India-Pakistan rapprochement:

So near, yet so far

by Stanley Mathews

India and Pakistan, twins born within hours of each other in August 1947, have been in perpetual conflict since birth. And the bone of contention has been the same right through - the sylvan valley of Kashmir. Pakistan claims Kashmir because it is predominantly Muslim, and India refuses to give it because it believes that religion cannot be a basis of territorial claims.

The first war over Kashmir was fought in 1948, the very first year of the existence of the two nations. And the latest stand-off took place this very month, 67 years down the line, when Pakistan called off National Security Advisor (NSA) level talks scheduled for August 23 and 24. Islamabad was unable to accept India's insistence that the Pakistani NSA, Sartaj Aziz, should not invite Kashmiri separatists to a reception at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi.

However, despite four hot wars fought in 1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999, the leaders of the two countries have made several attempts to bridge the divide and get on with the task of developing themselves.

But the leaders' efforts have not borne fruit because of domestic compulsions and powerful internal lobbies. In Pakistan, the stumbling blocks have been: (1) the peoples' enduring commitment to the acquisition of Kashmir as part of the division of the Indian subcontinent on religious lines in 1947 and (2) the military, for which, conflict with India is necessary to maintain its pre-eminent status as a power in Pakistan's domestic affairs.

In India, on the other hand, the stumbling blocks are: (1) a widespread feeling that giving up Kashmir because it is Muslim will mean acceptance of Mohammad Ali Jinnah's specious theory that Hindus and Muslims are two different nations who cannot coexist and (2) a belief among national political parties that a tough policy on Pakistan and Kashmir is necessary for political survival.

After the 1948 war in Kashmir, which resulted in India keeping two-thirds of it and the bulk of the population, there was a UN-brokered peace which saw the settlement of several issues, including those related to the use of river waters. The Pakistan cricket team toured India in the early 1950s to a rousing welcome everywhere.

But Kashmir could not be kept on the backburner for long. In September 1965, Pakistan attempted to take Kashmir again. The 1965 war resulted in the Tashkent Agreement by which captured territories were handed back. But it was back to war again in 1971 when India intervened on the side of the East Pakistani liberation movement on humanitarian and strategic grounds, dividing Pakistan into two.

Search for peace

Continued conflict inevitably leads to a search for peace, or at least some respite. In 1999, the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan began a process of rapprochement with India, then led by the moderate BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee. But then Pakistan Army Chief, Gen. Pervez Musharaff, derailed the process by starting a war in the heights of Kargil in Kashmir. A timely US intervention forced Pakistan to withdraw and Sharif was overthrown by Gen. Musharaff in a military coup.

The impact of this was seen in Pakistan-India relations soon enough. In October 2001, Kashmir's Legislative Assembly was attacked. This was followed by an attack on the Indian Parliament in December that year. India pointed an accusing finger at Pakistan and mobilized its forces on the Line of Control in Kashmir to precipitate what was described as an 'eye ball to eye ball' confrontation.

With the US and the West warning of the possibility of a nuclear war, President Musharaff and Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee began 'back channel' consultations in 2002. While Musharaff named noted diplomat, Tariq Aziz, as his interlocutor, Vajpayee named his National Security Advisor, Brajesh Mishra. Being an army man, Musharaff had the Pakistan Army on board with the then Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) Chief, Gen.Ashfaq Kayani, attending the back channel meetings.

According to a recent book written by former Pakistan Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, Musharaff had publicly stated that he was for the abolition of the Line of Control in Kashmir and for Joint Indo-Pakistan Control over Kashmir. In other words, he was giving up Pakistan's demand for a referendum (or plebiscite) in Kashmir to test the will of the people. During those days of bonhomie in January 2004, Vajpayee visited Islamabad for the SAARC summit, and the Indian cricket team toured Pakistan after a long gap. A bus service between Lahore and Delhi was started.

But in 2006, there were deadly bomb blasts in Mumbai killing hundreds. In 2007, the Train of Understanding (Samjhauta Express) running between India and Pakistan was bombed near New Delhi, killing a lot of Pakistani passengers. The very next year, in 2008, terrorists attacked multiple high profile commercial targets in Mumbai, killing hundreds. The mastermind, identified as Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, was arrested by the Pakistani police but, to India's chagrin, he got out on bail.

While the Pakistanis complained that India was not giving sufficient evidence, the Indians said Pakistan was not giving Lakhvi's voice samples. India also complained that Pakistan was not extraditing the other mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, Dawood Ibrahim.

However, when Nawaz Sharif became Prime Minister again in 2013, he held out a hand of friendship to India. But the moment he announced it, suspected Pakistani terrorists attacked the Indian Consulate in Jalalabad in Afghanistan. When Sharif announced his intention to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2014, the Indian Consulate in Herat in Afghanistan was attacked.

Fresh talks

However, despite these provocations, India and Pakistan decided to hold Foreign Secretaries level talks in Islamabad in August 2014. But before the talks, the Pakistani High Commissioner in India, Abdul Basit, held talks with the Kashmiri separatist leader, Shabbir Shah, raising hackles in the Indian Establishment, which believes there is no room for Third Parties in settling the Kashmir issue. India called off the Foreign Secretaries-level talks.

But the gruesome massacre of 132 school kids by Pakistani Jehadists at an army school in Peshawar in Pakistan in December 2014, made the leaders of Pakistan and India to think of co-operation to fight terrorism jointly. Threads were picked up in July 2015, when Sharif and Modi met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Council conference at Ufa in the Russian Federation.

The two leaders agreed to begin talks on all outstanding issues, particularly terrorism. For convenience sake, Sharif overlooked Kashmir and it was not specifically mentioned in the agreement. It was also agreed that the National Security Advisors (NSAs) of the two countries, Sartaj Aziz and Ajit Doval, would meet to discuss terrorism.

But when the Indian TV stations gloated over the non-mention of Kashmir and portrayed that as a triumph for India, Sharif developed cold feet and began to feel the need to bring Kashmir to the fore to safeguard his political position in Pakistan. The Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi was asked to invite leaders of the Hurriyat Conference (a group of Kashmir separatist outfits) for a reception at the Mission to give the impression that the Kashmir issue has not been shelved.

But the invitation to a reception again raised hackles in the Indian Establishment which "advised" Pakistan to desist from inviting the separatists. Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj pointed out that such a meeting would be a violation of the Shimla Agreement of 1972, according to which there is no place for a Third Party and also a violation of the Ufa agreement according to which the talks between the NSAs should only be on terrorism and not Kashmir. Pakistan argued that Kashmir would be discussed as part of the talks on terrorism; that the Ufa agreement did not bar discussion on issues other than terrorism; and, at any rate, meetings with the Hurriyat have been a routine affair for two decades.

According to some commentators, both India and Pakistan wanted to break the talks and appear tough in defence of their political interest. Sharif wanted Pakistanis to see that he could be unyielding on the core issue of Kashmir, and Modi wanted to show his people, before the crucial November elections to the Bihar State Assembly, that he is a tough nationalist leader who will not be soft on 'Pakistan, terrorists and separatists.'

Modi needs to shore up his political image as it is tough going in Bihar, where his BJP faces a united Janata Parivar Front led by the formidable duo, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar. If he loses Bihar, the way he lost Delhi, his image as a 'Political Superman' will be badly dented.

However, while the political leaders on both sides of the divide are trying to safeguard their interests, peace lovers in India and Pakistan and the world at large, are dismayed over the cancellation of the NSA level talks.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that the cancellation was regrettable and the US said it was unfortunate. A fair section of the Indian and Pakistani media has decried the cancellation. Some feel that India had lost an opportunity to push Pakistan to take action in the Mumbai bombings case. Pakistanis feel that they had lost an opportunity to expose India's role in fomenting separatism in Baluchistan and to discuss Kashmir.

In an article in The Hindu, former Indian diplomat, Rakesh Sood, said that frequent cancellation of talks will result in India's neighbours and the world seeing New Delhi's foreign policy in bad light. The West would be encouraged to give India "gratuitous advice." Constant tension with Pakistan over Kashmir will not allow New Delhi to attend to the existential needs of the Kashmiris who also need economic development.

Sood says that both sides seem to be playing a zero sum game, in which there is only one winner who takes it all. While the zero sum game is alright in a battlefield, it is no good in diplomacy where to declare real success, both sides should feel that its interests have been safeguarded. It has to be a 'win-win' result for a diplomatic engagement to be termed successful. A 'lose-lose' result only perpetuates the conflict the two sides are trying to end.