Where borders bleed
Author : Rajiv Dogra
Publisher : Rupa, Rs500
Former senior diplomat Rajiv Dogra uses first-hand experience, anecdotal material, historical evidence, and incisive interpretation for a more contextualised understanding of the India-Pakistan border conflict, writes Rajesh Singh
Borders between countries, disputed or otherwise, are not lifeless lines drawn by cartographers, either in a moment of sanity or a fit of perversity. They have dynamics of their own which can change with a shift in the opinions of policymakers and people across them. They can be like lines drawn on stone (South Korea and North Korea) or can evaporate like water (East Germany and West Germany). They can emerge out of thin air (the creation of many nations with more or less clear delineations out of the monolithic Soviet Union) or be crafted after a tortuous if flawed effort (the Durand line dividing Afghanistan and Pakistan). Borders have a history; and the dissolution of borders too creates history. If Polish trade unionist and later President lech Walesa had boasted about the re-unification of East Germany and West Germany, “We destroyed the borders”, leaders in India and Pakistan can claim, with less pride, “We bleed the borders”.
Rajiv Dogra is a former senior diplomat who has seen the making and breaking of relations from close. He has paid special attention to the unravelling of India-Pakistan ties since 1947, and has poured his heart out in Where Borders Bleed. But the book is not an account of a bleeding heart which wants at least peace, if not friendship, with Pakistan at any cost. It may have taken him until the last chapter of the book to tell the bitter truth, but he does it — perhaps with a heavy heart. He makes three essential points: First, socio-political-security stability in Pakistan will not necessarily lead to a weakening of the Army’s hold on Islamabad’s India Policy and translate into amity with India. Second, an accommodative India (on matters of trade, movement of civilians across the borders etc) will not turn Pakistan into a dove. And third, there is unlikely to be a “massive change of heart” among the Pakistani Generals in the future regarding India. Given these realities, the author laments, “Alas, India has chosen to appease Pakistan and that reality is sobering.”
The line of Control and the International Border which India and Pakistan share have been among the most contested regions in the world. This is primarily due to Pakistan’s continued aggression along the lines, despite being militarily humiliated time and again by India and berated by the world community. Rajiv Dogra uses first-hand experience, anecdotal material, historical evidence, and, above all, incisive interpretation, to take us back and forth in time for a more contextualised understanding of the conflict. It’s about land that is either mine or yours — there is no Toba Tek Singh here. In any case, writer Saadat Hasan Manto (arguably among the greatest the sub-continent has produced), who created this wonderful piece of everyman’s land/no man’s land, had ended up as a pariah for both India and Pakistan.
But let us not get idealistic. Manto had his relevance; however, the people we deal with today are cold-hearted and the circumstances have been complicated by bloated visions of self-grandeur. Moreover, Rajiv Dogra is no Manto; he was a hard-nosed diplomat and is now an equally hard-nosed commentator. His book takes an ambitious sweep of history: From the prelude to Pakistan to the country’s creation to its division and wobbling along until now. Intertwined, there are the disputes with India over Kashmir and over the sharing of the Indus River water. The author takes in the arrivals and departures of so-called democratic leaders in Pakistan (remember the joke doing the rounds: Thus goes an announcement in Pakistan — “Sorry for the democratic interruption; military rule will resume soon”) and the overwhelming presence of military dictatorships that thought nothing of hanging to death a rival or banishing opponents from elected positions.
From Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Benazir Bhutto to Yousuf Raza Gilani to Nawaz Sharif, prominent civilian leaders could never shrug off the military’s shadow, even when the sun did not shine over Pakistan. A few tried, though half-heartedly, to mend fences with India, but were thwarted by the reality that they would never get anywhere with the Pakistan Army fiercely opposed to such thaws. Rajiv Dogra quotes an interesting anecdote by a former Pakistan ambassador, Zafar Hilaly. In Hilaly’s own words, “I was at the OIC summit in Casablanca with Benazir Bhutto in 1995. We had just finished making the rounds of the Heads of State and, feeling pleased with her efforts, Benazir seemed in a receptive mood. I started off by saying that if amity with India was not possible, perhaps managing differences more adroitly was a wise alternative but that this required engaging India far more robustly than we were doing then. ‘Great,’ Benazir remarked, ‘now put it down in black and white, take it to them (the fauz — the army) and if they let you out of the room in one piece, come and tell me their response.’”
Pakistan has been playing the game of dominance for long, as the author points out. As far back as 1961, Foreign Secretary MJ Desai outlined the gameplan. Rajiv Dogra quotes Desai’s letter to then High Commission to Pakistan Rajeshwar Dayal, “…once we get entangled and take tentative positions (on Kashmir), they (Pakistan) would reopen the whole matter and try to get what they could not in spite of their efforts in the Security Council, their Defence Pacts and alliances.”
The author notes with precision, “That’s exactly what India did; it took tentative, almost apologetic positions and got entangled. Pakistan suffered from no such ambiguity. It never does as far as India is concerned.” This was as true for 1961 as it is for the present. And yet, New Delhi has continued with its flip-flops to this day. We just are not able to make up our minds.
Rajiv Dogra relates an interesting episode over the negotiations between General Ayub Khan and Prime Minister lal Bahadur Shastri over the Indian troops’ withdrawal from the strategic Haji Pir pass. India had captured the pass in the 1965 war with Pakistan and Shastri had reportedly said, “If Haji Pir were to be given back to Pakistan, some other Prime Minister would do it.” But later he told his defence chiefs to occupy “only the minimum”, which would be vacated after the satisfactory conclusion of the war. It was vacated in the hope that that would soften Pakistan. It did not. In fact, according to the author, Shastri’s sudden demise in Tashkent where the negotiations were being held was greeted with celebrations in the Pakistani camp. Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary informed ZA Bhutto that the “bastard is dead”.
As they do now after some sabre-rattling, Indians, in the author’s words, slipped back into their routines quickly in the aftermath of the disastrous Tashkent summit. They were extremely upset, though. Rajiv Dogra says that “had Shastri not died, he would have faced a rather reception on return”.
Rajiv Dogra deftly brings in the personal element as well the professional in the conduct of Pakistani leaders. Recalling the first occasion he met Benazir Bhutto, he quotes her as saying, with teary eyes, “There is a lot of suffering in people’s lives behind closed doors, even for those who seem to have it all.” She was referring to the pain her mother had undergone due to ZA Bhutto’s philandering and womanising ways.
Such personal anecdotes are few and far between in the book, which is about a generally failed Indian diplomacy on Pakistan. Present policymakers must take his observations seriously and course-correct.
