War? What war? That's the question many in Pakistan are asking. Activity on the streets, bazaars and stock exchange is normal and the news reports and stories about funerals for officers killed in the Kargil conflict are being taken in stride. Skirmishes at the Line of Control (LoC) and across the international border near Sialkot are nothing new. There is no war hysteria, with one cab driver commenting, 'We have the bomb now, don't we? How can there be war?î
However, defence experts and India watchers feel that at this stage, New Delhi would first exhaust all diplomatic channels to convince Pakistan to scale down the escalation in Kargil before it even thinks of opening another battlefront. 'What would India gain strategically if it were to open up another front to ease pressure on the Kargil area? There is no point in going for war unless they can achieve something. For this we are well prepared,î says a junior army officer.
'I feel that India would try to escalate Kargil or try and open up a limited front elsewhere. But I feel an all-out war would be difficult as it has serious implications. You can of course never rule out war but India will not adopt such a reckless method as chances are that it will go for another front at the LoC,î says professor Khalid Mehmud, an expert on Indian affairs.
To some extent, these views are shared by Shirin Mazari, a defence expert who says that India would keep up the war hysteria but would not go for a full war. 'There could be limited war on the international borders as India is getting desperate. But Pakistan so far is very restrained. India could never risk a full war with a nuclear Pakistan. If we had not gone nuclear, India would have gone for a full war by now. The real threat to Pakistan is from the low morale of the Indian army. We are facing threats from an undisciplined and frustrated army.î
While the man on the street is not too convinced of the possibility of a wider conflict, there are some who are not so sure. Their fears are partly fanned by tabloids and eveningers with headlines screaming, 'The Indians have attacked Sialkotî. Though many are left behind in their seats by commuters, the Pakistan government is stepping up preparations. Anti-aircraft guns have been deployed at all airports, oil refineries and other sensitive places.
Even as President Clinton's emissary General Anthony Zinni descended on general headquarters in Rawalpindi, nearby in Islamabad the deputy commissioner was blowing away the dust from the war book' and holding a meeting on how to reactivate the civil defence organisation. Prime minister Nawaz Sharif also finally made it to the frontline, the timing of which many said was a snub to General Zinni who was kept waiting overnight for an audience. 'I can see in your face the desire for martyrdom... It is a message for determination for the whole nation,î Sharif told the jawans at the 11,600 feet high Gultari post at the LoC.
All this only served to heighten fears of an escalation in hostilities. Things reached a point that one evening, a foreign radio service called this correspondent saying that they were expecting something, to stay in touch as they would go live' the moment war broke'.
The gaps in information is despite the best efforts of the Inter Services Public Relations (ispr). Senior officers here at times wonder how to handle the onslaught of dozens of media persons and cameramen who have descended on the normally sleepy headquarters. This week, for instance, saw journalists squeezed on window-sills, on the ground, with junior officers tripping over yards of cables linked to microphones set up by the media in their search for sound bytes on the latest in Kargil. While not briefing the press corps, the ispr officers are trying to figure out the logistics of taking the journalists to where the action is. However, helicopters are not so easily available now. Even mountaineers can no longer hire local porters who have all been engaged by the army.
Meanwhile, the fact that New Delhi has agreed to meet with an American official deputy assistant secretary of state, Gibson Lanpher, who is accompanying General Zinni, is also looked at in Pakistan as India backtracking from its earlier policy of no third-party intervention. On the other hand, Islamabad is finding comfort in the fact that rather than sending a politician or senior official from the state department, Clinton thought it fit to send his senior general to talk it over' with Pakistan's chief of army staff General Pervez Musharraf. One report which surfaced after the meeting was that if the message from Washington was not understood', then the Americans would look the other way if India went in for a fresh adventure. This has, of course, worried Pakistan.
Agha Shahi, a former foreign minister, says that the chances of an Indian surprise attack could be largely discounted, but the possibility of strategic deception cannot be disregarded. 'A feint may be made along the LoC in order to strike Pakistan's long border or to interdict its supplies by sea. Any such attack could lead to an all-out or general war,î he says.
But if all is quiet on the home front, it is not to say that Pakistanis feel that war is not imminent. 'If the Indians have mistaken the peace moves by the Pakistan leadership as signs of weakness, they are badly mistaken. These moves have been driven by no such feelings but by Pakistan's consistent and firm commitment to peace and harmony in the region and promotion of cordial relations with all its neighbours, including India. These in effect are manifestations of its firm belief that durable and everlasting solutions to disputes and differences come not from wars but through peaceful talks and negotiations,' the Frontier Post editorialised. That last sentiment could have several takers across the border.
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