South Asia Terrorism Portal
Armies withdraw, but peace is a distant dream Ajai Sahni Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management
Finally, after over ten months, the largest and most extended mobilization of forces between India and Pakistan has been called off, apparently on the grounds that, with the successful execution of the election process in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), it had 'served its purpose'. It is not clear at what stage the electoral process became a 'purpose' of troop mobilization - which commenced immediately after the terrorist attack on India's Parliament on December 13, 2001, and intensified after the Kaluchak massacre on May 14, 2002 - along the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) with Pakistan. The troop mobilization had forced Pakistan into an expensive mirror deployment of its own forces, and escalated regional tensions to what was widely perceived as the 'brink of war' - though coercive diplomacy, rather than war, had been the intent of the Indian move. The decision to move troops back from the IB - but not from the LoC - was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security on October 16, after the National Security Advisory Board and the National Security Council had concluded that the costs of full-scale deployment were now in excess of the expected benefits, and continued forward deployment 'may not be the best option'. Claiming 'vindication' Pakistan has also ordered a pull-back of its own forces. The timing and manner of the Indian decision, however, appears to reinforce the impression that this country's leadership will remain strictly committed to its posture of passive defense against Pakistan, and that, in this confrontation, there is no theory of closure on the Indian side, no end-state that is being consistently pursued. At various times through the period of 'full deployment', India had argued that troop withdrawal would occur only after Pakistan ended the infiltration of terrorists into J&K, and dismantled the infrastructure of terrorism on its soil. There is no evidence that either of these conditions has even partially been met, and though the J&K elections were successful and secured high rates of popular participation, it is also significant that these were, by far, the bloodiest elections in the State's history. It would appear that India has exhausted one major policy option without significant gains, and the initiative has once again been abandoned to Pakistan's maneuverings. It is of course the case that the forward deployment was imposing very significant costs - variously estimated at between Rs. 5 and Rs. 20 billion per month, and unquantifiable losses in terms of the morale and battle-readiness of troops - on both sides; but India had the deeper pockets, and Pakistan was at least being forced to pay some economic price for its sponsorship of terrorism. There is no substitute strategy in evidence to inflict a continuous cost, and to debilitate Pakistan's economy in order to exercise a measure of coercive pressure to force its military leadership to adhere to the minimal norms of civilized international conduct. The Indian 'strategy' - if the stop-go measures that pass for policy here merit this title - appears to invest its entire faith in the 'international community', the evolving relationship with the US, and on an inchoate notion of 'coercive diplomacy', which will eventually have little teeth without hard economic and military leverage. Clearly, the premise that the electoral process in J&K would be followed by 'negotiations' is gaining ground in the absence of a coherently conceived alternative. Much is, consequently, being read into Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's decision to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit at Islamabad in January 2003, although the Indian government has sought to project the view that SAARC is a multilateral forum, and that the occasion would not be allowed to yield space for an inappropriate discussion of a necessarily bilateral dispute. Nevertheless, international (read US) pressure to initiate a process of dialogue is mounting, and the present regime has displayed a peculiar proclivity for broad theatrical gestures in the past - a preference that finds frequent resonance in General Pervez Musharraf's conduct as well (to recall the dramatics of the famous 'handshake' at Kathmandu during the SAAR convention last January, reluctantly accepted by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee). Such gestures are not, however, sound basis for policy and the resolution of conflict between nations, and the very real equations of power, political will and violence on the ground will remain the prime determinants of the course of events in J&K. The 'election' of an unprecedented number of representatives from Islamist fundamentalist parties to Pakistan's National Assembly, and to the Provincial Assemblies of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan, moreover, increases the pressures of radicalization in Pakistan, and will certainly be exploited by the military dictatorship to ward off international pressures for effective and drastic action against Pakistan-based terrorists. America's guarded reaction to the visibly flawed election process - at wide variance with the European Unions' sweeping criticism, as well as of strong condemnation within Pakistan - also indicates that the US will continue to place its faith in Pakistan's present and predatory regime, at least in the near term. This bodes ill, not only for "a society held hostage" within Pakistan, but also for any credible prospects for a lasting peace and an end to terrorism on the sub-continent.