Talks come, talks fail, plea goes on forever

There is a perennial quality to a section of the civil society’s plea for India-Pakistan talks that reminds one of Alfred Tennyson’s The Brook, “For men may come and men may go, / But I go on forever.” Read instead, “For talks may come and talks may fail, / But the plea goes on forever.” The question to ask, particularly after the aborted talks scheduled from August 24, is whether dialogues between the two countries, back-channel or in the clear light of the day, can yield results. Those familiar with Pakistan’s internal power alignments and strategic doctrine would find it very difficult to say “yes”. State power in Pakistan, it is widely known, rests on three pillars. The first is the Army, which calls the shots even when an elected civilian Government is in power. Its clout, which some hoped, would diminish post-Musharraf, has, in fact, waxed thanks to the threat the second pillar, the jihadi segment, poses to the civilian Government. The latter, the third and perhaps the weakest pillar, knows that its writ may not run even in the capital city of Islamabad without the Army’s support.

In fact, even the lives of the Prime Minister and key members of his Cabinet may not then be safe. Recall the assassinations of Pakistani Punjab’s Governor, Salman Taseer, and Minorities Minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, in January and March 2011, respectively, and of Pakistani Punjab’s Home Minister, Shuja Khanzada in August this year. It has no chance — if there ever was any-other than that of playing the second fiddle to the Army’s. In any case, the latter has always had the final word in Pakistan’s policy toward Kashmir and India.

The question arises whether there is any chance of the jihadi threat diminishing and, thereby, enhancing the civilian Government’s ability to stand up to the Army. The answer is a resounding “no”. The jihadis would not want peace because that would drastically reduce their money inflow and their salience in Pakistan’s public life. Besides, some of these are spawns of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, which continues to nurture them. The most prominent example is the lashkar-e-Tayyeba whose headquarters sprawl over 200 acres in Muridke near lahore. Against India, its primary area of operations is Jammu & Kashmir but it has launched attacks in other parts including New Delhi, Mumbai (the most sinister one being the one labeled 26/11), Bangalore, Hyderabad, Varanasi, and Kolkata and so on.

leT is banned as a terrorist organisation by India, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Russia and Australia — and, formally, even by Pakistan. The United Nations has designated it as a foreign terrorist organisation and also proscribed the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h. It, however, continues to receive help and protection from not only the Pakistani Army and the ISI, of which the leT and allied bodies are strategic assets, but Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Punjab. Both have excellent ties with Hafeez Saeed, the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h and have been helping him with Government funds. Under the latter as Chief Minister, Pakistan’s Punjab provincial Government provided more than `8.2 crore in 2009-2010 for the administration of JuD facilities. In fiscal 2010-2011, Chief Minister Sharif, using his discretionary powers, allocated `7.98 crore for six organisations at Markaz-e-Toiba, the JuD’s largest centre, and a special grant-in-aid of `30 lakh for the JuD’s Al-Dawa school system. Pakistan’s Punjab’s provincial Government’s Budget for 2013-2014 allocated `35 crore to the Markaz-e-Tayyeba for setting up a “knowledge park” and `6.1 crore to the JuD.

Even if the leT and allied organisations did not have support in high places, it would have been difficult for Pakistan’s Government to wipe them out, or even brush aside their criticism of attempts to patch things up with India. Pakistani Army’s much-hyped offensive, Rah-e-Raast (the Right Path or the Straight Path) against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or the Pakistani Taliban, launched in the lower Dir district of the country’s North-West Frontier Province on April 26, 2009, and extended to the neighbouring Buner district of the same Province on April 28, eventually covered Swat, Upper Dir, Shangla and several others of its 24 districts and large tracts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas — comprising seven agencies — Khyber, Kurram, Bajaur, Mohammand, Orakzai and North and South Waziristan.

like the subsequent offensives, it achieved very little. Most often, the troops did not do much. An AFP report, published in the Dawn of July 26, 2009, stated, “Pakistan says that it has eliminated the Taliban in a military offensive launched last April in north-western districts of Buner, Dir and Swat, which rendered nearly two million people displaced. But deadly skirmishes continue raising fears that the Taliban escaped into the mountains and might return, as after previous offensives.”

The reasons for the Pakistani Army’s failure are well-known. A report by Richard A Oppel and Pir Zubair Shah in The New York Times of January 24, 2009, had stated, “When the Army does act, its near-total lack of preparedness to fight a counterinsurgency reveals itself. Its principal tactics is to lob artillery shells into a general area, and the results have seemed to hurt civilians more than the militants, residents say.”

The Army proved to be unprepared because its orientation was — and continues to be-toward fighting a conventional war against India, and the bulk of the weaponry Pakistan had bought with the huge amounts of American aid post-9/11, was for fighting India and not the insurgents. The Americans, who know this, did precious little except occasionally telling Pakistan, Naughty! Naughty! Good countries don’t do such things.

And, of course, the good country in question, paid little heed. Armed to the teeth against India, Pakistan feels it is under no compulsion to seriously seek peace. It also believes that the United States, desperately seeking its help to cobble together an Afghan settlement, will not dare to push Islamabad beyond a point. And, of course, there is that all-weather, all-seasons friend, China. If anything, it will continue to regard India’s overtures for peace, as a sign of weakness.

Instead of appealing for peace, India should concentrate on building deterrent military strength. There is a great deal of sense in American President Theodore (Not Franklin Delano) Roosevelt’s oft-quoted advice, “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”