Dialogue With Direction

THERE have already been eight substantive rounds of talks between the Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries and they have yielded nothing. So why should the next round in Islamabad and the one after in New Delhi be any different? One is tempted to say because these are the first talks being held after the nuclear tests, in the suddenly full, and anxious, gaze of the world. But a more important reason is that they are taking place at a time when Pakistan—both the nation and its still fledgling democracy—faces the most serious crisis of its existence.

Washington's economic sanctions have given its debt-burdened economy the final little push needed to topple it. Transfusions from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states are keeping it afloat, but cannot revive confidence in its future. The economic crisis has brought every latent fissure in the polity and society into the open. A huge upsurge of right-wing jingoism has stymied Nawaz Sharif's bid to sign the CTBT and thus loosen US and IMF purse-strings. The American bombing of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan has exposed the ugly other face of the Pakistani state—the one dominated by the ISI, Wahaby fundamentalists and hate-spewing madrassas. But paradoxically, that has strengthened the Right even further, for its spokesmen now feel that there is nothing left to hide.

Pakistani moderates—they do exist—have now to contend with the consequences of the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan. The first will be a return flow of battle-hardened Wahaby fanatics. It is anybody's guess how many will be enticed into terrorist organisations like the Sipah-e-Sahaba, which hunts Shias, the Laskhar-e-Toiba, which hunts down Seraikis in West Punjab when it is not killing Hindus and Gujjars in Doda and Himachal, and the Harkat-ul-Ansar, which has global ambitions. Certainly the Pakistani minorities feel sufficiently threatened to have held a joint meeting to demand federal autonomy.

This many-faceted challenge is in danger of being turned into an excuse for another attack on Pakistan's democracy by its hyper nationalists. Last week, charges of personal corruption surfaced against Nawaz Sharif, and the chief of army staff, Gen Jehangir Karamat, demanded the establishment of a national security council that would 'institution-alise' decision-making. The fact that Gen Karamat resigned because of the political furore his remarks touched off suggests that he had nothing more ambitious in mind than to insulate some of the extremely difficult decisions that Pakistan would have to take in coming months from short-sighted political competition. But the fact that he wanted to endow the council with executive and not just advisory power suggests that his purpose was to contain the growth of democratic forces and to institutionalise the national security state at a time when more and more Pakistanis blame it and its unending jehad against India for their poverty, for the rise of insensate fundamentalism in their midst, and for the dire straits to which the economy has been reduced.

Never has any Pakistani PM been under greater pressure to show some results than Sharif is today. Indeed, his very survival could depend on being able to show some progress in the talks with India. His keenness to make some progress this time was reflected by the pains his foreign office took to disown the report in a Kuwaiti magazine that he expected 'zero' progress in these talks, and to explain that the interview had been given before the two PMs agreed on the resumption of talks. And if one reads between the lines, it is reflected by his foreign secretary's remarks on the direction he hopes the talks on Kashmir will take.

These remarks make it clear that Pakistan wants an eventual separation of the Valley and parts of Jammu from India, and an interim period of international trusteeship followed by a plebiscite that gives the Kashmiris only two options—Pakistan or India—as envisaged in the 1948 resolutions. But a close reading shows that this is its maximal position. No one who enters into serious negotiations can harbour the illusion that it will get all it wants, and Shamshad Ahmed can be no exception.

PAKISTAN'S internal crisis has thus made its government more flexible on Kashmir than it has been at any time in the past nine years. Despite the sphinx-like silence of South Block, there are indications that New Delhi is approaching the discussions in the same spirit. India too has its maximal position, to wit that Kashmir acceded to India and Pakistan has been in illegal occupation of a third of the state for 50 years. It too is not likely to abandon this initial position in the very first round of talks. But there is a great deal that the two countries can nevertheless do.

They could, for instance, jointly announce measures that will eliminate the possibility of an accidental nuclear war, such as pulling their missiles out of range of each other's territory and installing a hotline to sort out misunderstandings. They could, and indeed they ought to, announce that they will sign the CTBT jointly in New York in the very near future. These measures will enable the US to lift sanctions on both countries and save Pakistan's economy.

But Pakistan also needs to stop sending mercenaries to Kashmir. It cannot claim that it is negotiating on behalf of the Kashmiris and keep sending in Afghan and Pakistani mercenaries with contracts to kill civilians. Their presence, moreover, forces the Kashmir government to arm its police with special powers that they often misuse. New Delhi must therefore insist Pakistan admit what it has been doing and stop doing it. Further talks will be pointless if they are based on the quicksand of deception and subterfuge.