Page 2 of 2 India-Pakistan relations in free fall
By M K Bhadrakumar
incrementally hedge Islamabad away from any propensity to create problems in
J&K.
Under President Pervez Musharraf's leadership, Pakistan showed itself to be
capable of responding to a constructive engagement with India. But it is here
that Delhi has faulted on the diplomatic plane. For one thing, Delhi began
resorting to megaphone diplomacy, pointing fingers at Islamabad for a spate of
terrorist violence, including the attack on the Indian Embassy in the Afghan
capital Kabul. A stridency crept into Indian
pronouncements, including at responsible levels. Islamabad is now paying back
in the same coin.
Not only that. It has taken the move of "internationalizing" the Kashmir issue,
which India always found highly objectionable. Significantly, this is not
happening in isolation. It is happening against the background of the growing
propensity on the part of Delhi to work in tandem with the US to put pressure
on Pakistan on the issue of Islamabad's commitment to the "war on terror".
Also, Pakistan increasingly feels cornered by a Washington-Kabul-Delhi axis on
the issue of terrorism. Islamabad's message to Delhi is that the latter is
mistaken if it thinks it can get away with such a regional, international
campaign against Pakistan by drawing encouragement from the current
unprecedented "pro-India" tilt in the US's South Asia regional policies.
Washington has not revealed its line. There is a deafening silence at the
moment. The passage of the nuclear deal is at a critical stage and Washington
and Delhi are closely working in tandem to ensure that the deal gets
"operationalized" within a tight calendar. The period from now until
mid-September, therefore, becomes particularly crucial.
Meanwhile, there is a sizeable body of opinion in the US foreign policy and
strategic community which is underscoring that a successful waging of the "war
on terror" in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to Pakistan's participation,
which in turns means Washington should reciprocate by showing sensitivity to
Islamabad's legitimate security dilemma in its region, especially in its
relations with India.
They argue that Washington must therefore play an active role in resolving
Pakistan's differences with India, at the core of which lies the Kashmir issue.
Last month, during the visit of Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to
Washington, influential figures in the US strategic community pointedly raised
the appropriateness of the White House appointing a special envoy on the
Kashmir issue.
It is unlikely Islamabad will easily dismount from the high horse it mounted
during the past 48 hours on the Kashmir issue. It has a receptive audience
within the OIC. With "Euro-Atlanticism" as the cornerstone of foreign policy -
especially the US-centric approach - Delhi has in recent years neglected its
relations with Islamic countries. Delhi's accent on strategic ties with Israel
has also not helped matters. Delhi routinely ignored the OIC. But it becomes
extremely awkward that all this is happening on the eve of the annual United
Nations General Assembly session and in the run-up to a possible meeting
between Manmohan and US President George W Bush in late September.
The problem is Delhi has hardly any leverage over Islamabad, which is where it
made a mistake by failing to sustain the momentum of the "composite dialogue".
In diplomacy, the importance of timing and a judicious reading of the
compulsions working on the opposite side become critical. On both these counts,
Delhi faulted.
There is no conceivable explanation why, despite the manifest keenness on the
part of the Musharraf regime, the Manmohan could not reciprocate by paying a
visit to Pakistan during the past two-year period when the composite dialogue
still possessed verve and a sense of direction. Again, sufficient efforts
haven't been made to ensure that at least on a few "doable issues", the
India-Pakistan composite dialogue took strides. At the very least, given
political will, two major issues - Sir Creek and Siachen - could have been led
to a solution.
And these are two issues of direct interest to the omnipotent Pakistani
military. Again, Delhi should have had the foresight to estimate that the
proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project was a unique opportunity to
make Islamabad a "stakeholder" in regional security. But Delhi dragged its feet
lest Washington took umbrage. Also, Delhi could have taken grater care -
through words and action - to ensure that an impression didn't gain ground in
Islamabad that India was taking advantage of the closeness of its relationship
with the US to gain unilateral advantage with regard to Pakistan.
It shouldn't have been particularly difficult for Delhi to anticipate the acute
Pakistani sensitivities about India's role in Afghanistan. Perceptions always
matter in India-Pakistan relations, especially when there is an entire backlog
of historical evidence about misperceptions breeding mutual suspicions, which
could lead to antipathies that might easily degenerate into hostilities. It is
unclear to what extent lines of communications were kept open to clear up
misperceptions. What is visible is that Delhi cozied up to Afghan President
Hamid Karzai even more in the recent period, even though his political future,
leave alone that of his regime he heads, is far from certain - with elections
looming in October 2009.
Somehow, a gung-ho attitude, which is historically uncharacteristic for an
Indian, has begun creeping into his mindset lately. Perhaps the headiness of
economic progress has hijacked level-headedness and moderation. Or, his new
sense of well-being, his confidence that an enduring US-India partnership is
underway; his comfort level that India is finally poised to pull away from its
moth-eaten neighborhood of South Asia and venture into a brave new world; his
cockiness that the world community will be averse to treading on Indian
sensitivities; and, least of all, the resurgence of Hindu nationalism,
paradoxically, even amid the culture of Western middle-class consumerism - all
these have contributed to an unrealistic degree of swagger in Indian attitudes.
It may seem ludicrous, in retrospect, that sizeable sections within the Indian
strategic community did fancy as recently as three or four months ago that
India indeed held a "Tibet card" as Beijing Summer Olympic Games drew closer,
and that India must use Afghanistan as a springboard to bleed Pakistan. The
only good thing to come out of the present crisis in J&K is that it is a
wake-up call for these strategic thinkers.
A full circle seems to have been taken and India-Pakistan relations are getting
perilously close to ground zero. It underscores that there is no alternative
but to give primacy to the neighborhood in a country's foreign policy, and,
secondly, to ensure that foreign policy is at any given time an extension of a
country's national policy. What generates uneasiness, though, is that given the
high volatility of the domestic political situation in both India and Pakistan,
the likelihood is low that either side takes any creative initiatives at this
juncture.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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