People chose to forget the Pakistani Prime Minister's role and involvement in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, in which 250 Indians perished. He had also been briefed extensively about the impending Kargil intrusion
India suffers from a long-term diplomatic malady. Whenever a new ruler takes over in Pakistan, he is automatically described as a votary of peace, reconciliation and harmony by many Indians and the Indian media. This happened when Generals Ayub, Yahya, Zia and Musharraf took over, or when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif assumed the reins of office. Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan took us to war in 1965 and 1971 and a combination of Mr Musharraf and Mr Sharif inflicted the Kargil conflict on us. This charade was re-enacted when Mr Sharif returned to office this year, with many scribes choosing to be highly impressed by Mr Sharif’s claims of being a “changed man”, committed to a new era of peace and friendship with India. Sections of the corporate sector joined the chorus, extolling the qualities of the new leadership, because of his dangling the prospect of enhanced trade and energy cooperation.
Amid all this fanfare, people chose to forget Mr Sharif’s role and involvement in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, in which 250 Indians perished. It is also known that Mr Sharif was briefed both in the General Headquarters at Rawalpindi and in Skardu, about the impending Kargil intrusion, even before he embraced Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in lahore. Moreover, coinciding with the Kargil intrusion, Mr Sharif was a participant in finalising a ‘Broader Kashmir Plan’, which involved an approach to the Afghan Taliban leadership to provide 20,000 to 30,000 ‘volunteers’, for jihad in Kashmir — a proposal the Taliban agreed to fully support. More importantly, Mr Sharif and his party have retained close links with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda-linked extremist groups in Pakistan, such as the lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the Sipah-e-Sahiba and the lashkar-e-Jhangvi,
Despite evidence of Mr Sharif’s propensities, New Delhi chose to rush ahead with plans for a summit meeting in New York. There was ample evidence of a build-up for enhancing infiltration across the line of Control, which led to an escalation of tensions and the brutal killings of Indian soldiers, which the Government initially sought to downplay. What New Delhi has sought to slur over is that the ceasefire, which had been largely respected for a decade since November 2003, was being flagrantly violated, after Mr Sharif took over as Prime Minister. There have been 55 violations of the ceasefire in this August and 31 in September. More seriously, the shootout in the Keran sector has been described as a ‘mini-Kargil’.
The agreement reached at New York to enhance Director-General of Military Operations-level contacts suits Mr Sharif just fine, as DGMO discussions are hardly likely to end infiltration. With winter setting in, infiltration across the loC will inevitably fall significantly. The real issue is whether Mr Sharif and Pakistan’s new Army chief will respect the ceasefire and end infiltration after the Himalayan snows melt in June 2014. Given Mr Sharif’s past track record one would be well advised to proceed with circumspection, care and caution, on this score.
All this is reminiscent of the escalation in cross-loC violence when Mr Sharif commenced his second term in 1997. Worse still, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed now roams across lahore and Islamabad, spewing venom against India, with patronage from Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. Moreover, the carrots of enhanced trade and energy cooperation are now in cold storage. A redeeming feature of recent developments has, however, been the bluntness with which India was prepared to call a spade a spade, when it comes to terrorism sponsored by Pakistan, both at the Washington Summit and the UN General Assembly.
Mr Manmohan Singh uncharacteristically asserted: “I explained to President Obama the difficulties we face, given the fact that the epicentre for terror still remains focussed in Pakistan.” The Prime Minister was even more candid in his address to the UN General Assembly, where he also made it clear that the entire State of Jammu & Kashmir is and will remain an integral part of India.
Pakistan now faces a ‘three-front situation’. Internally, the country faces, what Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid has noted, is the prospect of a bloody confrontation with the Tehriq-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan and its Punjabi allies, a festering insurgency in Balochistan and escalating ethnic and sectarian tensions in Karachi. At the same time, Pakistan has opened a second front across the Durand line, by continuing to back the Mullah Omar-led Taliban and the North Waziristan-based Haqqani network. It has also recently opened a third front by escalating violence across the loC in Jammu & Kashmir, apart from its efforts to spread terrorist violence across India, using its lashkar-e-Tayyeba assets, to incite groups like the Indian Mujahideen, while resorting to economic destabilisation, by smuggling of counterfeit Indian currency, through Nepal. There is now strategic space for India to imaginatively and pro-actively respond to Pakistan’s growing internal turmoil, raising the costs for Pakistan, and for its sponsorship of terrorism.
India should respond in a calculated and calibrated manner. There can be a process of engagement on issues like people to people contacts, trade, energy and economic relations and confidence building measures on issues like trade and travel cross the loC. In the meantime, ‘back channel’ contacts can continue on issues like terrorism and Jammu & Kashmir. River waters issues should continue to be addressed as per the Indus Waters Treaty and the Sir Creek issue in accordance with internationally accepted principles. There can obviously be no question of any withdrawal from Siachen till a final settlement of the issue of Jammu & Kashmir and the delineation of Actual Ground Position line.
India’s policies to deal with Pakistan’s Second Front, the Durand line, should be reinforced through a comprehensive Russia-Afghanistan-India security dialogue, to strengthen Afghanistan’s defence potential and address the security concerns of Russia’s Central Asian partners, whose security is underwritten by Russia, through the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan are threatened by the growing presence of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, along their borders with Afghanistan. India should initiate a direct dialogue with the CSTO. India’s diplomatic efforts regionally and globally should aim to aggressively isolate and shame Pakistan, as the epicentre for terrorism in its neighbourhood.
Maleeha lodhi, one of Pakistan’s best informed journalists reports that agreement was reached in New York for the National Security Advisers of the two countries to be charged with “discussing and allaying each other’s concerns” on terrorism. If true, we have agreed to equate unfounded charges of Indian involvement in Balochistan with the universally-accepted fact that Pakistan is the epicentre of global terrorism. Have we learnt no lessons from the Sharm el-Sheikh fiascoIJ