Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, discusses with ANANYA BORGOHAIN the doomed existence that the sordidness between India and Pakistan has created and suggests how the crisis can be mitigated
A discourse on the complex relationship between India and Pakistan is beyond the ambit of one book. However, it makes for an engaging and enlightening political rhetoric when an insider furnishes a very relevant purview of the situation. Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister from 2002 to 2007 under General Pervez Musharraf, apprises his readers about Pakistan’s foreign policy, with special attention the country’s relationship with India with reference to multiple contexts, in his greatly detailed book Neither a Hawk nor a Dove (Penguin Random House, `999). Hailing from an illustrious political family in colonial India, Kasuri is privy to the changing dynamics of world politics. India is an inescapably crucial part of his book where he reveals that both India and Pakistan had come very close to resolving their perpetual dissension in 2007. The book was recently launched in Delhi in the presence of significant political figures such as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Deputy PM lK Advani, former Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, former Chief Minister of J&K, Farooq Abdullah, and so on. In an interview, he discusses the plight of Pakistani Hindus, why the US and Pakistan need each other, where Pakistan’s alliance with China leaves India, how Pakistan is controlling state-sponsored radicalisation, and how the young generation no longer subscribes to the old prejudices against India.
You have, though subtly, maintained throughout the book that India has been hostile to Pakistan’s peace suggestions and that the Indian Government gives too much prominence to its Army, in the context of the Kashmir conflict. You seem to believe that Kashmiris’ participation in the conflict is indispensible.
I am not the only person talking about the prominence of the military in India, but it has been conclusively proved by political commentator Sanjaya Baru in his book, The Accidental Prime Minister. I was also getting completely different messages on Siachen from General JJ Singh, the then Indian Army chief, and the civilian Government of India. Baru wrote about how every retired General who dealt with that area was consulted while making the decision of turning Siachen into a Mountain of Peace. The then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, too had agreed to deem Siachen as the Mountain of Peace and he must not have taken the decision in vacuum. Something surely must have been going on there. Baru mentioned how General Singh would say one thing to the Prime Minister and at times a completely different thing to the Defence Minister. That is something that revolves around the internal civil-military relation in India and I can comment only to the extent that I was told these things from the civil side. I say this because Pakistan’s Army is often accused of interfering in India’s military affairs in Kashmir. In fact, it was in New Delhi where I read about it at first when I was there for the India-Pakistan peace talks. If I am not wrong, it coincided with the Samjhauta blasts. I was advised to cancel the visit but I had refused to give veto power to terrorists.
Also, in some form or the other, participation of the people of Kashmir is crucial in solving the conflict. I had urged India to engage the Hurriyat in the talks but my Indian counterpart at that time, Natwar Singh, had said that that would not be possible. So I suggested that we should at least let people travel to each other’s country. But Singh was unable to convince the Prime Minister.
An important section of the book discusses the religious minorities in both countries. What is your opinion on the hundreds of Pakistani Hindus seeking asylum in IndiaIJ
Yes, it’s a terrible plight. I was invited to the Jaipur literature Festival this year and a young man came up to me and said that he had learned English listening to my speeches on TV! He was a Hindu from Tharparkar. I asked if he was on a visit, he said that he had migrated from Pakistan to India and had not decided then if he should move back to Pakistan. It saddens me to see MA Jinnah’s vision being distorted this way. Pandit Nehru and Jinnah disagreed on many things, but one thing they had firmly agreed on was that it would be good for both countries to look after their minorities and the way they thought they could do it was through the presence of a substantial amount of minorities on both sides.
As far as west Pakistan is considered, there are very few Hindus left other than in Sindh. For instance, there are two Hindu doctors in Mayo hospital, there’s a Sikh too. Our former Chief Justice was a Hindu, our top fashion designers like Deepak Perwani are Hindus; the most significant number of Hindus in Pakistan are in Sindh and some of them are doing really well for themselves. But I know they do feel very insecure there. For example, when the Babri Masjid incident took place, the Hindus were very scared.
Even in India, I have read about how Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar could not find a desirable accommodation because they are Muslims. I was also told by Principal Secretary to Nawaz Sharif at the time of the Kargil War in May 1999, Saeed Mehdi, that actor Dilip Kumar (originally from Pakistan and named Yusuf Khan) had talked to Sharif over the phone through Atal Bihari Vajpayee, urging Sharif to do something to restore peace. He had said that he had not come out of his house. That was shocking because Dilip Kumar is a superstar from our times.
In order to defeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US decided to support the Mujahideen. Young men were invited to fight the “Godless Soviets”, but this ended with Pakistan being boomeranged with civilian attacks by these youths. What measures is the country now taking to control this state-sponsored radicalisationIJ
This one was the last straw. It was officially patronised, formed, trained, and funded by the CIA, helped by ISI, supported by many Muslim and European countries as well as by China. They were trained to fight the “Godless Soviet”. In order to solve it now, Pakistan has to change its policy and I am happy to see the Army do so recently in North Waziristan. The Army is checking casualties and fighting for many years. Even the British found it difficult to fight in these terrains. I am happy as a Pakistani. There should not be multiple centres of power in a modern state. Violence must be the monopoly of the state. Any state which allows non-state actors to be violent will collapse. In your case, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale is a good example.
Our Pashtuns are anyway historically radicalised. There are more Pashtuns in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. So we get dragged in whatever happens in Afghanistan. But frankly, it’s not our business to interfere there. I was happy dealing with Abdullah Abdullah who was the Chief Executive Officer of Afghanistan. The only thing that worries me is that the first country that supported Pashtunistan was India. And if you go to the state department’s website from that time, it would say that it was a demand supported by India. Pakistanis, therefore, developed the feeling that India tried to apply pressure on Pakistan through Afghanistan.
Is a Canada-US type of association possible between India and PakistanIJ
It would not work at all. US-Canada, Panama-Argentina etc are all very different from Pakistan-India. This relationship needs constant guidance and positive input. The nature of this relationship is that it can either go up or down. There’s much statement-making these days and that creates a volatile situation. Nobody will accept red lines in today’s time. Even the United States cannot set red lines today. The US is very unhappy with what Vladimir Putin did in Ukraine, but they will still have to hold talks with him on Syria.
So no country can now afford to set its own unilateral red lines. The objective of diplomacy is to create a win-win situation. I would suggest, find an area of convergence and expand it. In this process, you will realise that walls are not rigid as long as you have created trust. My interlocutors knew I meant what I said and that’s why I believe I could create a state of progress to a great degree.
liaquat Ali Khan chose Washington over communist Moscow to be Pakistan’s ‘powerful friend’ in 1950, but Pakistan’s relationship with the US has always been edgy, more so after 9/11. Had things been any different if it had allied with Russia back thenIJ Do you not feel that the US always had a trust deficit in PakistanIJ
First, we need to understand why Pakistan went to the US. A few months before Pakistan came into being, some Congress leaders had said that they (Pakistanis) will come crawling back; that the state cannot survive, there’s no industry, no self-reliance. I come from Kasur and the next district is Ferozepur; Hussainiwala Headworks is situated there. When water was stopped, one of the most lasting memories in my mind was of liaquat Ali Khan with a mukka (clenched fist); “liaquat Ali Khan ka mukka” became a clear symbol indicating that if we have nothing to live for, we would rather die fighting.
You see, at that time, Pandit Nehru was a Fabian socialist; his close aide VK Krishna Menon was a Marxist. Now, most Pakistani leaders were Right-wing, aristocratic, and from the feudal class, so they felt that an alliance with the US instead of communist Russia would be more beneficial for Pakistan in terms of economy and military. I am in no position to comment on how things would be today if Pakistan had chosen Russia, but it only made sense to ally with the US back then. So the armed forces also became very powerful within the Pakistan polity.
My father and his friends were communists, so they disagreed with this alliance. But in my growing years, I agreed with the Pakistan-US association; at least the US didn’t ban religion, unlike an atheist state. I don’t know how far it is true but I am told that our Ambassador to Tehran, Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan, sounded the Soviet Ambassador out, asking for an invitation from Russia to Pakistan so that the US too immediately sends an invitation to the Pakistan PM! So maybe the invitation from the US was asked out by Pakistan.
Yes, there is a lot of trust deficit on both sides, but they have learned to live with it because they need each other. Moreover, they have a common interest in Afghanistan. Nobody, including China, wants an unstable Afghanistan. In China too, Xinjiang has a strong Muslim population; 1/6th of the people in the country are Muslims.
In the same context, India is insecure of the Pakistan-China alliance.
I understand the insecurity. You see, we are located very strategically, connecting South Asia to central and west Asia. And we have derided ourselves the benefit of this. We need to leverage this position and with a modicum of decency at that. We — India, Pakistan, China, Russia — are the centre of the largest economy of the world. This is the land of fibre optics, pipelines, et al. The world must be laughing at how foolishly we bicker among ourselves. We need to put a stop to this. But India thinks that we are always conspiring against its interest. At the same time, recently, India attained civil nuclear energy and Pakistan didn’t. Pakistan understandably is upset with the US and hence finds China more favourable.
What is your opinion of the Delhi-lahore bus serviceIJ
I am in favour of it but very few people would dare to travel in it. They are scared. A degree of certainty and security is required to propagate peace in the region. I write about a cricket match in lahore in 2007 in which India had defeated Pakistan and for a moment people didn’t know how to react. But soon, the youths started cheering for the winning team and the stadium was filled with waving Indian and Pakistani flags. This happened after just three years of striving for peace and I think we can achieve so much more. Coming back to internal travel, Pakistan also has one of the highest mountain ranges in the world, the Karakoram. It could be trekkers’ paradise with 1/4th the cost one would bear in say a European country. At one point, in fact, the Germans were actually thinking of starting a direct flight from Frankfurt to Gilgit or another city. Pakistan and India have much to profit from internal travel.
You mention that the Baglihar dam was also a burning issue in the Indo-Pak conflict. Could you elaborate how water dispute is as strong a cause of concern for both countries as the Kashmir conflictIJ
I mention that if Baglihar was the only dam being built by India on the Chenab and Jhelum rivers, it’s still not as big a problem as could be posed by other projects such as Kishanganga, Sawalkot, Bursar etc. India would thus influence the timing of flows into Pakistan. Two years ago, there was great water scarcity in Pakistan. Allegedly, India tried to fill in one of the dams so that Pakistan suffers. India possibly could have filled it another time but it was done deliberately. I don’t know how true that is but I would suggest in order to solve the water dispute between India and Pakistan, the Indus Waters Treaty could be maintained, but we also need to look at the changes in climate and technology. We have satellites over us today and can see everything that the other is doing. So we need to get out of this mode of non-cooperation. Transparency is required.
You also mention at one point that only media could solve the loC problem. Could you please elucidateIJ
Print media has still been a little responsible, but electronic media has been consumed by the fight for TRPs and fierce competition. I think the loC problem could be handled sensibly by the media. At present, only two journalists on each side have been assigned. I think media is more important than politicians and hence its operations need to be much more responsible than they are right now.
In a historic move, Indian PM Narendra Modi not only met with SAARC leaders but also extended a hand of friendship towards Pakistan as well as made multi-billion trade agreements in UAE. Earlier this year, he visited Sri lanka too. Given that these countries have been considered Pakistan’s allies, including Saudi Arabia, does that pose any threat to Pakistan’s foreign policyIJ
I think these things are transient. I believe SAARC needs to cooperate and have great models like ASEAN and EU. In the Indonesia-Malaysia conflict, they had a project, Crush Malaysia, created by Indonesia. After the ousting of Sukarno, President Suharto and his Foreign Minister Adam Malik successfully changed the paradigm. India and Pakistan need to learn from that and forget the bloodied past.
You mention that the young generation is ignorant of Pakistan’s history. You have lamented that historical distortions and infusion of ideology in the curriculum have heightened intolerance in Pakistan. You mention that the young generation needs to be educated about Mehrgarh civilisation, Gandhara civilisation, the Indus Valley Civilisation, or even that Jinnah was actually the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity in the Congress. As a leader, what would you suggest to enlighten people about these factsIJ
Mahatma Gandhi went on a hunger strike to ensure that Pakistan is not bereft of its basic rights when it comes into existence. We don’t even read about these things. Our textbooks are filled with a lot of grudges. Germany and France, after reconciling, now have a new textbook on teaching German in France, educating about their common history. And in our case, many do not even know that Jinnah — unlike his anglophile reputation — was in fact considered to be an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity in the Congress.
The good news is that the young generation today has no prejudice. Whatever little prejudice they may have, they might have learned from the older generation. Now people don’t accept blindly that India is an enemy. Pakistanis watch a lot of Indian films, they relish Indian food, meet Indian people abroad. That’s why I support free travel. We are probably the only two countries where the students can’t go to each other’s campuses. My wife had set up Pakistan’s first liberal arts university. There was no protocol for visiting students. I am happy that we could liberalise visa. Around 100,000 people travelled between both countries after that.
lastly, India and Pakistan had almost reached a solution in 2007 through backchannel negotiations. Do you think that can still workIJ
It cannot happen if everybody keeps playing for votes. I think the way out is to avoid media publicity completely. Modi should have complete trust on his backchannel negotiator. This person could be anyone — a lawyer, journalist, politician etc, but should have ready access and credibility. Similarly should be the case in Pakistan. There should be a common interest outside media glare and name-calling. Only then maybe one would stop asking who runs Pakistan!
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