Many fear that, if after a few token moves Pakistan lets things return to normal, the world may be forced to admit its own impotence. But we should not be too quick to surrender in the face of the continued intransigence of the killers of innocent civilians. The threat of sanctions could specifically target the Pakistani military, including a ban on the sale of weapons and the provision of any further military assistance to it. The UN could also be required to exclude the Pakistani Army from future peacekeeping operations, a vital source of both prestige and lucre for Islamabad’s military. The world is far from running out of ideas to bring Pakistan’s errant generals to heel.
Of course, such an approach should only be pursued when India judges that there is no prospect of voluntary compliance by Pakistan with the minimum desiderata for peaceful relations on the subcontinent. As these words are written, in early 2012, the atmosphere between the two countries is warming, and there is hope that resort to the drastic measures suggested above may not be necessary.
But if the pressure is not maintained, and if Pakistan is allowed to believe that, with the passage of time, Mumbai will have been forgotten and Islamabad will be off the hook, the consequences would be calamitous, not just for India but also for the world. It would have a chilling result: as long as a military-dominated Pakistan continues, willingly or helplessly, to harbour the perpetrators of Islamist terror, what happened in Mumbai could happen again. Next time, it could be somewhere else.
Of course, exercising the UN option will not be easy. It will require the cooperation of other countries, many of which have shown a propensity to look the other way as Pakistan has misbehaved on terrorism, and it will require us to expend a great deal of diplomatic energy to assemble the necessary majority on the Counter-Terrorism Committee. But the option exists; and if we do not wish to allow Pakistan to believe it can get away with whatever it wishes, and to act as if it can shrug off its complicity in the 26/11 attacks with impunity, we need to remind them that the option exists. A truly comprehensive dialogue is one place where we can make that message clear.
So yes, by all means, let us talk to Pakistan. It is what we say when we talk that will make all the difference.
Pursuing Pakistan at the United Nations may seem a drastic step to propose. But what is dismaying is that all India has asked for from Pakistan is two very simple things: to take action to bring the perpetrators of 26/11 to justice and to take steps to dismantle the infrastructure of terror built up over the last twenty years, from which so many attacks have been launched on our country. This would involve closing down the training camps, genuinely banning these organizations (and not just letting them reinvent themselves under other labels, of which the Arabic language seems to offer an inexhaustible profusion), really closing their bank accounts (again, instead of letting them be reopened under other names) and arresting known inciters of hatred and violence like Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. If these things are done, as Prime Minister Singh said in Parliament—which, in a political system like India’s, is tantamount to a sacred oath—we will meet them more than halfway. But that first step has not been forthcoming.
The irony is that, as long as Manmohan Singh remains in office, Pakistan has in New Delhi the most peace-minded Indian prime minister that Islamabad could ever hope for. And yet they have failed to give him enough for him to be able to move forward, and march, as he manifestly wishes to, in the direction of amity. Instead, India has been faced with the extraordinary acquittal of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the result of a very feeble case mounted by the reluctant government in Islamabad, with the judge concluding that the UN Security Council’s banning of Jamaat-ud-Dawa has no validity in Pakistan, and that therefore its leader is free, because the organization is not banned. For a high court in a United Nations member state to cock a snook when the Security Council proscribes an organization that is guilty of terrorist actions, and for the Pakistani legal system, apparently with no particular countervailing pressure from the civilian government, to say, in effect, that Pakistan doesn’t really take this requirement very seriously, is mind-boggling.
The two countries even had a bilateral agreement before 26/11, which established a joint working group on terrorism, meant to be a mechanism for information sharing. Not one useful piece of information came India’s way on that joint working group. The terrorists came from the other side of the border, but not the information. India’s experience merely confirmed that such mechanisms will only work where there is genuine goodwill, where there is no mistrust, where there is a basic understanding and cooperation. Where those ingredients are missing, it becomes impossible for Indians of good faith to rely on a duplicitous Pakistan.
This is why I fear there is as yet no substitute for exacting compliance with the existing international requirements. Security Council resolution 1373 is a very good example. It has very specific requirements—freezing financial transfers, intercepting arms flows, reporting on the movements of suspected terrorists. India has been very proud of the fact that it has been in full compliance with the resolution’s requirements, and it has submitted complete reports to the Counter-Terrorism Committee. How can the world say that one country, Pakistan, will get a free pass on these obligations, and then be taken seriously?
Pakistan’s defiance is partially based on the confidence engendered by its nuclear deterrent capability. This confidence could prove negative in its effects, prompting its military brass to launch a Kargil infiltration, dispatch terrorists to conduct strikes in India, or cock a snook at the international community, all of which it has indeed done already. But the same confidence could easily be used to more constructive ends: by telling themselves that as a nuclear power they have much less to fear from other nations, Pakistan could be emboldened to take positive steps towards peace, secure in the knowledge that they could not be coerced into conceding any vital national interest.
There is no doubt that a climate of peace can only be built on a foundation of trust, unimpeded by the use or the threat to use terror as a means to achieving narrow ends. British Prime Minister David Cameron recently reminded Pakistan that it could not win the respect of the world so long as it condoned the export of terror to India. To acknowledge that trust does not exist right now, however, is not to suggest that trust can never be built.
The differences that bedevil our relations with Pakistan can be surmounted if we can arrive at mutually acceptable parameters that can define our relationship in the future. Terrorism is certainly not one of those parameters. The Mumbai terrorist attack in November 2008 was a great setback on the path of normalization. Only credible action by Islamabad will instil a modicum of confidence in the people of India that dialogue is worthwhile and that our neighbours are as determined as us to give peace a chance. If such action is taken—for instance, against individuals and organizations known to be fomenting violence against India—the basis for building trust again can be laid. Until that is done, though, projects like the proposed Iran–Pakistan–India gas pipeline will never materialize, not so much because of US pressure on India to reject Iran’s involvement as the understandable reluctance of Indians to place any significant element of their energy security in the hands of Pakistan, through whose tender mercies the pipeline would have to run.
The composite dialogue process between the two countries was launched in January 2004, following the commitment made by Pakistan at that time that it would not permit territory under its control to be used to support terrorism against India in any manner. The dialogue covered eight subjects: peace and security, including confidence-building measures; Jammu and Kashmir; terrorism and drug trafficking; friendly exchanges; economic and commercial cooperation; the Wullar barrage/Tulbul navigation project; Sir Creek; and Siachen. That six-year-old commitment by Pakistan lay in shreds after the overwhelming evidence of the involvement of elements in Pakistan in executing the Mumbai terror attack of November 2008, and in the conspiracy that planned, funded and launched it, coupled with an increase in ceasefire violati
ons, continued infiltration across the LoC and the attacks on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008 and October 2009, as well as the murderous assault in early 2010 on a residence housing Indian aid workers. Given the immense strain all this has placed on India–Pakistan relations in general and on the dialogue process in particular, it took a great deal of courage and statesmanship for the Indian leadership to resume the dialogue process. Though progress has been slow, the fact that it is happening at all is of momentous significance—but the incidents enumerated above point to the very fragility of the peace process, since so much is stacked against it.
It is worth recalling that the two countries have in fact come to agreement since the late 1980s on a number of issues. These have included such difficult and sensitive challenges as the protection of nuclear facilities, the inauguration of bus services between Indian and Pakistani cities, illegal immigration and the exchange of prisoners, and the establishment of trading routes and entry points to each other’s territories. There have also been extensive discussions, both formal and through a ‘back channel’, as well as in the form of Track-II discussions featuring prominent parliamentarians, scholars, retired officials and commentators, between the two countries. However, the lack of trust between the governments and an aversion to taking political risk on both sides have meant that these have not culminated in agreements, even though the sensitive Kashmir issue has been discussed threadbare in all these processes.
Pakistan’s evasive responses and denials in response to India’s requests for cooperation in exposing the conspiracy behind the Mumbai terror attack and bringing all its perpetrators to justice had led to a sadly evident deterioration in bilateral relations. While India has gingerly resumed contact at various levels with Pakistan, a sustained and intense peace process requires a demonstration by Pakistan of a change of heart—and, more important, of a political will for peace. Of this there has been little evidence in recent years—quite the contrary. The inability or unwillingness of the Pakistani government to prevent its soil from being used to mount attacks on another state seriously undermines its own sovereignty, not just its credibility. The result is the slightly absurd phenomenon of the victims’ government wanting to talk to the perpetrators’ government, while the latter consistently fails to give the former anything to enable it politically to explain to its own voters why we are doing the talking.
The lack of political will within the Pakistani establishment to take firm action against terrorists is not hard to explain. One possible explanation is the sinister one, that those in power are happy to allow the terrorists to run free and wild, as long as they are only threatening India. Unleashing terrorism on India has long been seen by elements in Islamabad as a strategy that combines the merits of being inexpensive, low risk and effective, while doing enough damage to throw the adversary repeatedly off-balance. And should India be tempted to respond in kind to the repeated bleeding of its citizenry by Pakistani groups and their proxies, there is always the threat of a nuclear conflagration to bring the rest of the world’s pressure on India to absorb the pain rather than retaliate militarily.
The more charitable explanation is that the rulers of Pakistan do not feel able to challenge militant groups and their leaders because they have become too popular with a radicalized and pro-Islamist populace, and so they fear that the political price to be paid domestically for opposing the terrorists would be too high. While India would love to see a Pakistani government that is determined to translate into concrete action the friendly sentiments repeatedly expressed by leaders like President Zardari, New Delhi has seen far too much evidence of a gap between profession and practice—and also of the vast gulf between what Pakistanis say to Indians in private and what they consider politically expedient to utter in Pakistan in public.
The media on both sides has also contributed to the atmosphere of confrontation between the two states. Television is a particular culprit. Though Indians tend to blame the Pakistani channels for consistently spewing venom against India and providing a platform to those who do, the standards may first have been lowered in India. A Pakistani television executive, Fahad Hussain, who has launched more than one channel in his country and studied India’s media operations before doing so, put it bluntly to me: ‘The reason we are hawkishly anti-India,’ he said, ‘is that we know it sells, and guess who taught us that.’ He added, ‘I launched channels that love to bash India because Indian media has taught us that being popular is more important than being responsible.’ He went on to suggest that Pakistani politicians who are inclined to promote peace with India are circumvented by the hostility of the media, which restricts their options. This may be a somewhat cynical view, but it has a strong kernel of candour that obliges us to take it seriously.
The hardening of public opinion on both sides is undoubtedly a factor in the dismal state of the relations between India and Pakistan. In Pakistan, at least, the media has gone from reflecting attitudes to shaping them in a manner that has made it a significant obstacle to peace. The print media, especially in Urdu, is not much better. Despite the ‘Aman ki Asha’ (Wish for Peace) campaign conducted by two newspaper chains (one in each country) the very same publications carry far more negative articles about the other country than they do the positive ones under the ‘Aman ki Asha’ rubric. Textbooks in Pakistan, which since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto speak of a ‘5000 year war with India’, also contribute to the general attitude of hostility in the country to the neighbour to which it was once conjoined. Ordinary members of the Pakistani public may be prepared to live in peace with Indians, but the hatred being instilled in them from a variety of public platforms will need to be overcome if peace is to have a chance.
The contradiction between private attitudes and public posturing was readily apparent in the life and career of Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People’s Party, whose assassination in late 2007 saw the international press posthumously conferring sainthood on the telegenic politician. But the widely expressed view that Benazir epitomized Pakistan’s hopes for democracy and peace with India seriously overstates both what she represented and the implications of her demise.
The principal consequence of Benazir Bhutto’s death was the setback it has dealt to the US-inspired plan to anoint her as the acceptable civilian face of continuing Musharraf rule. The calculations were clear: Musharraf was a valuable ally of the West against the Islamist threat in the region, but his continuing indefinitely to rule Pakistan as a military dictator was becoming an embarrassment. The former Chief Martial Law Administrator had to doff his uniform—long overdue, since he was three years past the retirement age for any general—and find a credible civilian partner to help make a plausible case for democratization. Benazir—well spoken, well networked in Washington and London, and passionate in her avowals of secular moderation, however self-serving—was the chosen one.
The other exiled civilian ex-prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, was none of these things and, having been the victim of General Musharraf’s coup, was considerably less inclined to cooperate with his defenestrator. So Nawaz was returned to exile in Saudi Arabia when he attempted to come home and, when that ploy did not work (the Saudis having no particular desire to take Benazir’s side over his), was disqualified from running for office on the risible grounds that his attempts as an elected prime minister to prevent a coup against himself amounted to hijacking and terrorism. This left the field free for Benazir to do sufficiently well in the elections to become prime minister of Pakistan for a third time.
Her first two stints had, however, been inglorious. From 1988 to 1990 she had been overawed by the military, whose appointed president duly dismissed her from office on plausible charges of corruption, mainly involving her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who had acquired the nickname ‘Mr Ten Percent’. Her second innings (1993–96) was, if anything, worse: charges of rampant peculation (and administrative adhockery) mounted, even as her avowedly moderate government orchestrated the creation of the Taliban i
n neighbouring Afghanistan. This time it was a president of Pakistan from her own party who felt obliged to dismiss her. To assume that a third stint would have been any different requires a leap of faith explicable only by the mounting international anxiety over Musharraf’s fraying rule.
But Benazir’s true merit lay in the absence of plausible alternatives. She was no great democrat—as her will, appointing her husband and nineteen-year-old son to inherit her party, confirms. The Bhuttoist ethos is a uniquely Pakistani combination of aristocratic feudalism and secular populism. To her, democracy was a means to power, not a philosophy of politics. But the same was true of the other contenders in Pakistan’s political space—the conservative Punjabi bourgeoisie represented by Nawaz Sharif, the moderate pro-militarists grouped around Musharraf, the deeply intolerant Islamists and the assorted regionalist and sectarian parties whose appeal is limited to specific provinces. Musharraf knew that all that elections would ensure was a temporary rearrangement of the balance of forces among these diverse elements. But it would enable him to remain in charge as a ‘civilian’ president while portraying his Pakistan—more credibly than heretofore—as the last bastion of democratic moderation in the face of the Islamist menace. When this hope collapsed and Musharraf went into exile, the ascent of Benazir’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, to the presidency meant that a civilian of dubious repute—and one with very little ability to resist the entrenched power of the military behind the scenes—had now to assume this mantle.