Source: Force
On the face of it, the peace process currently underway between India and Pakistan enjoys the best chance of success it has had in years. For the first time since the abortive discussions between Swaran Singh and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1972-73, expectations of a lasting tranquility circulate both within South Asia and abroad. These hopeful portents, which also arose in the aftermath of the ill-fated Lahore summit, have been sustained this time around, however, because of a confluence of reasons. For starters, the discussions are now occurring between India and—effectively—the Pakistan Army, which unlike the civilian regime of Nawaz Sharif has always remained the real instrument of rule in Islamabad. Further, both sides have now directly conveyed their fundamental negotiating constraint to each other: India has affirmed that no substantive territorial alterations, especially along religious lines, would be countenanced by its body politic, while Pakistan has declared that the current Line of Control is unacceptable as the basis for a settlement. While these antinomous positions leave both parties with little room for dramatic compromises, they suggest at least that neither country has any doubt about what the other considers to be absolutely unacceptable. Finally, this iteration of the peace process has not only engaged a wide range of outstanding issues, such as trade, cultural exchanges, travel, and people-to-people contacts, but also—and more importantly—appears focused on cementing a broad based reconciliation between the two countries in tandem with, if not as a prelude to, resolving the major dispute over Jammu and Kashmir.
This concatenation of factors has given rise to the expectation that the long-simmering antagonism between India and Pakistan may be finally along a path that leads eventually to its resolution. This hope was given a strong fillip by the Joint Statement issued at the conclusion of the April 16-18, 2005, discussions between India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, in New Delhi, when both leaders “expressed satisfaction” with the progress made in bilateral relations and went on to dramatically declare “that the peace process was now irreversible.”
The United States, obviously, has a particular interest in the irreversibility of the pas de deux currently underway in South Asia. As the background briefing by senior Administration officials early this year indicated, President Bush has embarked on a new regional strategy that seeks to advance good relations with India and Pakistan simultaneously on the assumption that each country represents a different kind of strategic opportunity for the United States. The key instruments that the Administration proposes to attain these ends are substantial economic and military assistance (including the sale of advanced combat aircraft such as the F-16) for Pakistan, coupled with expanded access to sophisticated military technology, liberalized rights to controlled commodities, and renewed discussions on strategic issues, energy security, and expanded commerce with India. The Administration expects that these vehicles however asymmetric—if employed artfully—would assist Pakistan to transform itself into a successful and moderate state, while helping India to achieve its goal of becoming a major global power during this century.
Given both the troubled history of Indo-Pakistani relations and New Delhi’s justified discomfort with previous American efforts at arming Islamabad, the President’s new South Asia policy is certain to run into rough waters if its three fundamental assumptions fail to materialize in practice:
• Pakistan would be reconciled to the rise of India as a great power both in its worldview and in its regional policies.
• Pakistan would accept that the United States, its principal current patron, would for its own reasons enhance the growth of Indian capabilities, despite Islamabad’s long history of rivalry with New Delhi.
• Pakistan would reach a lasting equilibrium, if not accommodation, with India in regards to all its outstanding disputes, including the most vexatious one over Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).
Given these premises embedded in the Administration’s current policy turn towards South Asia, a lasting rapprochement between India and Pakistan is critical to the success of President Bush’s new regional initiative. This is because only a permanent peace, even if it appears predominantly in a cold variant, provides the assurance that Indo-Pakistani relations will not combust in ways that could discredit the Administration’s latest efforts to arm Islamabad. If for no other reason, therefore, the current iteration of the peace process between India and Pakistan receives utmost attention in Washington: A threatened meltdown in relations between the two major South Asian powers would not only increase Congressional anxieties about the wisdom of providing Pakistan with F-16s at a time when there are significant doubts about Islamabad’s bona fides in regards to the war on terrorism, nonproliferation behavior, internal democracy, and the security of U.S. military technology, but it would also precipitate much more concerted opposition by New Delhi to Islamabad’s rearmament than has been the case thus far.
For all sorts of reasons, then, the United States has a vested interest in the South Asian peace process proceeding on an even keel. Nothing reassures Administration officials more than the assertion that the reconciliation between India and Pakistan is irreversible. Yet—at least for now—nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that, whatever the declarations emerging from all sides may be, the peace process is more fragile than it appears—partly because of structural reasons and partly because General Musharraf’s intentions and actions are much more obscure than both New Delhi and Washington are willing to admit.
Consider some of the structural problems to begin with. After many years of being advised by numerous well wishers to begin a process of dialogue with the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), New Delhi finally consented to create some space for this organization by permitting them to visit Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and meet with General Musharraf himself. This journey produced a series of lengthy photo-ops, several secret discussions, and, mostly importantly, a vigorous reiteration of the Pakistani position on Jammu and Kashmir. As the leader of the APHC delegation, Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, asserted, “We want Kashmir to be divided on geographical grounds. We don’t want Kashmir to lose its identity,” adding for full effect “we support his [Musharraf’s] approach.” Even if this affirmation—obviously problematic from India’s perspective—was not transparent, it is not at all obvious how New Delhi can integrate the APHC, which is a self-appointed dissident leadership forum, into a formal negotiation without at the same time delegitimizing the elected representatives of Jammu and Kashmir who braved terrorist violence to prove their standing through what was acknowledged to be the fairest state election in recent times.
Even if these problems of process can be sorted out—and these are among the easier to resolve—many substantive issues implicating relations between J&K and the Indian Union and between India and Pakistan are far more intractable. The incessant demand by both Kashmiris and Pakistanis for reduced Indian military presence in the disputed state, for example, will be difficult to satisfy on grounds of both principle and practice: the former because New Delhi cannot be seen to give in to demands impinging on its sovereignty; the latter because the continuing infiltration of terrorists from Pakistani territory only increases—not reduces—the necessity of substantial Indian armed forces in the area. Even peripheral disputes, like Siachen, have thus far defied resolution despite the fact that both sides would probably accept that the strategic significance of this contested glacier is minimal. The intractable issue, again, is sovereignty: whereas India appears willing to withdraw its forces after their current physical position along the Saltoro Ridge is formally delineated, Pakistan has refused to accept this precondition primarily for fear of legitimizing the Indian claim to have physically controlled the disputed territory prior to the agreed withdrawal.
The fundamental tension inherent in the Indian bottom line of “no further surrender of territory” and the Pakistani position of “no transformation of the LOC into the international border” further illustrates the vexatious problem of contested sovereignty; in this case, the contending positions also suffice to tax the creativity and imagination of even the best constitutional lawyers in the subcontinent. The only solution that cuts this Gordian knot is some fundamental alteration in the existing structure of rule. Any solution, however, that essentially undermines India’s claim regarding Jammu and Kashmir’s definitive integration with the Indian Union is unlikely to be acceptable to New Delhi. What India could live with are administrative modifications that permit greater integration between the two halves of the divided state but which do not in any intrinsic way repudiate, even by implication, the reality of the state’s current membership within the Indian federation. The critical question in this context, then, is whether such a solution would satisfy Islamabad.
On this vital matter, General Musharraf has been deliberately obscure, even to those closest around him. There are, obviously, good reasons for his reticence. In a country where Jammu and Kashmir has become a highly inflammatory public issue as a result of decades of manipulation by both the Pakistan military and its civilian elites, Musharraf’s inclination to keep his cards close to his chest is understandable, given the high costs of failure that would accrue to him personally in the event of negotiations with India turning out to be unproductive. Thanks to such realities, Musharraf has approached the issue of rapprochement with India very gingerly, taking different—virtually contradictory—positions on what would be required for an acceptable settlement depending on the audiences he is addressing. In so doing, he has obscured his real intentions and his real bottom line vis-à-vis all his listeners, including those in Washington and New Delhi. From all the evidence that can be gleaned, however, some conclusions are discernable: More than any of his recent predecessors, Musharraf ardently desires a final settlement of the Kashmir dispute with India, even if only—and unrealistically—on his own terms. He also recognizes that the rivalry with India has distorted Pakistan’s ideological orientation, undermined its economic performance, and threatens to enervate it from within at a time when India is finally on the cusp of securing great power status. He further appreciates the discomfort within the United States about Pakistan’s continued dalliance with terrorism, yet hopes that he can exploit—through his dissembling and gambling—Washington’s dependence on Pakistan to secure American largesse, even as he seeks to ward off U.S. pressures to terminate his provocative policies with respect to both Afghanistan and India.
Consequently, Musharraf’s reformation with respect to forging a new course in Pakistan’s relations with India remains only half-complete. His attitude to New Delhi, and to negotiations with India, appears to have metamorphosed for the better. In contrast to his early emphasis on the need to resolve the Kashmir dispute as a precondition for normalizing relations with India, he has now come around to the view that stabilization of bilateral ties will have to precede, or at least proceed in tandem with, any settlement of the major outstanding disagreements about territory. What he has not done yet, however, is to translate his evolving transformation in attitude into a thorough change in strategy. By all available evidence, Musharraf has not yet been able to jettison the temptation of utilizing the instrumentality of terrorism against India as a means of forcing political change upon New Delhi. Whether by the continuing, perhaps rising, infiltration of jihadis into Kashmir or by the continuing investment in state-supported infrastructure relating to terrorism on Pakistani soil, Musharraf demonstrates his continuing addiction to the older, Janus-faced, policy of supporting terrorism at the operational level, even as he has begun a new approach to peace at the diplomatic level. This destabilizing behavior persists despite what is an increasingly clear recognition on his part that Pakistan cannot sustain its traditional strategy of combating terrorism internally while continuing to export it abroad—if for no other reason because it threatens the sales of those major combat arms that Islamabad has sought from Washington for many years and undermines Islamabad's critical relationships with New Delhi and Washington.
Musharraf’s risk-taking propensities and his oft-demonstrated willingness to sacrifice consequential strategic victories for transient tactical gains may, in fact, be the most intractable impediment to the success of the current peace process between India and Pakistan. If this outcome obtains, it most likely would not be because Musharraf deliberately authorizes some egregious violation of the peace presently obtaining between the two sides—although he has that achievement, historically, to his credit as well. Rather, it would be because his prevailing strategy of running with the hares while hunting with the hounds effectively cedes the initiative to violent terrorist groups who can only profit from a real conflagration between the two countries. Until Musharraf therefore completes his change of course by comprehensively transforming his strategy to accord with his rhetoric—or is compelled to change course by the United States through use of the new leverage gained from its arms sales to Pakistan—the peace process in South Asia will remain more fragile than it appears, to the enduring disadvantage of New Delhi, Islamabad, and Washington. Given the new American investments in South Asia, President Bush ought to save General Musharraf from his own worst instincts, if the Administration’s latest policy initiative is not to founder on the shoals of a renewed regional crisis.