies, which could be diverted to
military use. India, which disgracefully became the
first nation to welcome President Bush's ballistic missile defence
plans in May 2001, also hopes to get some crumbs of BMD technology.
It is trying to press its advantage and its image as a victim of
terrorism, like the U.S. or Israel (although there is little in
common between them).
Pakistan
has come under critical scrutiny of the U.S. for its ambiguous role
in fighting terrorism and its failure to fully seal the Afghanistan
border. For instance, The New York Times recently said that
Pakistan's conduct "falls well short of what Americans are entitled
to expect from an ally…" It "still provides Kashmiri terrorists
with sanctuary and access to areas bordering Indian-ruled territory.
Wresting Kashmir … remains an open goal of Pakistani policy, with
violence considered a legitimate tool." Therefore, unless Islamabad
changes, "America must look for ways to reduce its dependence" on
it.
Yet,
Musharraf knows there is no way the US can afford to dispense with
him. America would like to push him into the mould of "moderate
Islam", but it needs him badly. He too is trying to leverage this
to raise the Kashmir issue.
The
important thing is that both the Vajpayee and Musharraf governments
are out of sync with their own publics, which stand for normalisation
of relations and reconciliation. Ever since the Lahore-Delhi bus
service was resumed, there have been any number of friendly visits
of citizens' delegations, businessmen, schoolchildren, journalists
and parliamentarians. These are the most encouraging aspect of the
current situation.
This
contrasts sharply with the reluctant, extremely guarded, and almost
mean-spirited official-level exchanges. The two governments, especially
Pakistan's, are clamping down on citizens' visits through the simple
expedient of holding up visas. The worst cases of such denial are
the cancellations of the visits of a judges' and lawyers' delegation
and a high-powered Indian businessmen's group.
New
Delhi has gradually hardened its insistence that there can be no
dialogue with Pakistan until "cross-border terrorism" is fully ended.
Underlying this is its reluctance to put the Kashmir issue on the
table, besides the reality of Pakistani support to Kashmiri secessionists.
Islamabad has questioned India's willingness to discuss Kashmir.
Underlying
the failure to negotiate normalisation is deep-seated resentment
and suspicion on both sides. It is as if both states had become
slaves to a compelling degenerative logic, which militates against
reasonable behaviour. It is as if both had vowed to ensure that
the half-truce would collapse by making self-fulfilling prophesies
of doom.
India
and Pakistan may be moving perilously close to the brink of yet
another military confrontation. On September 1, India's newly formed
Nuclear Control Authority held its first-ever meeting and took "a
number of decisions" on the further development of the "strategic
(nuclear) forces programme". These decisions will "consolidate India's
nuclear deterrence".
Reactively,
just two days later, Pakistan too held a meeting of its National
Control Authority. This decided to make "qualitative upgrades" in
its nuclear programme. India is building two underground shelters
to protect its Cabinet from a possible decapitating strike.
Matters
are grim at the conventional level too, with ambushes and killing
of soldiers in the Rajouri sector of the Kashmir border. An Indian
newspaper (The Hindustan Times) has reported two particularly
grisly incidents. Last month, Pakistani troops crossed the border
and killed four Indian soldiers in an ambush. They chopped off
the head of a dead soldier and carried it back as a trophy.
In ghastly, ferocious retaliation, Indian soldiers "shot dead nine
Pakistani soldiers. And for gruesome impact, [they] brought back
the heads of two Pakistani soldiers."
This
is utterly repulsive and nauseating. Killing enemy soldiers is legally
permitted only when war is declared. In no other circumstances do
soldiers enjoy immunity under international law. Killing one another
casually is illegal and unacceptable. And mutilating bodies is downright
barbaric. Such medieval practices are impermissible under all circumstances.
The fact that India and Pakistan have stooped so low speaks extremely
poorly of their leaders and of the prospect of mutual reconciliation.
Praful Bidwai
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