South Asia Terrorism Portal
The Realities of 'Peace' Ajai Sahni Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management President General Pervez Musharraf's 'cricket diplomacy', and before that, the inauguration of the Srinagar-Muzzaffarabad bus service (opening a route that had been shut down for nearly 57 years), had, over the past weeks, once again pushed the Indo-Pak peace process into the media centre-stage. India had been guilty of the first phase of the frenetic media build-up, as both the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) State Government and the Centre enormously overplayed the 'bus diplomacy' - with a high profile inauguration by the Prime Minister at Srinagar, attended by Party Chief, Sonia Gandhi, and a phalanx of other political leaders [in stark contrast to the low-key inauguration by the 'Prime Minister' of Pakistan-held 'Azad Jammu and Kashmir' (AJK)]. Camera crews in India tediously covered "every inch of the journey" from Srinagar to the Kaman Post - the last Indian outpost on the bus route - and the newly refurbished Aman Setu (Peace Bridge) that spans the line between Indian and Pakistani control, hysterically projecting the bus service as a major breakthrough towards a 'solution' to the Kashmir imbroglio. Musharraf, on the other hand, dismissed the bus service as "a small step towards confidence building and a small contribution for the happiness of the people." In the interim, the General appeared to have been plotting his revenge, as he forced an invitation - apparently to attend a match in the ongoing Indo-Pakistan cricket series - which he tenaciously expanded into a 'mini Summit' with the Indian leadership, insisting throughout that the Kashmir issue needed to be taken up "immediately" because "we don't have time." He did not elaborate on this claim, but earlier, on March 27, he had threatened that, if 'new Kargils' were to be prevented, the Kashmir dispute would first have to be resolved. However, if he had calculated on his capacity to force the issue and secure a dramatic breakthrough or at least some major concessions from the Indian side by raising the rhetorical intensity of the media confrontation several notches before his meetings with Indian leaders and officials, the eventual Joint Statement issued by the two countries at the end of his quick tour - during which he spent a little over an hour actually at the venue of the cricket match - demonstrated his failure. Apart from the widening of CBMs along lines already established in official-level talks - greater 'people to people' contacts; more trade; and advancing of 'institutional mechanisms' to focus on various outstanding issues - nothing of significance was wrested from talks with the Indian Prime Minister, even though these extended long beyond their scheduled half hour. Reports suggest, further, that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took this opportunity to reiterate his now clear stand that there would be no redrawing of the Indian map, and no 'further Partitions'. Significantly, the Indian leadership had sent out strong and clear signals in the days preceding the General's visit, prominently: on April 14 the Defence Minister accused Pakistan of pursuing a 'two-faced' policy on Kashmir, at once sponsoring terrorism and engaging in negotiations for 'peace'; earlier, on April 8, the External Affairs Minister had stated that "all options" were open "except redrawing the map of India and having a second Partition"; and finally, there was the Prime Minister's own lucid and exceptional address at the Conference of Chief Ministers on April 15, in which he articulated an utterly uncompromising vision on terrorism and its sponsors, just a day before the General's arrival in Delhi. The General's failed gambit was located in hard calculations that provoked his observation, "we don't have time." Transformations in the external and internal environment impinging on the sustainability of Pakistan's enterprise of terror, as well as on Pakistan's own future, have now demonstrated clearly that the military and terrorist adventurism of the past is no longer sustainable. To the extent that strategists in Pakistan have long been convinced - and rightly so - that without violence or the threat of violence, India will never concede anything on Kashmir, and the increasing difficulties of calibrating violence at a sufficient level within J&K, it is clear that the Pakistani strategy is running out of time. This is enormously compounded by Pakistan's rising internal difficulties. For one thing, Musharraf's efforts at political management of increasing internal discontent and strife are not fructifying. His efforts to arrive at a deal with the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader, Benazir Bhutto, appears to have fallen through (though Islamist extremist elements of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, increasingly restive with the passage of time, insist that Asif Zardari, Bhutto's husband, is being 'built up' through the orchestrated arrest of PPP cadres, and his brief detention on his return to Karachi, as part of such a 'deal'). In Sindh, again, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) - currently a member of the ruling coalition - is straining at the leash. On April 11, Altaf Hussain, the founder of the MQM, demanded a "new constitution for Pakistan" based on "evolving geo-political and geo-strategic realities and the ground realities in the country." He also sought a review of Centre-State relations and the devolution of finances to the States, claiming that provinces other than the Punjab were being discriminated against under the present system, and further threatened that his party would walk out of the Government if military operations in Balochistan did not end, and the proposal to build new cantonments in that province were not abandoned. There are reasons to believe, moreover, that any effort to move ahead on the proposed Kalabagh Dam - essential to deal with the impending water crisis in the country - may plunge Sindh into widespread and violent protests and even the possibility of civil war. The Awami Tehrik had organised a major demonstration on March 31 against the building of the Dam, and the Pakistan Oppressed Nations' Movement (PONAM) had also called for strikes to protest the proposed Dam, the presence of the Army and the establishment of cantonments in Balochistan. Potential political strife in Sindh would overlay the extended troubles in Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province, as well as the increasing restiveness of the radical Islamist elements within and outside Government. Incidents of violence continue in Waziristan, despite the claims of a 'settlement', and Balochistan has been destabilized to a point where it became impossible to go ahead with the scheduled inauguration of the new Port at Gwadar by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao during his visit to Pakistan on April 5-9, 2005. There is, moreover, a real and increasing problem in the Northern Areas, where protests against school curricula imposing 'Sunni beliefs' on the predominantly Shia population, the demographic re-engineering of the region, and the issue of identity cards, are mounting, even as state repression intensifies, with several incidents of firing on unarmed protesters reported over the past months. Significantly, 'elections' to the Legislative Council of the Northern Areas - at best a toothless body - were held in October 2004, but a 'Cabinet' is yet to be constituted, because Islamabad will not allow even this figurehead to be constituted. It is inevitable that other issues will gradually surface in the Northern Areas - long neglected and forcibly kept out of the reach of the national and international media - as a discriminatory policy is pursued with regard to the other and relatively favoured division of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). Thus, while qualified enthusiasm has greeted the Srinagar - Muzzafarabad bus link, and tentative agreement appears to have been reached regarding the "operationalisation of additional routes including that between Poonch and Rawalakot", as well as the re-establishment of the Khokhrapur-Munnabao route, there is a studied silence on the Kargil - Skardu route that would bring two-Shia dominated areas closer. The sense of discrimination in the Northern Areas is accentuated by the fact that, while Muzzaffarabad is now linked to Srinagar across the Line of Control (LoC), the road between Muzzafarabad and Gilgit - both in PoK - lies in a state of disrepair, and the journey must be undertaken via Attock or Mansehra. Overlying all these are the broader economic, social, political, demographic and resource crises looming in the near future. While Kashmir is an 'emotional issue' for the jihadis and for many ordinary Pakistanis, strategists recognize that the critical conflict is over the region's water resources. Projections suggest that Pakistan will suffer an acute shortfall of water well before 2010, unless new resources and reservoirs are made available, and, on the bounteous Chenab, these can only be safely and advantageously constructed in Indian J&K. In addition, the 'miracle' of Pakistan's projected seven per cent rate of GDP growth is widely thought of as being hollow - reflecting massive aid inflows and marginally improved utilization of existing capacities, but no creation of additional capacities or augmentation of investment flows. There has been no decline in poverty levels, and little by way of institutional reforms in critical areas such as education, which could impact positively on future growth. With one of the fastest-growing populations in the region - the country's population is expected to grow by nearly 100 million in 2020 from the 2002 level of about 148 million - Pakistan's developmental future is, at best, troubling. Finally, the external environment is also changing dramatically, and even the qualified 'tolerance of terror' extended by the US is now being diluted, as America seeks radically improved relations - military, economic and technological - with India. Similarly, there is reason to believe that China's incentives to encourage Pakistan in its mischief are being progressively diluted by growing interests in trade with India, and in regional stability, as Beijing single-mindedly pursues its goal of economic reform and expansion. These factors are now increasingly recognized by the thinking Pakistani, and are acutely confining Musharraf's room for manoeuvre. The 'Kashmir front' is no longer sustainable, as a multiplicity of 'internal fronts' open up. That is the key to Pakistan's increasing 'reasonableness'. It is a key India will do well to explore and exploit - especially if acts of terror increase with the melting of the snows in J&K.