Rhetoric Of Despair

The exchange of accusations between General Musharraf and A.B. Vajpayee at the millennium meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York has taken Indo-Pak relations to depths they had never plumbed before. Musharraf compared Kashmir to East Timor, and asked the ‘international community’ to free it by force. Vajpayee responded by calling Pakistan a terrorist state and accused it a few days later at the Asia Society of committing crimes against humanity in Kashmir. On balance, India emerged the loser from this exchange, not because what Vajpayee said was wrong or did not carry conviction, but because most people had expected better from India than to trade accusations with a much smaller neighbour whose very survival as a modern state was looking increasingly doubtful.

Vajpayee’s advisors should, of course, have remembered this. In fact, it was Narasimha Rao who had first pointedly ignored the charges hurled against India by Benazir Bhutto at the 50th anniversary of the UN in 1995. Since then, much to the relief of the world, India had steadfastly refused to raise bilateral issues at multilateral conferences. Vajpayee’s remarks therefore reflect Pakistan’s success in dragging India off the high pedestal it had sought to occupy. It was thus a diplomatic setback, albeit a relatively minor one.

If that is all it was, one could have ignored it. But unfortunately, Vajpayee’s willingness to trade charges in public reflects a deepening sense of despair in New Delhi about the prospects of peace with Pakistan. This feeling began to develop after the Kargil war, but deepened when Pakistan forced the breakdown of the three-month ceasefire offered by the Hizbul Mujahideen after only two weeks. Prior to that, from the early ‘90s, India’s policy had been that of the stonewalling batsman in cricket who decides to see the innings out and force a draw. The unspoken premise behind this policy was that once Pakistan realised India could not be ejected from the state by force, it would be left with no option but to reconcile itself to the status quo.

Kargil showed that Pakistan had chosen to exercise the other option - to go to war to force a change in the status quo. What followed was worse - for in the aftermath of the conflict, Pakistan unleashed the Pakistani and Afghan jehadis on Kashmir. As a result, the rate of attrition suffered by the Indian security forces went up fourfold to a level they could not sustain indefinitely. It was inevitable that India would harden its stand and demand that Pakistan stop all cross-border terrorism if it wanted to renew dialogue. Musharraf’s pleas, after he came to power, for an unconditional dialogue on Kashmir, also fell on deaf ears as India knew that the Kashmir dispute could not be resolved in a few sessions. To negotiate while three to four Indian soldiers were dying every day was to do so with a gun held to one’s head. A halt to cross-border terrorism simply had to come first.

The failure of the ceasefire in Kashmir dealt the second blow to Indian hopes. As it became clear that Musharraf was not going to simply disappear, and commanded a broad measure of support within Pakistan, voices of dissent began to be heard in Delhi. Not talking to him would serve no purpose if there was no one else to talk to. As the pressure on the government to talk to the general mounted, both within and outside the country, New Delhi softened its stand and began to look, at least privately, for a sizeable reduction, instead of a complete halt, to cross-border terrorism as a precondition for resuming dialogue. To pave the way for a reduction in hostilities, New Delhi had released the leaders of the Hurriyat from jail and offered to hold direct talks with them over the future of Kashmir.

When the Hizbul announced its ceasefire, it seemed as if conditions were at last ripe for another go at peace. Opinion in Delhi had been divided between a majority that believed Musharraf had compete control over the jehadis and a minority that believed he didn’t. The former saw the Hizbul offer as a virtual revolt against Islamabad’s yoke by a militant organisation that had suffered cruel losses; the latter saw it as a move encouraged by Musharraf for much the same reasons that made Delhi release the Hurriyat leaders. This view was buttressed by Musharraf’s remarks to a delegation of visiting Indian journalists in Islamabad in July, that he was prepared to accept any solution acceptable to Kashmiris - a remark that marked a sharp departure from Pakistan’s earlier insistence upon a UN-supervised plebiscite under the 1948 uncip resolutions.

This debate became irrelevant when the ceasefire in Kashmir broke down. If the Hizbul had indeed revolted, then the revolt had been crushed. If Musharraf had tried to find a third way in Kashmir, then he had had the rug pulled from under his feet by a combination of jehadis, their religious mentors, and their supporters in the isi and the Pakistan army. In many ways, the second conclusion was more depressing than the first. For it showed that even a military government was incapable of pulling Pakistan off the path of mindless confrontation and eventual self-destruction.

The heightened rhetoric in New York shows that neither government now has a policy towards the other. But it’s too early for either government to accept defeat. The way ahead has already been shown by Hizbul chief Salahuddin, who has asked India to make the next move towards a dialogue with the Hizbul. In a letter to President Clinton, he also expressed his grief at the death of Indian soldiers to their families. Musharraf has also made changes within the army general staff that are likely to strengthen his own influence over the armed forces. If New Delhi still feels it can’t talk directly to him, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t take the lead and propose another ceasefire to the Hizbul with the caveat that it will talk not to the Hizb but the Hurriyat leaders. That after all was its original purpose when it released them in May. The ball will then be in Pakistan’s court.