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Opinion
Manmohan Singh's Peace Gamble:
Vision Confronts Reality
by Amulya Ganguli
Considering
the ease with which anti-Pakistani feelings can be ratcheted up in India
by the opposition parties and sections of the media, it takes a great
deal of courage to try to reduce tension and move towards peace. In this
respect, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's initiatives in Sharm-el-Sheikh
were a bolder venture than even Atal Bihari Vajpayee's bus journey to
Lahore a decade ago.
The boldness was all the greater because the Sharm-el-Sheikh meeting was
preceded by 26/11 whereas Vajpayee's excursion was followed by the
Kargil conflict, the Kandahar hijacking and the attack on parliament.
Had it been the other way round, Vajpayee would not have travelled to
Lahore at all.
Yet, Manmohan Singh praised his predecessor's overtures to a duplicitous
neighbor during his address to parliament. The reason was that Vajpayee
had to overcome the strong lobby of Pakistan-baiters in his own
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and in the RSS-led Sangh Parivar, a member
of which advised him to go to Lahore in a tank and not in a bus.
The same group in the BJP was active yet again in parliament with a
former minister, Yashwant Sinha, even accusing Manmohan Singh of walking
over to the Pakistani side.
At the end of the parliamentary debate, however, the reference to
Balochistan in the Sharm-el-Sheikh document remained the only point
which gave the BJP some solace. Otherwise, Manmohan Singh's reiteration
that a return to the negotiating table was not possible till Pakistan
acted against its supposedly "non-state" terrorists left the opposition
without any substantial talking point.
In contrast to the BJP's politically-motivated obduracy, what was
evident was the reasonableness of Manmohan Singh's stand that, first,
war was not an option and, second, that channels of communication could
not be shut down even if the interlocutor was perceived to be
mendacious.
Hence the prime minister's reference to Ronald Reagan's "trust, but
verify" directive in the context of the American peace initiatives with
the Soviet Union. Arguably, the Indian efforts to reach an understanding
with Pakistan face even greater obstacles than the Reagan-Gorbachev
dialogue.
The reason is that the US knew who it was dealing with in Moscow. India,
however, cannot be sure whether President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani are really calling the shots in Islamabad,
and not army chief General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani.
India cannot forget that even as Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif were meeting
in Lahore, then Pakistani army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf was preparing
for his Kargil misadventure.
Similarly, Kayani's recent comment that the army will bring the
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) under "control" if India stopped "messing around"
in Balochistan indicates that the links between the military and
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) with the LeT remain intact.
The same impression is conveyed by Pakistani objections to the proposed
American "surge" in the anti-Taliban operations in Afghanistan since
this can lead to the influx of terrorists into Balochistan and elsewhere
in Pakistan. Their arrival will compound the situation for the army
because it is unwilling to move its troops from the Indian border to
fight the internal menace.
It is this suspicion of dualism which probably made Manmohan Singh
express the hope that the "leadership in Pakistan will have the courage
to defeat those who want to destroy peace". His reference may not have
been only to the terrorists but also to their backers in the military
and ISI.
At the same time, the resultant uncertainty about whether it is
worthwhile to negotiate with those who do not have real authority in
Pakistan explains the prime minister's remark that while he shares
Vajpayee's "vision", he also feels "his frustration in dealing with
Pakistan".
Although this is the fundamental difficulty of interacting with
Pakistan, it is a point not raised by parties like the BJP because it
will dilute their criticism of the government and the prime minister's
supposed weakness, on which it is again focusing even though this line
of attack was of no help to it in the elections.
If, on his part, Manmohan Singh was able to dispel much of the
misgivings about delinking acts of terrorism from resumption of the
dialogue, this could not be said about the reference to Balochistan in
the document even if it was due to bad drafting, as Foreign Secretary
Shivshankar Menon conceded.
But if Pakistan believes that allegations of Indian intelligence agency
Research and Analysis Wing's (RAW) involvement in Balochistan will
balance the Indian charges against ISI, it is still a kind of self-goal
for Islamabad because it underlines the prevalence of serious unrest in
a large province a la the former East Pakistan before 1971.
Whether RAW is funneling funds to the Balochistan Liberation Army or
not, as a well-known Pakistani television journalist, Hamid Mir, has
mentioned in a recent article, Baloch separatism is another indication
of Pakistan's fragility, which is also exemplified by the continuing
influence of the Islamic fundamentalists in the north-west.
India's willingness, therefore, to talk to Pakistan if it can rein in
terrorism not only entails propping up the somewhat more dependable
civilian leadership vis-�-vis the military and ISI for the sake of peace
but also to ensure that the latter's flirting with religious extremists
does not further destabilize the failing state.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at aganguli@mail.com)
August 1,
2009
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