Shooting from the hip - and mouth
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Even as the positive atmosphere at the just-concluded official
talks between India and Pakistan in Islamabad suggest that the peace process is
alive, Pakistani firing on Indian border posts in Jammu and Kashmir has put the
four-year-old ceasefire under strain.
The divergent signals being sent from across the border raise questions as to
who is in fact calling the shots in Pakistan when it comes to its India policy
and whether the new civilian
government is keen to build on gains made over the past few years.
The two-day talks in Islamabad, the first India is holding with Pakistan's new
government, concluded on Wednesday with the two sides signing an agreement on
consular access to each other's prisoners and agreeing to increase the
frequency of buses running between Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and
Kashmir, and Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. They
also agreed to finalize the modalities for intra-Kashmir trade and truck
services at the earliest, expand railway services to include transport of
goods, liberalize restrictions on travel between the two countries and so on.
India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Pakistan by the year-end. This
is an indication that things have been going well. The visit was under active
consideration for over two years but did not materialize as both sides wanted
to time it with a breakthrough on at least one of the contentious issues. That
breakthrough appears to be in the offing.
In Islamabad, the two sides stressed the importance of the ceasefire that has
been in place since November 2003 and reaffirmed their commitment to respecting
it. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi declared that his
government was ready for a "grand reconciliation" with India through dialogue
to resolve all outstanding issues "with self-respect and dignity".
But Pakistan has been singing a different tune across the Line of Control (LoC)
and the international border in Jammu and Kashmir. Sporadic firing was reported
at an Indian border post at Mendhar in Poonch district on Monday - the eve of
the talks. This was the third ceasefire violation in less than a fortnight.
On May 8, firing was reported on an observation post and a patrol party of
India's Border Security Force in the Samba sector of the international border.
India has not ruled out the possibility that Pakistani Rangers were providing
covering fire to enable a major infiltration attempt into India. An encounter
between Indian security forces and a group of militants followed two days later
in Samba village.
On May 13 came more firing, this time at the Tangdhar sector of the LoC in
north Kashmir. And then came the firing at Mendhar on the eve of the Islamabad
talks that left an Indian soldier dead.
India's frontier with Pakistan consists of three sections - the international
border, the 778-kilometer LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the Actual Ground
Position Line (AGPL) in the Siachen region. Shelling used to be a routine
occurrence along the LoC and the AGPL.
That changed in November 2003 when India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire
along the entire frontier. The ceasefire has held for four years. India now
alleges that Pakistan is violating this ceasefire.
Amid the ceasefire violations came a series of bomb blasts in the northern
Indian city of Jaipur that left over 65 dead and about 150 injured. Indian
ministers did not blame Pakistan by name for the blasts but darkly alleged a
"foreign hand" was behind the attacks - often a euphemism for Pakistan. The
attacks came as a reminder to India that the India-Pakistan joint mechanism on
terrorism agreed to in 2006 has not yielded much result.
At the Islamabad talks, the two sides strongly reaffirmed that they would not
permit terrorism to impede the peace process and, in a joint statement,
"re-emphasized the need for effective steps for the complete elimination of
this menace". Qureshi condemned the Jaipur blasts and said it was "not just lip
service, but came straight from the heart".
A former Indian diplomat attributed this disconnect between "the verbal
commitment to dialogue and normalization at the Islamabad talks and the firing
at the frontier" to either "typical Pakistani doublespeak" or attempts by
elements in the military/Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)to "sabotage the
peace process in order to discredit the civilian government".
Pakistan's policy towards India and Afghanistan has always been directed by the
military, even during periods of civilian government. Any attempt by civilian
rulers to normalize ties with India have been opposed by the generals, as in
1999 when General Pervez Musharraf, then Pakistan's army chief (now president),
masterminded an armed intrusion across the LoC at Kargil, even as Indian prime
minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif were
shaking hands over the Lahore Declaration.
Its role in the political arena severely discredited, the military might be
seeking to embarrass the civilian government on the international stage by
backing militant groups again. The jihadi-military nexus which had broken
somewhat following the military operations against the radical Lal Masjid (Red
Mosque) in Islamabad last year could be in the process of being revived.
But there is concern too over the approach that civilian politicians are taking
with regard to issues of importance to India - dealing with terrorists, the
Kashmir issue and so on. They have signed a peace deal with Taliban militants
in Swat and softened on anti-India terror outfits.
A report in The Hindu, an English daily in India, has drawn attention to a
videophone address by Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Saeed on March 1 announcing
the easing of restrictions on the outfit's activities. Apparently, the
announcement has been followed by a buildup of Lashkar cadres along the LoC.
The outfit has set up a state-of-the-art wireless communication center near the
LoC, and training centers at Balakote and Gujranwala.
Restraints on other terrorist outfits too have been eased. Masood Azhar, the
Jaish-e-Mohammed chief, was released from house arrest and allowed to parade
with armed cadre in Bahawalpur town. ISI funding for the Hizbul Mujahideen
which had been shut off under international pressure in 2006 has been resumed,
The Hindu reports.
These moves have understandably triggered questions and anxiety in India.
"Is Islamabad going soft on terrorism, in the name of a political engagement
with the militant groups? Is Pakistan buying domestic peace with terrorist
groups by allowing them a free hand across its borders?" noted analyst C Raja
Mohan asks in an article in the Indian Express. This, he points out, is of
concern not just for India "but also Afghanistan, which faces cross-border
attacks from the Taliban based in Pakistan".
There are worrying indications that Pakistan's civilian rulers are reluctant to
build on progress that India has made in its dialogue with Musharraf over the
past four years. Quiet negotiations have been going on between the special
envoys of Manmohan and Musharraf and these are said to have made progress in
defining the framework for a mutually acceptable settlement.
But on May 12, Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani rubbished
Musharraf's proposals on Kashmir as "half-baked things that didn't have the
mandate of parliament". He said that the "core issue" of Kashmir must be
settled "in line with UN resolutions and the aspirations of the Kashmiri
people".
UN Security Council resolutions call for a plebiscite in Kashmir, which India
has rejected. Such statements from Pakistan are seen by sections in India as
signaling a worrying return of Pakistan to its old positions and old ways.
And it is not just the politicians who are playing around with what in India is
called the "K-word" - Kashmir. The military too has been shooting off its mouth
on the issue. Following a visit to forward locations near the LoC, army chief
Ashfaq Pervaiz General Kiyani spoke of the "national consensus that exists on
the Kashmir issue" and "reaffirmed the commitment of the Pakistan army to the
Kashmir cause in line with the aspirations of Pakistani nation".
Alongside the return to old rhetoric and positions, is Pakistan now returning
also to its old tricks of shelling and firing across the LoC to provide cover
to infiltration of militants into India? Jammu and Kashmir is going to the
polls in a few months and militants and those backing them will seek to disrupt
the democratic process there.
India has responded with restraint to the firing from across the LoC and the
international border. It has formally raised the issue at flag meetings of
senior officers of the two sides at the LoC. But this restraint is unlikely to
last long if Islamabad does not rein in its armed forces along the border with
India.
"Adventures like the recent assaults on Indian forward positions, as well as
heightened infiltration, will sooner or later compel some measure of military
response by New Delhi," warns The Hindu in an editorial. It goes on to point
out that this will be to the benefit of neither. "Renewed tensions along the
LoC, an inevitable consequence of the direction of Islamabad's policies, will
hurt India. However, they will cost Pakistan far more. As the 2001-2002
confrontation demonstrated to no one's benefit, even low-grade state-sponsored
terrorism can end up precipitating a full-blown military crisis."
The ceasefire and the dialogue might not have resulted yet in a halt in
Pakistan-backed terrorist activity in India or produced a major breakthrough on
Kashmir and other contentious issues. But significant gains have been made in
the normalization process, especially with regard to improving people-to-people
contact and trade.
And it is these gains that the easing of restrictions on militants, the
ceasefire violations and irresponsible rhetoric are putting under jeopardy.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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