The Pakistani Spectator

The recent visit of our foreign secretary to India did not achieve anything worthwhile, except that the Pakistani officials raised all important issues like Kashmir, water diversion, Indian interference in Baluchistan etc. Taking advantage of our foreign secretary’s presence in Delhi, the political leadership of IHK interacted with him that depicted convergence of views between the Kashmiri leaders and Pakistan on the vital issue of IHK. The Indian side reiterated their position in the context of occurrences of terrorism which have taken place in Bharat, including the recent one in Pune.

Unfortunately, for some time, this region is destined to live under the overhang of terrorism. Therefore, countries of this area need to orient themselves with the realities of this paradigm shift in environment and accordingly learn to adjust their policy approaches in bilateral and multilateral spectrums.
So far, our region has displayed a strange peculiarity. Whenever a crisis begins to precipitate between India and Pakistan, needing intricate engagement to offset it or to maximise damage reduction, India abandon’s the dialogue and embarks upon a spate of brinkmanship.

There is a need to evolve robust bilateral and multilateral structures for crisis management emanating out of emergent terrorist episodes. As an option, the platform of SAARC could be rejuvenated to compensate the inadequacies of bilateral frameworks.

Conflict management, rather than conflict resolution, has been the underlying motivation of India’s ‘Pakistan’ policy. Understandably so, because India is usurper in most of the ongoing disputes and in any resolution oriented approach, it would end up in ceding space. Through conflict management approach, India has perpetually pursued the policy of eroding the agreements between the two countries; it started with the erosion of plebiscite in Kashmir, and now continues to follow an incremental approach to erode the Indus Basin Water Treaty. As a result, all important issues continue to come back in circles to haunt the two countries, with snowballing impact on their bilateral trust deficit.

It is in this context that, whenever any dialogue venture appeared to be bordering the resolution phase, it was scuttled by India on one pretext or the other. Kashmir, water sharing, border disputes like Sir Creek and Siachin, drug peddling, sponsoring of disruptive and subversive activities are some of the areas where India is to cede space whenever there is a settlement. Each time slot during which bilateral dialogue got disrupted, was aggressively utilised in gaining strategic space so that the next episode could be started from a position of relatively greater differential of power potential.

Recently, the disruption period has been utilised to subvert the Indus Water Treaty by speedily pushing forward the mushrooming of controversial dams and digging diversionary channel for rerouting the natural flow of water, as well as for illegitimately siphoning off water.

This recess in dialogue in the wake of the unfortunate Mumbai incident was also utilised by the Indian side by consolidating its position in Afghanistan and using it as a springboard for launching disruptive and subversive activities in Pakistan. The overall objective was to consolidate a posture to pose a two-fronts plus quandary for Pakistan. Nevertheless, indiscretion in regard to the oversized diplomatic presence all along our western border exposed the design to all important stakeholders in this region. Reversal is now on the cards.

Over this decade, well wishers of this region have followed the flow of events in Pakistan-India relations, with a sense of perplexing unease. The bilateral mechanism instituted for tension diffusion invariably collapses on the onset of any significant crisis. Truly, brinkmanship overtakes Indian statesmanship, and its climb up the escalation ladder is pretty speedy and quite high. From such a position, India can neither climb further on the ladder, nor can it climb down without loss of face at the domestic level. This state of strategic suspension causes functional paralysis with regard to forward motion of crisis handling, as well as smooth operation of routine interstate business. As a consequence, rhetoric prevails; the substance is lost.

Moreover, the significant rise of rightwing influence in all the domains of Indian decision-making apparatus has effectively contributed towards intensifying this pattern of its ‘Pakistan’ policy. Both mainstream political parties of India appear to be in a race to outsmart each other in Pakistan bashing.

This dysfunction has resulted in sabotaging many substantial and purposeful peace initiatives. The recent deliverance of a near war declaration through US secretary of defence was yet another effort to give an impression of a strengthened strategic clout, domestically, before succumbing to American coaxing for restarting the bilateral engagement.

India’s policy paradox emanates from embracing an incompatible military doctrine, whereby, India aims at realising wishful strategic objectives, well before international inhibitory mechanism comes into play. This mythical premise has severe limitations. One cannot outsmart today’s ‘global village’ realities.
Therefore, it would be naive to hope that one fine morning the world community would wake up to discover that India has gained a significant strategic gain over Pakistan (and now China as well!), during the previous night. Omnipresence of nuclear overlay has its own impact on the probable patterns of future armed conflicts between these nations; India needs to recognise this and adjust to absorb such implications.

Understandably, such strategy related inconsistencies in Indian approach hamper a sustainable peace process, because out of hubris, India tends to start believing in such void doctrinal proclamations.

The only good lesson learnt after each disruption of bilateral dialogue has been to re-engage in a substantive peace process. There is a need to make a deliberate and sustained effort towards durable peace in this region by enabling bilateral institutions to handle the crises. A joint standing commission could be set up to handle emergent situations, while the usual bilateral structures continue to operate within their assigned framework.

Likewise, initiation and expansion of formal contacts and informal interactions would synergise the process of building sustained bridges of trust. In these domains, there is sufficient un-scaled ground to count upon. Exchanges of cultural troupes and sports meets would let the steam vent out at peoples level. Such events would strengthen the peace constituency in both the countries that would exert an inward to outward pressure on the governments for working towards achieving sustainable peace.

The umbrella of a composite dialogue provides a viable structural framework for Pak-India peace process. Its scope encompasses all existing issues between the two countries, including terrorism. Prior to disruption of process in the wake of the Mumbai incident, there had been four rounds of composite dialogue; it is supported by eight bilateral working groups handling respective areas. There is a need to move forward and conclude the process. Any attempt to discard the composite dialogue and workout a fresh framework would amount to follow the analogy of going a step forward and two backward.

Hopefully, after teething troubles, the two side would settle down to composite dialogue mechanism. There is a need to retreat from the brink before the ongoing stalemate becomes mutually hurting. This region has seen ample of brinkmanship during the current decade; it did not work.

Unfortunately, we lost this decade in the context of peace and tranquillity of this region. Let statesmanship be the hallmark of the coming decade.
The writer is a retired air commodore of Pakistan Air Force.

By Khalid Iqbal