Indo-Pak relations: An empty score-sheet

Bibhu Prasad Routray

New Indian Express, 3 June 2012

What exactly has moved forward in the Indo-Pakistan relations in recent months? Even the ardent optimists would find it difficult to provide any evidence. On the contrary, the ‘difficulty’ that Pakistan continues to feign in taking pro-India measures are clear evidences that this ‘remarkable turnaround’ is little more than a exceptionally high dose of histrionics, comparable to a whiff of cool breeze that soothes a terminal patient, but is highly insufficient in providing a cure.

Some castles of hopes, at least on the Indian side, had been built on the home secretary-level talks between the two countries in Islamabad on May 24 and 25. The last line of the 215-word press release from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) read, “A revised visa agreement is expected to be signed. This revised agreement inter-alia introduces the concept of group tourist visa, visa on arrival and a separate category of business visas.”

Although the joint statement issued at the end of the meeting referred to the “finalisation of the visa agreement” which both sides “agreed to sign at an early date”, the reality was, only a truncated agreement — a visa-free territory of 400 m radius at the Attari-Wagah border and an extended list of importable items from India — was the end result of the two-day meeting. The 400-m visa-free radius would provide some logistical comfort to the officials and truckers; and most of the items in the extended import list are already in the list of importable items through Wagah.

Inability to seek “internal approvals” remains the bane of the civilian government in Pakistan, or so it claims. India had gone prepared for the visa agreement. Pakistan side, however, maintained “the agreement will be signed” once the “internal approvals” are in place. On May 27, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, holding a news conference in Karachi, announced that the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC), a coalition of 40 religious groups, would not allow Pakistan to become an “Indian market”. The DPC plans to hold a series of rallies against India and the US across the country over the coming months.

Regular Pakistan watchers would not miss the striking similarity in Pakistan’s stand over issues like the liberalised visa regime and the grant of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India. In both the cases, there is an ‘agreement in principle’ in the Pakistan cabinet, and the issues were duly highlighted as examples of the warming up of the bilateral relations, and yet the Pakistani side was unable to move forward. The MFN sanction which was supposed to have been granted to India last year, is now scheduled for 2013. And curiously, just like the liberalised visa regime agreement, the MFN issue too has faced stiff opposition from Saeed.

The joint statement of May 25 also referred to an “expeditious execution” of “pending red notices”. The Indian list of 50 fugitives includes Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon. In the coming months, the CBI and Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) would discuss the issue of red notices. However, even as the Indian home secretary spoke of letting Pakistan keep the head money of Rs 56 crore on Saeed and hand him over, Pakistan interior minister Rahman Malik advised India to stop levelling allegations against his country.

Recently, American Congressman Dana Rohrabacher pooh-poohed the civilian surge in Pakistan saying that President Asif Ali Zardari “is either in league with the military or under their domination”. Rohrabacher’s well-known eccentricity notwithstanding, one can hardly disagree with such an assessment. Starting with the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, this civilian government has wilfully carried the Pakistani military on its shoulders. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is selectively disrespectful of the court orders on prosecuting Zardari on corruption cases, and highly respectful of the role of the judiciary when acting on Saeed and Azhar.

Optimists would make a case for patience. Regular engagement, they say, would eventually break the old walls and create new opportunities. While it is certainly not easy to put behind the decades-long enmity, it is also undeniable that progress needs to be judged from the incremental steps that takes care of the Indian concerns. And these are the missing links in the relationship.

A lot many analysts believe that the thaw in Indo-Pakistan relations may have been a result of pressures from Washington. However, the opposite could also be true. India, by attempting to normalise its relations with its western neighbour, could be adding to the latter’s posture of obstinacy against the US/NATO in Afghanistan.

http://expressbuzz.com/voices/Indo-Pak-relations-An-empty-score-sheet/397169.html

Chasing a chimera called false peace is not fine

Bibhu Prasad Routray

New Indian Express, 28 August 2011

On August 14, 2011, as Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani stood up to make his speech at the Islamabad Convention Centre on the occasion of the country’s independence day, there was the flimsiest of hopes across the border in India that Gilani would use the occasion to amend his country’s Kashmir policy, especially when both countries have re-engaged in a process of dialogue. Gilani, however, chose to tread on the beaten path. Asserting that “Kashmir is the jugular vein of Pakistan”, Gilani thundered, “Pakistan will continue to provide unhindered moral, diplomatic and political support to Kashmiris so that they can get their rights.” A day later in New Delhi, 680 kilometres from Islamabad, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s Independence Day speech did not contain the world ‘Pakistan’ even once. India, it appears, has opted to chase a chimera, almost infinitely.

India’s Pakistan policy has come a full circle. Days and months after the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, Pranab Mukherjee, then external affairs minister, announced a “pause” to bilateral relations till Pakistan cooperates in the investigation process. Less than three years from those days of agony and frustration, New Delhi has yet again taken a risk of initiating a process of dialogue. Hawks like former National Security Adviser (NSA) M K Narayanan have been sidelined. Home Minister P Chidambaram, a known opponent of the dialogue process, has been reformed to the point of submission. Even then, the question whether the latest initiatives from New Delhi are indeed based on some reciprocity from Islamabad remains virtually unanswered.

Not only that Pakistan has refused to take actions against the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), but the outfit has been allowed as a matter of policy to propagate and garner support from an anti-India jihad throughout the country. As recently as on August 20, LeT founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed claimed while addressing a gathering in Narowal district, “The jihad is bearing fruit in Kashmir and soon India will reach its logical end.” A statement that would surely enthuse many young men to take up a career in terrorism. Saeed exalted: “The US has had to give in to Afghanistan because of the power of jihad and now India will also surrender for the same reason.” Barely a month ago, Saeed had declared that he would enter India to launch “Gazwah-e-Hind” (battle for Hindustan) “from the door of Kashmir”. Not many would disagree that the spirit of Saeed’s assertion ran parallel to Prime Minister Gilani’s independence day declaration and possibly explains the government’s inaction against the terror formation. Islamabad continues to ask India for evidence against LeT for initiating any action. Contrast this with Pakistani gesture of dispatching the chief of ISI to Beijing within hours after China accused Pakistan-based terrorists to have carried out attacks in its Uighur province in July.

Even Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the outfit which carried out the attack on the Indian Parliament, is returning from a period of hibernation. After being underground for a decade since being banned in 2001, JeM too has resumed full-scale public activity, including fundraising in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. JeM’s traditional physical and financial strength is said to have significantly dissipated during the 10-year ban imposed during the regime of former president Pervez Musharraf. Currently, the outfit is on an overdrive to claim its lost glory back, with the security force establishment looking the other way.

A noted Pakistani-American scholar argued that India should not make the arrests of Lashkar terrorists “a prerequisite for substantive movement in the peace process”. Alternatively, he prescribed “moving forward with a serious peace effort internally within Kashmir, as well as with Pakistan” as “the most potent way of eroding the militant strands of the Lashkar”. Such a claim would have carried some value had the LeT been spurned by the Pakistani military as an instrument of its India policy. The Pakistan military has demonstrated no indication of giving up its nexus with the jihadis.

In a recent interview, the Pakistani foreign minister, who since her appointment has been a point of attention for all the wrong reasons, claimed that the Pakistan foreign policy has come of age and the military does not play any role in deciding its nuances. Hina Rabbani Khar had multiple rounds of wisdom-induction sessions with Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, before embarking on her India trip in July. It appears that she barely managed not to utter what many believe continues to be the state of affairs in Pakistan. “The civilian government is supreme in Pakistan, the Army told me so.”

The writer, a former deputy director in the National Security Council Secretariat, is a Singapore-based independent analyst. E-mail him at bibhuroutray@gmail.com

http://expressbuzz.com/voices/chasing-a-chimera-called-false-peace-in-not-fine/307576.html