NEW DELHI, Sep 26 (IPS) - South Asian nuclear
rivals India and Pakistan have again crossed
swords and revived their barely-suppressed mutual
hostility through verbal duels between Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President Gen
Pervez Musharraf.
The only difference is that, this time around,
the duelling venue is the United Nations in New
York and events on the sidelines of the General
Assembly session, which both leaders have
addressed in recent days. The two states have
also moved closer toward deploying their nuclear
weapons and missiles. This highlights the
heightened danger from any new confrontation that
may begin between India and Pakistan. Barely five
months ago, Vajpayee held out ''the hand of
friendship'' to Pakistan from Srinagar in the
Kashmir Valley. He invited Pakistan to walk the
path of peace and reconciliation. Musharraf and
other Pakistani leaders responded warmly to the
offer, the first after their 10 months-long
confrontation - consisting of the deployment of
one million soldiers between them -- ended 11
months ago. However, this Wednesday, Musharraf at
the United Nations tore into India's position on
Kashmir and attacked New Delhi for its ''brutal
suppression of the Kashmiris' demand for
self-determination and freedom from Indian
occupation'' while urging the United Nations and
the major powers to intervene to resolve the
''dangerous'' dispute. In a tat-for-tat reply the
next day, Vajpayee assailed Pakistan for
supporting and 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 à Kashmir. After
claiming that there is an indigenous struggle in
Kashmir, he has offered to encourage a general
cessation of violence à in return for 'reciprocal
obligations and restraints'.'' 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.
Vajpayee countered: ''Most U.N. members today
recognise the need for an enlarged and
restructured Security Council, with more
developing countries as à members''. This
vocalised India's aspiration for a permanent
Security Council seat. How has this degeneration
into mutually hostile rhetoric come about?
Broadly, it has involved three processes playing
themselves out over the past five months. First,
India and Pakistan have consciously tried to
throttle growing and exuberant people-to-people
or civil society contacts between their two
countries. Ever since the Lahore-Delhi bus route,
suspended in January last year, was recently
resumed, there have been a large number of visits
of friendly citizens' delegations, businessmen,
schoolchildren's groups, and journalists'
organisations as well as parliamentarians'
conferences.
These were many steps ahead of the extremely
slow-paced, reluctant and very guarded
official-level exchanges. Now both countries,
especially Pakistan, have clamped down on such
visits through the simple expedient of denying
visas to each other's citizens. The worst cases
of such denial are the cancellation of a jurists'
and lawyers' delegation, and a high-powered visit
by Indian businessmen. Secondly, the two
governments have quibbled over the sequence and
content of the steps to be taken for normalising
bilateral relations. They restored
ambassador-level contacts and restarted the bus
service. But they failed to reach an agreement on
the resumption of severed air and rail links or
trade. India made the restoration of rail links
conditional upon the resumption of flights
between the two countries' cities as well as free
passage through their airspace.
Pakistan, in turn, insisted that air links could
not be resumed unless India assured it that it
would not unilaterally suspend overflights, as it
did last year, and earlier, in the 1971
Bangladesh war. The talks held late month
collapsed. But the third, and most important,
process involved a bloody-minded refusal by both
establishments to make sincere attempts to remove
mutual misunderstanding, build confidence and
take such unconditional steps as they could
without compromising their positions.
It is as if both had vowed to ensure that the
tentative peace initiative begun in mid-April
would collapse. They increasingly made
self-fulfilling prophesies of doom and laid down
conditions that were destined not to be realised.
Thus, India has over the past few weeks hardened
its insistence that there could be no meaningful
dialogue with Pakistan until ''cross-border
terrorism'' is completely ended.
Pakistan in turn has questioned India's
willingness to discuss the Kashmir issue and
hinted that terrorist activity across the border
would not stop until India's repression in
Kashmir ends. Islamabad claims that the
separatist militancy in Kashmir is fully
indigenous and that it only lends it ''moral and
political support''. But its general credibility
on this issue is low. Islamabad made an identical
claim in respect of the Taliban too, although it
virtually created it, trained it and infiltrated
it into Afghanistan in the early 1990s.
There is pretty strong evidence that Islamabad's
secret service cut off support to Kashmiri
militants some months ago. But India claims that
this was revived in recent weeks. There is no
independent verification of this. Underlying the
failure to negotiate reconciliation and
normalisation is deep-seated resentment and
suspicion on both sides, compounded by domestic
political considerations.
India is ruled by its most right-wing government
in 56 years, led by a strongly Islamophobic
party, which often equates terrorism with
Pakistan and Islam. In Pakistan, Musharraf faces
a tough Islamist opposition that accuses him of
having sold out on Kashmir. Amid the mounting
India-Pakistan rivalry come intensified
preparations in both countries to further build
their missile programmes and fissile-material
stockpiles and to proceed toward the deployment
of nuclear-tipped missiles. On Sep. 1, India's
newly formed Nuclear Control Authority held its
first-ever meeting and reviewed the arrangements
in place for the ''strategic forces programme''.
It took ''a number of decisions on further
development of the programme'', which will
''consolidate India's nuclear deterrence''.
Exactly two days later, in a tit-for-tat
response, Pakistan too held a meeting of its
National Control Authority. This decided to make
''qualitative upgrades'' in the nuclear
programme. Since then, the Indian defence
ministry has confined that it is to
''operationalise'' the nuclear-capable
intermediate-range Agni missile and that it has
sanctioned the raising of two missile groups.
Independent international experts believe that
Pakistan is currently more advanced than India so
far as the deployment-readiness of missiles goes.
Both countries now have short and medium-range
missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and
reaching each other's cities in less than 10
minutes. There are no worthwhile
crisis-prevention and -crisis-diffusion or
confidence-building measures in place between
India and Pakistan. They are suspicious of each
other's nuclear doctrines and have not hesitated
to resort to nuclear blackmail. During the Kargil
war of 1999, they exchanged nuclear threats no
fewer than 13 times. More recently, in their 10
month-long eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation, they
came perilously close at least twice to actual
combat. India threatened conventional surgical
strikes and a ''limited war''. Pakistan warned
that any war would escalate to the nuclear plane.
With Kashmir as the flashpoint, the threat of
Nuclear Armageddon now looms larger over South
Asia.
The US appears to have made a breakthrough with
regard to India. A strategic partnership is
developing between them and a third dimension to
it is the inclusion of the 'natural alley':
Israel. Brajesh Mishra had called it a natural
axis, which seems to have been all but formalized
by the Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's recent India
visit. In the current US visit of the Indian
Premier AB Vajpayee, he is expected to sign a
major agreement with the US, probably over the
"trinity of issues" --- high tech trade, civilian
nuclear energy and cooperation in space programme
--- that may be expected to give substance to the
growing "strategic partnership" between the two.
The US role in the Subcontinent cannot be
understood without reference to the old US-Pak
relationship. It has seen many ups and downs.
What is its current status? Probably an
international commission of inquiry would be
needed to do justice to the subject. For one's
part, one takes Ambassador Nicholas Platt's, the
Chief of New York's Asia Society's, recent
enunciation of the major US concerns vis-à-vis
Pakistan as the text. These are four: (a) Taliban
remnants trying to undermine Afghanistan's
reconstruction; (b) the possibility of Indo-Pak
nuclear conflict; (c) the danger of Pakistan
succumbing on political and economic fronts; and
(d) the rising tide of Islamic extremism.
Platt's is a succinct summing up of the US view
of this country. Many would agree with the
prognosis, though not necessarily with what the
Bush Administration proposes to do. The question
arises that in view of the long sorry story of
Pak-India relations, with many quasi and full
wars and a year-long military eyeball-to-eyeball
confrontation, with frequent exchange of threats
of the use of nuclear weapons, what does the US
propose to do in the region? Apart from
persuading both sides not to go to war and
advising them to talk --- a sort of fire fighting
--- what are the concrete US actions?
It can be briefly summed up, if we ignore the
currently urgent US worries about al-Qaeda,
Afghanistan and Iraq, as the effort to firm up a
strategic alliance among itself, Israel and India
--- and to help India 'arrive', both economically
and militarily. The expected major agreement
between the US and India ---- mainly to permit
Israel sell some of the high tech military
equipment and its own policy regarding sales of
dual use technology --- gives enough indication
of the US desire to see India emerge as a major
power in the region.
Vis-à-vis Pakistan, the recent US munificence ---
a package of $ 3 billion in military and
military-related economic assistance programmes,
permission to help Pakistan spend $ 9 billion of
its own money in American arms Bazaar and the
declaration that the US intends to help maintain
a balance of power between Pakistan and India ---
is noteworthy. Doubtless the US values Pakistan's
cooperation in catching the major al-Qaeda and
Taliban fugitives. It probably expects that
Pakistan would, out of gratitude, find a way of
sending troops to Iraq, if not recognize Israel.
Let's relate the major US worries regarding
Pakistan with the action it promises. Would the
latter promote the achievement of what the US
desires with reference to the four factors that
constitute Pakistan's vulnerabilities? India does
not need money from the US; it only needs US
technology. The Bush Administration looks like
obliging India very substantially. As for
Pakistan, it needs American money as well as a
resumption of old military relationship with the
US. The latter involved permissions to buy
military hardware, purchase of spares, training
of personnel and American help in the maintenance
of US-given equipment. The US, in pursuit of its
balance of power design, is again giving Pakistan
some money and permission to buy military
equipment --- so long as India does not cry foul
i.e. that it will disturb the balance of power.
The really serious concerns of the US are that
Pakistan should not collapse for political or
economic reasons; there should be no nuclear
exchange on the Subcontinent; and of course the
more imprecise and difficult task of saving
Pakistan from Islamic extremism. Take the first:
Why is Pakistan so brittle, unstable and
politically divided? A few reasons are: its
elites adopted a militarist view of Kashmir,
thought it necessary and feasible to wrest it
from India by military means. That led to the
rise of the military and eventually it inherited
the Pakistan state as a whole. That in turn
caused multiple polarizations. The military
elites reliance on Islamic rhetoric and alliance
with the religious bigots led successively to
ideological confusion, identity crisis, collapse
of democracy, adoption of a militarist course of
action and of course Islamic extremism
flourished, a manifestation of which was the
Taliban regime and the general fascination with
terrorism by segments of society.
The question is would Pakistan's buying military
equipment and training worth $ 10.8 billion help
counter any of the foregoing tendencies? Remember
that India in any case is embarked on a programme
of military greatness and the signs are that it
will now go for the cutting edge of technology.
The Indian reaction to what the US is doing for
Pakistan will be to render it ineffective by a
greater and speedier build up. Which in turn will
force Pakistan military to push for even greater
acquisitions. Would its possible implosion not
come nearer?
In plain words, the US permission to Pakistan to
buy military goodies worth $ 9 billion in
addition to $ 1.8 billion military aid is, in
conjunction with what it is going to do for
India, is the surest way to intensify the various
arms races between these two states. It is
optional to regard the American friendliness to
Pakistan as a two-in-one strategy: while buying
gratitude of Pakistani generals, Pakistan's
unusual Monetary Reserves at $ 11 billion can be
recycled to the profit of American arms
manufacturers. One can be sure that if Pakistan
were to spend $ 10 to 11 billion on arms, India
will devote $ 50 [billion] or more to offset
Pakistan's perceived gain --- all to the benefit
of American arms Bazaar.
Let's ignore India. After noting that fires of
the arms races are being stoked strongly and
deliberately, there is the proposition: how this
balance of power strategy will affect the
likelihood or otherwise of Pakistan's going belly
up for political or economic reasons? If
militarism and arms build up, along with empty
Islamic sloganeering, has brought Pakistan to the
present pass, how can such a heavy military build
up and support to the Musharraf regime can
normalize, democratize and strengthen Pakistan?
Pakistan economy's health is not robust enough;
the present praises for its supposed
stabilization hide an ugly reality: shorn of
western largesse and if debt payment
reschedulings do not remain available, Islamabad
will be back to 1998 conditions. The possibility
of default and worse may come closer.
How will the US goal of preventing an atomic war
in South Asia be served by its plan to intensify
Indo-Pak cold war and arms races? If it is true
that civilian nuclear power generation is vitally
linked to the country's plans for military uses
of nuclear technology, if any, how then the
American-Indian cooperation on that "trinity of
issues" make the two countries move toward
nuclear disengagement? Indeed, ordinary citizens
are more likely to suspect that the US is moving
toward filling the gaps in India's nuclear
programmes with new dual use technology without
directly assisting it in its purely military
programmes. The US may end up giving impetus to
nuclear arms races, as Pakistan will beg, borrow
or steal to get similar technology.
Insofar as countering Islamic extremism is
concerned, the course the US has adopted in South
Asia can only worsen the situation. The
short-term purpose of the Americans is to elicit
stronger cooperation from Musharraf government in
both fighting the Taliban remnants in
Afghanistan, arresting the fugitive Taliban and
al-Qaeda notables and to get him to adopt a more
secular approach. The political course that
Musharraf may be forced to adopt in sending
troops to Iraq and possibly recognizing Israel
will almost be like a lighted match near a powder
dump. The Islamic extremists will cry 'sell out'
and there will be echoes of these denunciations.
Pakistan's greater integration into American
schemes is sure to backfire and intensify its
many divisive and debilitating trends. The US
cannot do a greater disservice than to intensify
the arms races between India and Pakistan.
An Indian lady of my acquaintance who harbours profound prejudice against Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular told her husband that her ideal man was Imran Khan - a common occurrence I suspect
This year around Independence Day public notices from the government
of India instructed the populace on the 'do's' and 'don'ts' of the
national flag. Following litigation by a citizen, Indians are at last
allowed to display their national flag, a common occurrence in the
United States, but the world's largest democracy clearly has no
confidence in what its people might actually do with this national
symbol.
The flag cannot be draped over anything, for example - except coffins
of soldiers, I suppose. It cannot be worn as clothing - maybe this
warning is due to the incident in which a female Indian designer wore
the national flag as a skimpy dress. That was valiant of her, as the
flag is so over-burdened with symbolism that it is difficult to make
a tasteful dress out of it. I mean, what on earth does one do with
the 'Ashok chakra'! Yet white sarees with saffron and green borders
have been around for years and no one objected. American and British
flags are routinely worn on clothing. Would the guardians of proper
patriotic conduct object to the increasingly common practice of the
national flag being painted on the faces of its citizens? Or a
patriotically positioned tattoo?
If so much is made to ride on the 'right' symbols of patriotism,
inevitably, the 'wrong' symbols cannot be far behind. Terrorist
outrage in Mumbai has been followed by the swift arrest of the
alleged culprits and the death in a police 'encounter' of the alleged
mastermind. It reminds one of an earlier incident when Indian
security forces shot dead two dreaded militants allegedly involved in
an attack on the American Center in Calcutta in which several
policemen were killed. Both the dead men were described as Pakistani
- dreaded and dead militants in India are presumed to be Pakistani
these days, unless proven otherwise later, if anyone bothers to do
that.
They also often carry diaries on their persons, which give details of
their dastardly deeds. And they tend to carry mobile phones, those
must-have accessories of modern life, seemingly inseparable from
murderous extremists as well. These reveal incriminating calls to
mysterious puppeteers across the border. At least such is the
breathless reportage every time such an incident occurs, and they do
seem to occur with disquieting frequency.
It makes one wonder if extremist frenzy makes dreaded militants lose
sight of the most elementary steps to cover their tracks, or whether
being a terrorist zealot goes hand in hand in the first place with
being 'analytically challenged'. In the American Center case,
according to the authorities one of the dreaded and dead Pakistanis
confessed his own name and address, his companion's name and address
and admitted to conducting the attack before succumbing to his
grievous injuries.
The very next day a man was arrested in Calcutta and charged with
being a key conspirator in the American Center attack. All manner of
incriminating evidence was allegedly found in his home and in the
apartment used by the militants. Media reports said the findings
included photos of Osama bin Laden. Of course, by then it would have
been difficult to find any household that was completely free of the
image of Osama in some form. However, worse was to come. A week later
a second search of the suspect's home allegedly yielded - horror of
horrors - a Pakistani flag, which was 'seized' by the police. It
appeared to have been overlooked in the earlier 'search and seizure'.
In the trial now in progress of all the apprehended suspects
including this hoarder of incriminating 'anti-national' symbols, the
'seized' Pakistani flag has duly made its appearance as part of the
evidence produced by the prosecution. At that point in the
proceedings the accused protested from the dock that he had had no
such thing in his possession. He charges the police with planting the
flag in order to paint him a 'traitor' in the eyes of the public.
Be that as it may, the inclusion of an allegedly Pakistani flag found
in a private home in India as evidence in a terrorism case poses an
awkward dilemma for this writer. For if the police turned up at my
house they would find a Pakistani flag there too! They would not have
to 'search' for it really, as the Pakistani flag is prominently
displayed on the mantelpiece in the living room! There it is among
all the other South Asian flags, the stars and stripes, the Union
Jack, the Irish tricolour and a clutch of other national flags
diligently acquired from the United Nations. I had certainly had no
idea that the possession of a neighbouring country's flag might
constitute a cognisable offence in India!
To make matters worse, my children are fans of 'Junoon'. They are
particularly keen on a catchy tune called 'Jazba-e-junoon' and have
been known to dance riotously to blaring renditions of 'Pakistan hai
hamara, Pakistan hai tumhara, kabhi na bhulo'. This item, I found
later, is missing in the 'Junoon' albums available in India. One
concerned relative did suggest to me that I might want to keep the
volume down, in case the neighbours shopped us and the children got
hauled off under POTA. Mercifully the children have moved on to a
folksong called 'Pocha-kaka' - 'Rotten Uncle' - in the East Bengali
dialect by the Bengali band 'Bhoomi', about a man who would not come
home from the river until he had caught a fish.
To return to the 'offending' Pakistani flag - I wonder what would
happen if a person accused of terrorist offences in India were found
to be in possession of the British flag, or the Japanese one, or how
about the Saudi flag (along with those pictures of Osama). Does one
have to keep one's voice down to sing the beautiful song by
Rabindranath Tagore, 'Amar Sonar Bangla' - 'My golden Bengal' - in
the Bengali folk style called 'baul', because it is now the national
anthem of Bangladesh? What about the flags of all the other countries
of the world? Clearly none is estimated to have the impact of the
Pakistani one. Is it an offence to possess an Indian flag in Pakistan?
India seems to be riven in contradictions regarding all symbols
Pakistani. Indians appear to love Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Abida
Parveen. An Indian lady of my acquaintance who harbours profound
prejudice against Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular
told her husband on her wedding night that her ideal man was Imran
Khan - a common occurrence I suspect for Indian men foolish enough to
ask! I pointed out that Imran Khan was both Muslim and Pakistani, but
the lady waved me away. Clearly Imran Khan was Imran Khan!
Nor is he the only Pakistani cricketer with subcontinental appeal. A
few months back I was sitting in Dubai airport, exhausted, waiting
for the connection to Lahore at an unearthly hour, when a tall man
with a most spectacular torso came and sat down right opposite me.
Glancing up I recognised the familiar face of Wasim Akram. I must
confess that my travel-weariness vanished in an instant and I was
able to get through the last leg of the journey in a refreshed state
of mind! No wonder that while Wasim Akram cannot play cricket in
India, his smiling image can be plastered all over Indian billboards
in advertisements.
Still, in a 'borderless world' full of resurgent militant
nationalism, narrow-minded little 'patriot acts' seem to be sprouting
all over the place. Flags, emblems, colours, melodies; will they all
be divided up and loaded with meanings in black and white, or will
they be swept away by the cross-border currents of global
citizenship? If the alleged possession of a Pakistani flag in India
can be endowed with the connotation of treacherous villainy, what
might be the infinite ways of falling afoul of the official
guidelines on the Indian tricolour?
Sarmila Bose is Assistant Editor, Ananda Bazar Patrika, India &
Visiting Scholar, Elliott School of International Affairs, George
Washington University
index | HOME Landelijke India Werkgroep | pagina KRUITVAT INDIA-PAKISTAN |