Opinion

Two Mud-Wrestlers In Noora Kushti?

Failing economy, virulent jehadis, new helmsmen in the army and judiciary—Sharif has a lot to overcome before he bids for peace

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Two Mud-Wrestlers In Noora Kushti?
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Punjabi Grill

The five challenges before Nawaz Sharif

  • With PPP winning Sindh and PTI the tribal areas, Sharif’s PML(N) will have to strive to avoid the charge of ‘Punjabi’ domination he has always faced
  • Has to deftly choose a new chief justice after Ifthikar Chaudhry to avoid a run-in with a newly assertive judiciary
  • Army chief Gen Kayani’s tenure ends this year. Who gets to be his successor will decide ties with the army.
  • Other than Kashmir, India’s role in Afghanistan after the US pullout in 2014 has been added to the menu of Indo-Pak relations
  • Attracting foreign aid to tide over Pakistan’s economic challenges means cosying up to the US.

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“Believe me, I want peace with India.  Let’s forget the history of wars and tensions and bitterness. Let’s have talks to sort out the issues and create an atmosphere of trust,” Nawaz Sharif told me when I interviewed him as editor of the Hindustan Times at the Government House in Lahore in December 1991. “I mean it,” he added, while seeing me off at the door. The interview created some interest in New Delhi. Foreign secretary J.N. Dixit did not reject the idea of talks, but said the offer had come only through an interview with a newspaper editor and not through diplomatic channels.

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This was not the first time Sharif had spoken about his desire for peace with India. A year earlier, he and the then prime minister Chandra Shekhar had met in the Maldives on the sidelines of a SAARC conference. Both agreed to make efforts to break the logjam over India-Pakistan relations and make a new beginning. They couldn’t go far, as both were living on borrowed time. Chandra Shekhar lost office within mon­ths as he did not have the required numbers in Parliament, and Sharif too eventually fell victim to the games the Pakistan army plays through obliging politicians.

Sharif’s next opportunity came in his second stint as PM, when Atal Behari Vajpayee went to Lahore by bus in search of peace in 1999. He was there in person at the Wagah border to receive Vajpayee. That the three service chiefs were angry at Sharif’s talks with Vajpayee in Lahore was loudly made known to him by their choosing to boycott what was otherwise a momentous and eventful engagement between the two estranged nations. How could the civilian PM display ‘autonomy’ and welcome an Indian PM on Pakistani soil without the armed forces’ consent and make a bid for peace?

Who is supreme—the civilian rulers or the army—is a question that has pockmarked Pakistan’s history; in a fragile democracy, the army has over the years acquired quite a decisive share in executive authority to decide policies about India, Afghanistan, nuclear weapons, and relations with the US and China. As tensions between the army and Nawaz Sharif grew, Gene­ral Pervez Musharraf upstaged Sharif in a coup, threw him out of power and sent him to prison. The Saudis saved Sharif from worse by providing him sanctuary. The irony now is that Sharif is savouring his victory and Musharraf is cooling his heels under house arrest near Islamabad, unsure of his fate.

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While Pakistan was celebrating its occasional tryst with democracy, Manmohan Singh did not lose time in sending his congratulatory message, inviting Sharif to Delhi for a meeting. The PM-elect too was equally warm when he told Indian journalists in Lahore that he was keen to pick up the threads of peace from where he and Vajpayee had left them. Manmohan and Sharif were seizing the moment to create an atmosphere for setting out on another exploration for peace. Atmospherics, after all, do play a role in the arcane world of international diplomacy.

There are, however, imponderables for both. The Indian PM is in his last year before elections and he is on the backfoot over many domestic issues. Even his simple message to Sharif has come under criticism from cynics, sceptics, and the opposition BJP, which seems to have given up the Vajpayee legacy thoughtlessly. Better relations with India is not just an emotional desire for Sharif; perhaps he feels it would help him concentrate on the enormous challenges he has to negotiate during the next five years.

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Nawaz Sharif’s party has won a pretty imp­ressive victory and come into government on its own, free from coalitional compulsions, but the results have sharpened the territorial divides in Pakistan’s political landscape. PML(N) has won the allegiance of Punjab, Asif Zardari’s PPP has won in Sindh and Imran Khan’s PTI in Pakhtoonkhwa. Sharif is looking like the prime minister of Punjab in a country where relations between the federal government and the provinces have always been edgy ever since Pakistan came into being. The perennial charge of Punjabi domination is going to be heard often during the next few years.

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The increasingly assertive judiciary has, during the last four years, shown considerable independence. It gained power after the lawyers’ agitation and took on the executive and forced the restoration of chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who had been removed by Musharraf in an extra-constitutional exercise of power. After Musharraf’s ouster, chief justice Chaudhry in his zeal tried to clean up the political system and forced the exit of many a PPP lea­der from positions of power. The CJ is retiring in a few months; the selection of his successor could be a tricky proposition for Sharif. A wrong move by the new PM could lead to a clash with the judiciary he cannot afford.

The most crucial question facing Sharif will be his relationship with the army, which has long held the reins. Even during occasional spells of  civilian rule, the army has not surrendered its control over crucial promotions and appointments in the service, and policy towards India and Afghanistan. The army is said to have kept aloof from the polls, but it is unthinkable that the men in khaki will easily give up control of policy areas they, by habit, believe to be their turf. Gen Ashfaq Kayani’s term is coming to an end later this year: who will choose his successor will be the first test of the relationship between Sharif and the army. The general who called on the incoming PM after the election has reportedly cautioned him against going too fast on mending fences with India in view of the emerging strategic scenario in the region, particularly Afghanistan.

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The situation in Afghanistan that may arise after the US troops have pulled out in 2014 is going to be a dodgy one. The army will not allow Sharif to opt for a different policy than is being follo­wed—that is, to end the influence India has gai­ned during the last dec­ade in Afghanistan. Even if Kashmir was not an electoral issue, it remains a priority for the army. Afghanistan has now been added to its India-Pakistan menu.

Sharif has to attend to the economic situation in Pakistan at once. The state treasury is empty, prices are high and the generous international donations Pakistan is used to are no longer flowing in to help it tide over the crisis. The IMF may have to ultimately bail Pakistan out, but there is no free lunch. To get ready cash from the IMF, Sharif will have to finetune ties with the US, which has never been too fond of him, believing him to be essentially on the right.

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Friends or foes, the jehadi elements in Pakistan pose a threat to democracy and political stability. These groups hate improved relations with the US on one hand and India on the other. Already, jehadi ideologue Hafeez Saeed has come out with a statement questioning Nawaz Sharif’s intention to extend a hand of friendship to India. Needless to say, the jehadi groups are not going to change their ways easily. That Sharif has returned to power with big numbers is creditable. But with this, he obviously has only earned the right to do battle on other fronts. For that, he would require skill and leadership qualities which he has—and some luck which he would need.

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(Former editor of the Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Times of India and Tribune, H.K. Dua is now an MP.)

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