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In South Asia, modesty the best
policy
By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI
- The United States has publicly and aggressively taken
credit for the recent rapprochement between India and
Pakistan during the South Asian Association for Regional
Co-operation (SAARC) summit. The cause of peace in South
Asia, however, might have been served better if
Washington had kept its 
role under
wraps, as has been the case in the past, when
administration officials usually suggested that while
the US encourages both sides to talk, the initiative has
come entirely from the parties concerned.
But despite initially
shying away from taking any credit for the recent
breakthrough in Indo-Pak dialogue, the US has now begun
attributing the turnaround in ties to the work that it
has been doing with both countries over the past two
years. In an interview over the weekend, Secretary of
State Colin Powell said the seeds planted over these two
years "are now germinating and you will [see] us
harvesting the crops".
Powell, however,
cautioned that there was more work to be done and
referred to the "good offices" he had offered to both
India and Pakistan "over the last couple of days".
Powell declined to elaborate, but the subject is
expected to figure in his talks with India's external
affairs minister Yashwant Sinha this week.
"We
have been working with the Indians and the Pakistanis
for almost two years, from a period of 'We're going to
nuclear war this weekend' to, you know, 'this is a
historic change'," Powell told the US News and World
Report.
Observers in India say that such a
statement emanating from the US could pose a danger to
the peace process, more so from the point of view of
Pakistan by making the position of President General
Pervez Musharraf more untenable domestically.
From the Indian standpoint, while the situation
of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is not
threatened in any way, it still ends up taking away some
of the sheen from the plaudits that have rained in from
within the country and the outside world.
Despite relations between India and the US
taking a transformational turn on Tuesday, with
Washington agreeing to give New Delhi access to hitherto
denied civilian nuclear and space technologies and
hi-tech products, most Indians prefer that India take up
issues with the US on a case-by-case basis, ensuring
that its interests are not harmed. There has been
widespread support to the government for not buckling to
the immense pressure put on by the US for India to send
troops to assist in Iraq.
Queried on the Powell
statement, Sinha - who enjoys a good relationship with
the secretary of state - said in Hyderabad during the
ruling-Bharatiya Janata Party's national executive
meeting that the current peace efforts between India and
Pakistan are bilateral in nature without any prodding
from anybody.
India's abiding stand on Kashmir,
an issue that it says it is prepared to talk to Pakistan
about, is that it is a bilateral matter between the two
countries not requiring any third party intervention.
Indeed, foreign ministry officials who handle the
backroom negotiations aver to the fact that it is an
unstated rule that India prefers all US apprehensions to
be dealt with with an element of secrecy, given the high
decibel jingoism associated with even a whimper of
giving in to the superpower. The US has broken this
dictum.
In the current instance, the prime
minister's office has been set in overdrive, briefing
media personnel about the blow-by-blow account of the
direct role played by Vajpayee and his close aides in
sealing an agreement with Pakistan. Powell's statement
dilutes the entire effort. There are elements in this
country, especially among the hardline and Hindu
fundamentalists, who say that Vajpayee has compromised
by agreeing to talk about Kashmir. Reports about the US
role only add fuel to these murmurs.
The danger,
experts, however, say, is more in Pakistan. Powell, in
his remarks, also showered praise on Musharraf for
continuing to do a "good job" in the "war on terror"
despite the two recent attempts on his life and said:
"We are going to support him."
"He has been
helpful in Afghanistan. He is doing more now in
Afghanistan. He has started new military operations
along the border areas. And we believe that he has a
good agenda that deals with the education of his people
and deals with anti-terrorism," Powell said.
It
is felt that following the encomiums, Musharraf might
consolidate his position in the top echelons of the
Pakistani army, but at the popular level, it will only
reinforce the leader's increasingly fragile profile of
being an American surrogate who is being used to fight
the jihadis and Islamists in Pakistan.
After
Powell's initial remarks concerning the US's "good
offices" offer last Thursday, reports have quoted
official sources discounting the possibility of
Washington playing any direct role in the negotiations.
One official, ruling out any mediation bid, said the US
would confine itself to being a facilitator. But
observers here say that the damage has already been
inflicted.
An analysis in the Hindustan Times
reads: "Powell's temptation to play to the gallery could
have damaged the very process he claims to have
facilitated. It wouldn't be the least surprising if
Musharraf's detractors are able to discredit the nascent
Indo-Pak peace as part of a US design in the
sub-continent. Popular opinion supportive of peace with
India might not be unduly outraged by Powell's comments.
But hardline Islamists like Maulana Fazlur Rahman, whose
pro-Taliban leanings are well known, had backed Prime
Minister Vajpayee's April 18 initiative as a tactic to
keep the Americans at bay. Their fears of a repeat of
Iraq in Pakistan stem from Pakistan's nuclear-power
status and the ferment on its border with Afghanistan."
While Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah
Khan Jamali did drop hints of outside help, there are
enough reports from Islamabad attributed to the
government machinery that fed the media that it was
Musharraf who pulled off the agreement, which was
showcased as a bilateral arrangement: "The deal is
between India and Pakistan. There is no question of any
outside role. The wish and desire of both sides made it
possible," Musharraf said. In the same breath, Musharraf
apprehended an extremist backlash: "We should move
strongly towards peace as if there are no such people on
either side."
Last week, a declassified
intelligence report given to the Boston Globe suggested
that Islamic extremists have infiltrated Pakistan's
omnipresent military establishment to attack Musharraf,
who they fear will compromise with India on a number of
issues dear to Pakistan, including Kashmir. In view of
this potential threat, Washington has reportedly taken
the precautionary step of assisting in the training of
guards and the sharing of intelligence. It was jammers
supplied by the US that apparently saved Musharraf's
life in the two recent assassination bids. Vajpayee, as
a parting remark to Musharraf at the close of the SAARC
summit, also expressed his concern about the general's
security.
As an editorial puts it: "In a polity
deeply distrustful of Washington, Powell's disclosures
could be a godsend for jihadis hell-bent on wrecking
peace and eliminating peace makers."
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist
(Copyright 2004 Asia
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