Say Yes To Manmohan Singh

The News

Opinion

March 29, 2006

M B Naqvi

The writer is a veteran journalist and freelance columnist.

The Pakistan government has cautiously welcomed the purported offer by the Indian PM Manmohan Singh of a treaty of peace, security and friendship while inaugurating another bus service between India and Pakistan, though it has reiterated its ancient Kashmir-first stance: unless the old dispute over Kashmir is resolved, further advances in other fields are not realistic. Basically, there is no change: India offers step by step improvement in bilateral ties; Pakistan subordinates everything to Kashmir.

It is time to rethink almost everything. Why? because the two countries have lost nearly six decades thus quarrelling over Kashmir. Meanwhile new issues have actually eclipsed Kashmir in importance. Pakistan's continued insistence on Kashmir to be solved first, means nothing will change. India offers only Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) and a talkathon on Kashmir. Even the CBMs in place may wither on the vine. Some more CBMs are all to be hoped for. Do we want another 60 years to be wasted in the same fashion as hitherto?

Which new issues have arisen? It is the qualitative change in the bilateral balance of power. There is the cumulative effect of the still accelerating arms race. The Bomb has come. It is pointless to blame who began it. The fact is that both are nuclear powers; both are still making more atomic weapons. Why else would they go on testing missiles if not to adapt them to newer shaped weapons? Implications of this need being understood.

War now is out of the question -- unless either party takes leave of its senses. The lessons of 2002 have to be learnt: India, in the end, did not invade Pakistan, although it wanted to. Pakistan has no earthly reason, Kashmir or anything else, for which it should start a war. At stake is the survival of the country. Surviving a nuclear war with India is not possible. Nothing is worth a nuclear war. Maintaining peace is now mandatory.

That alters the perspective. Pakistan cannot now wrest Kashmir or force solutions of its choice. Military approach is simply not feasible. A new approach is unavoidable. Fighting India legalistically in the UN is now wholly fruitless. Foreign power's mediation is again totally out; foreigners now want Pakistanis to stop being a nuisance. Similarly Pakistan's refusal to accord India with MFN status or observing trade or cultural contacts serves only to isolate and hurt Pakistan. Friendship with America will not now yield support over Kashmir.

The strength of the Indian army, plus its nukes, has posed new problems. Does the present deadlock with India serve any Pakistani purpose? The answer is none at all. Other peaceful means of persuading India to be more forthcoming have to be found: it means offering it something that will be of real utility to India for which reason it will like to accommodate Pakistan to whatever extent may be useful to it.

What of Kashmir then? Do Pakistanis forget it? True, taking Kashmir by force is now impossible. What remains possible and desirable is to create conditions in which Kashmiris can get the substance of azadi by creating conditions in which India would cede it. What legal shape it will take can be left to the good sense of the Indians and Kashmiris. Pakistanis, as freedom lovers and friendly outsiders, should only encourage and when asked advise.

India has been dropping hints that it is ready to make a deal with Pakistan on Kashmir provided Pakistan accepts the Line of Control. Other goodies like agreements on Siachin, Baglihar, maybe Sir Creek -- are also hinted at. Accepting the Line of Control as a legitimate international border is hard for the Pakistani state as it is now constituted. But it can refuse to accept it as a de jure solution, though it should accept LoC as the de facto border. There are good reasons to believe that the arrangement agreed at Simla was intended to do just that on both sides. India can happily live with it so long as Pakistanis do not keep on stirring trouble through terrorism. Strenuous anti-India propaganda being counterproductive needs to be curbed.

But there is no call to accord de jure recognition to LoC. Question recurs: what of Kashmiris? But it is a matter for Kashmiris and the Indians to sort out in the fullness of time.

Meanwhile Pakistan and India can agree upon a modus vivendi being suggested by America. That is probably the only workable recourse today. For the rest, Pakistan can continue saying that they only recognise LoC as a de facto border; as it is not a de jure one. It can remain a dispute.

That is, leave Kashmir to history. What will be the ultimate outcome? Let Kashmiris, Indians and history decide. But realism has many faces. Where do Pakistanis want to go? There are questions about who the Pakistanis are; which Pakistanis matter and which do not. This last category has to be destroyed, while the category of those who actually matter today need to be downgraded. Let them keep their human rights intact; no more than of any other Pakistani.

Country law should be the will of the people, freely formulated through their elected representatives. Let it represent the moral consensus of the society. Government institutions and fighting forces should be subordinate to the state through the government. The government should also be subordinate to law and should work under law without transgressing the limits set by law.

That leads to judging what the state policies should be. For whose benefit is Pakistan to be run? Well, Pakistan must be run for the maximum benefit to the maximum number of Pakistanis. The current supremacy of the army is a disgrace for Pakistanis. That has to end once and for all. Relationship with neighbours can then be peaceful and productive and to begin with should aim at the enrichment of all people in the region; the region should contribute to the general prosperity of the world.

Meantime these ideas may look far-fetched and long-term ideals. No, they are not long-term ideals. These are short-term ideals. We need to implement them here and now. Kashmir being a matter for history, what prevents Pakistan from accepting the step-by-step improvement of relations?

So long as the Pakistani state keeps the interest of the common people supreme, the policy towards India becomes obvious: there has to be the maximum possible people-to-people contact; maximum possible trade, maximum possible economic cooperation, compelling, insofar as Pakistan can, India to keep the interest of the Indian people supreme.

One is not sure that the ruling elites in either Pakistan or India are actually interested in material betterment of the common Indians and Pakistanis. Both are elitists and all they are interested in is in the prosperity of the elites.

This is the way to keep peace within either state and also among them. Let's accept the people as the supreme masters for whose benefit states must be run by governments that are established by law and freely elected by the people.