If you want to settle something with Pakistan, you should settle it with us, the Pakistani army, because once democracy is here things will only get more difficult for you." This self-serving logic used by Pakistan's Gen Zia-ul-Haq in a private conversation with Indian political commentator Kuldip Nayar more than a decade ago, at the height of the Cold War, finds a resonance in struggling Third World democracies even today.
Would it benefit India to respond to the olive branch offers from the man who now wields absolute power in Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf? Particularly on the following issues:
What compelled the general to make the peace gesture? Pakistanis say it was a way of allaying Western fears of a fundamentalist, military takeover by the man who had started the Kargil war. Gen Musharraf wanted to make the world forget that he had single-handedly destroyed the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's image in the world as a peace-maker who had begun the bus diplomacy with India.
In the subcontinent, where democracies and dictatorships have been seen to come and go like alternating cuckoos in a Swiss clock, there are some Indians who have come to believe that it is easier to deal on these matters with a dictator in Islamabad who is not impeded by the democratic limitations of proving his popularity at every step. After all, they ask rhetorically, has civilian rule in Pakistan done the bilateral relationship any good? Even so, it is exactly this lack of popular appeal of the dictator in his own country which Nayar says should make India pause. "If we decide to have a dialogue, it should not be with the khakis. On what basis shall we start? Whom do (the army) represent?" Nayar feels that although people-to-people contact and diplomatic ties should increase and visa restrictions be relaxed, there can be no meaningful dialogue on issues like Jammu and Kashmir, which have the two armies standing eyeball-to-eyeball in a nuclear environment. It's not enough to offer an olive branch of de-escalation along the international border as these troops can be redeployed at will in a matter of hours. And in any case, he reasons, the de-escalation only amounts to the pulling back of troops which had been deployed during Kargil - they were only being sent back to their barracks. "It's just semantics to show that Gen Musharraf is well-meaning. But there is nothing substantial in the movement of these troops," agrees Maj Gen (rtd) Ashok Krishna of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, adding that movement away from the Line of Control (LoC) had to be made before any sort of trust could be built. "How can you trust a man whose brainchild was Kargil? Moreover, he continues to support militancy. Who sends in these militants? Some say the isi - but it's just an organ of the Pakistani army." Krishna says India can ill-afford to lower its guard at the moment. "In fact, we have to be more cautious now given the way the Kargil conflagaration happened."
There are more grounds for suspicion now that Gen Musharraf has assumed total control. In its statement, the Indian government said: "Pakistan has determinedly pursued the sponsorship of terrorism in India as a matter of state policy and as yet there is no abatement. We will judge them by their actions in putting an end to cross-border terrorism and abandoning hostile propaganda."
As former Indian prime minister I.K Gujral told Outlook: "They have made no specific gesture and LoC is the main issue along with the problem of the Mujahideen infiltration. We should tell them politely - but firmly - that gestures should be made in that direction or nothing will change. Moreover, ever since Kargil, terrorism has only increased."
A former senior Indian diplomat puts it more bluntly: "None of these people are trustworthy - they are constantly telling lies - different lies to the Americans and different lies to the Islamists. And Gen Musharraf and Sharif were telling different lies to each other. So, how can you trust any of them? The whole Pakistani army today is very corrupt, the bulk of the narcotics trade goes through them. How can the Americans begin to trust them either?" There is also a certain nostalgia for the days of the older generation of Pakistani generals. "I can honestly say that in certain matters I could trust Gen Zia: for example, when I asked him if he was doing garbar (instigating trouble) with the Sikhs he smiled and winked at me and admitted to a few things indirectly. But these guys are total liars when they say they only give moral and diplomatic support to the Mujahideen."
The Americans, for their part, may be trying in a sense to recreate the good times of the past. "I am confident that Gen Musharraf is a moderate man who is acting out of patriotic motivation and feels that his country is in danger," was how the American ambassador to Islamabad, William B. Milam, wrapped up his meeting with the new chief executive of Pakistan. What he forgot to add was that this was also true when the State Department had worked with other martial law regimes and it was the cia that armed Afghans to the hilt and that Osama bin Laden is only one of them, doing what he was trained to do. Indian analysts have another take on the favourable US reaction. They reason that the Americans would like to regain lost influence over the Pakistani army and they would not mind regaining it in a coup format. In fact, even then they might gain some leverage over Gen Musharraf who could be persuaded to help them one day to capture bin Laden and his band of not so merry men.
But even as the US makes friendly noises on Pakistan, they have decided to take a firm stand on problems that are affecting New Delhi the most. In the wake of the prime minister's principal secretary Brajesh Mishra's Washington visit, the US has asked Islamabad to move back from the LoC and stop cross-border terrorism. However, Pakistan expert Kalim Bahadur of Jawaharlal Nehru University says India has no reason to gloat. "This is no diploma-tic coup for India. The US is not changing its policies towards Pakistan but merely reassessing them in the light of their own worries about another Indo-Pak war, and their pre-occupation with Laden." Bahadur believes that trust is a naive concept which has little place in international relations and even less so in Indo-Pakistan ties. "Our recent experience with Kargil is the nadir of relations."
The US has taken a stand against terrorism the world over and it's rumoured that it's even considering branding the Lashkar-e-Toiba a terrorist group. But it can't do that without pronouncing on cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. While the US was making polite noises towards Gen Musharraf, the rest of the West remained unimpressed. After Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth last week, the question being asked by the international community were: why was there no specific time-frame for a return to democracy? And will Gen Musharraf be tempted to linger like Gen Zia-ul-Haq? Of special significance is the mood in the Commonwealth countries and the EU, which could slowly translate into economic sanctions. Pakistan is near-bankrupt if the promised bounties from several multilateral lending agencies do not come through. Foreign investment has already come to a halt and it will take time before the defaulters cough up or foreign bank accounts are seized. "The government should simply tell the countries where our corrupt politicians maintain accounts to adjust them against their loans because there is no money coming from Pakistan," is the prevalent mood in the country. Interestingly, no tears are being shed for Sharif, not even in his own town of Lahore or any other part of Punjab. The combined Opposition has welcomed Musharraf, saying Sharif is entirely to blame for the troops marching in. "We don't believe that the agenda spelt out by the general will serve the army; rather, it's a national one that keeps in view the will of the public," is how the grand democratic alliance summed up the takeover.
This, more than anything else, is where the danger lies. The reason Sharif could continue with his ruthless agenda was because there was no credible Opposition to face him. "The task undertaken is to clean up the mess created by the civil and, it must not be forgotten, military regimes of the past 50 years. A continuous reference to history would be a vital guide. There must be no chink in the armour. And, as Gen Musharraf took care to say, deeds would speak louder than words," writes the English daily, The News, in its editorial. The first casualty of the military government, despite Gen Musharraf's commitment for a free press, has been Pakistan TV (ptv), the handmaiden of consecutive governments in Islamabad. Soon after taking over, orders were given that the bbc feed being telecast by ptv be taken off the air. A lot of censorship is being witnessed in newspapers and no one is willing to take chances. And perhaps Kuldip Nayar, has his finger on the button when he asks: "How do we know that people are not afraid in Pakistan. I know that it is being widely publicised that there is no internal opposition to the takeover but how do we know that the Pakistanis do not have a problem with the takeover? Are they free to tell us?"
Some people point to the fact that not one person was killed during the coup as evidence of Gen Musharraf's good intentions towards his people. And he reveals a shared mistrust of Pakistani politicians, along with much of the country's citizens, when three of his four newly-appointed provincial governors are retired army personnel. But according to an Indian analyst, his commando past is tainted with blood, a view vehemently refuted by the Pakistanis. For instance, retired Indian Maj Gen Afsir Karim from India recounts that during the time of Gen Zia, Musharraf was put in charge of a band of Sunni tribesmen to put down a Shia uprising in Gilgit. "He was absolutely ruthless in suppressing the rebellion. I know that he is a very aggressive man, and I know nothing else that is distinguished about him." His religious prejudices have also been a matter for discussion in India. Karim also said that during the Kargil debacle, Gen Musharraf had a tendency to send more Shias to the frontline than Sunni soldiers. But this opinion of Musharraf is held in utter contempt on the other side of the border. Most Pakistanis, however, aver that the general is a moderate - indeed, he enjoys good music, playing bridge and tennis - and not involved with religion even on a personal basis. But, says Krishna, he may well have to pander to the reportedly increasing number of fundamentalists in the lower and middle rungs of the army. Warns he: "Gen Zia was not a fanatic, but he unleashed fanatics. In Pakistan, Gen Musharraf is seen as a moderate. But fundamentalism is increasing in the Pakistani army. " Although Krishna does not expect another Kargil from Gen Musharraf, he says the gaps in the LoC, and there are quite a few, provide a possibility for more conflict. There are also huge gaps between what was said - at the Lahore declaration - and what was done at Kargil.
Says Bidanda M. Chengappa, a senior fellow at the Institute of Defence Studies and Strategic Analyses: "Basically, all trust was lost with Kargil. And nothing will change until the troops are removed from the LoC; so we can only wait and watch...because we don't want to get into a similar trap." Nevertheless, Chengappa is not averse to having a dialogue with Gen Musharraf, with a caveat. "We must keep our guard up at all times." Analyst Pran Chopra, however, does not believe that any serious dialogue can begin from a position of mistrust. "We should be willing to respond to whosoever is firmly in power. Although I would prefer that initiative came from an elected government, to be in conversation with Pakistan is important...It can always be discarded later if we smell mistrust," he says. He believes that the gesture for de-escalation, although unsatisfactory, should not be rejected in its totality by the Indians. "If the Pakistanis indicate that they wish to resume a dialogue then we should respond to this." The announcement about de-escalation had more of an impact in Pakistan than it did in New Delhi. Eyebrows were raised at the bold step. No prime minister could have taken that decision without annoying the generals. Islamabad feels that the move could get a fresh process off the ground. That is, only if New Delhi agrees. Moving forward, however, hinges on whose court the ball is in now.
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