Seeking Indo-Pakistan settlements

By K. Shankar Bajpai

WHAT CAN possibly remain to say about Agra? Simply that it should not be viewed, as in endless commentaries, as part of a continuum, much less a new beginning, but as an ending. It surely underlined what we so bafflingly refused even to notice, that the 50-year-old failure to `settle' the Kashmir issue is inherent in the existing approaches of India and Pakistan. Unless we think out a new approach, nothing constructive will emerge, but our national interest will suffer even more seriously.

India's persistent policy - to normalise relations comprehensively, settling Kashmir in some undefined way once trust and cooperativeness develop through other efforts - can only work if Pakistan accepts that approach. It has consistently insisted (i) it will not normalise unless we first settle Kashmir, and (ii) the only ``settlement'' it will accept is one which paves the way for our exit. Our persistence only makes sense if there are forces at work that can make Pakistan cooperate.

Tashkent (and its long-forgotten but equally significant follow- up in Rawalpindi), Shimla, Lahore, Agra and sundry lesser summits - none led to anything, for the simple reason that Pakistan took none seriously. Shimla was indeed followed by a brief, simulated amity, but only because Zulfikar Ali Bhutto - hardly a lover of India - needed time, both to develop the nuclear capabilities he saw as a reduced Pakistan's new counter-balance and to consolidate his civilian rule by cutting down the Army's importance, which flourished in tension with India - and that putative detente was not the least of the reasons why the Army toppled him. Lahore can at best have been a repeat of this internal civil-military tussle, if not an outright cover for preparing Kargil. We can blame Pakistan all we like for ignoring signed commitments, but it certainly never concealed its cynicism about what it saw merely as ways out of specific difficulties arising from its military setbacks (restoring the overflights between then West and East Pakistan we cut off in 1965 or getting back the 90,000 prisoners we held after 1971).

What does our approach offer Pakistan? It is certainly based on a great fundamental truth: Kashmir cannot be solved in isolation. Solutions unthinkable today might become feasible in a truly friendly relationship. Trade, economic interaction, technical cooperation on common problems ranging from drugs to flood control - the benefits are obvious but Pakistan prefers foregoing them; nor is it interested in such woolly notions as soft borders, or any other compromises that leaves with us the Muslim Valley. It compels us to face the truth we keep avoiding: at given junctures in history, there are just no solutions. Circumstances must change to open new possibilities. Passive waiting for change - our normal inclination - will not work. Existing circumstances being far more unfavourable to us than to Pakistan, it is for us to work for changes that suit us.

Four broad possibilities suggest themselves: (a) defeating Pakistan militarily; (b) making it feel other unbearable costs; (c) containing its current or foreseeable activities while we win back the Valley's acquiescence in, if not affection for, the Indian nexus; or (d) reaching an agreement whereby Pakistan ceases its mischief. Ruling out (a) we have tried combining (c) and (d), failing as much through our ineptitude in the Valley as through Pakistan's obduracy. Our only viable option is (b) combined with a vastly improved (c). This is so obviously difficult that we shy away from it. Some even see the efforts called for as so far beyond us, and the existing situation so morally repugnant, so destructive of other national aspirations and needs, that we should be prepared to make major, hitherto unthinkable, concessions not only to the Kashmiris but to the Pakistanis. The whole proposition urged here is that in the present circumstances, Pakistan is bound to refuse anything short of our surrender.

Consider what Pakistan sees. What stands out glaringly, to everyone but some of ourselves, is that India is unable to restore normality in Jammu and Kashmir: we have no political programme, no administration, only huge security forces, which are increasingly lapsing into frustration, corruption and fatigue. India is also having other internal troubles, its political situation precludes the hard decisions needed to make it an effective power, inefficiency is already everywhere, seeping even into the military - many believe India has already lost Kashmir, only hanging on through ever greater use of force which will alienate Kashmiris further, add to our other internal troubles, turn world pressures against us and, sooner or later, force us out of the Valley. Within Pakistan, the entrenched policy-makers thrive on present policies, which they also see as eventually prising Kashmir away from us. In sum, at low cost to itself Pakistan is creating major troubles for us, with cross- border terrorism its best weapon; it feels no real pressure to abandon its approach.

To imagine we can muddle along as in the past is playing into Pakistan's hands. We have avoided the worst for three reasons: even when not in love with the Indian nexus, the Kashmiris at least acquiesced in it until our criminal mishandling gave Pakistan the chance to foment the present alienation; for all our faults, India has had an innate strength - both in power and in the ideas it strove to realise - which Pakistan could not overcome and whatever mistakes we have made, at key moments Pakistan has made worse. We cannot afford to rely on such substitutes for policy any longer.

Pakistan is willing to bear present costs because neither India nor the rest of the world treats its behaviour as unacceptable. Nuclearisation, adding fear of unthinkable civilian casualties to our innate aversion to the hard option of making the Pakistanis suffer what they inflict on us, has closed our minds to raising Pakistan's costs militarily. But we can still make ourselves so powerful that even Pakistan's current bankers will be unable to sustain its competitive ambitions. A more effective - and efficient - not necessarily bigger - military capability is needed for other reasons anyway, but is also an essential element in the containment of Pakistan.

But this is not good enough. Power also derives from ideas, and the respect one commands for non-military reasons. Nothing is weakening our position in Kashmir - and other parts of India - more than the daily decimation, especially by our politicians, of all the ideals, practices and concepts that gave our infinite diversities hope of a real future in India. Economic leaps could obviously renew our strength, but it is even more vital to reinvigorate that faith in our future. How, in our present political situation, that can be done needs extensive discussion separately; here let it only be said that we will be in deeper trouble - and not only in Jammu and Kashmir - if we do not attend to this.

The third strand in handling Pakistan's challenge must be to develop selected relationships that can be used to stimulate helpful pressures. However heartening it is to find stronger ties growing with a wide range of countries, none of them today, not even those hoping for particularly fruitful cooperation with us, sees any need to pressure Pakistan beyond superficial limits. The key player of course would be the U.S. With it as well as with others, we need a purposeful effort to instil realisations not only of the benefits we can contribute to their national interests - with economics again the great catalyst we keep denying ourselves - but of the harm to those interests inherent in Pakistan's undermining of our nationhood. The basic fact is not adequately appreciated - least of all, alas, in India - that whereas the nature of Pakistan's state and society will remain the same whether it annexes the Valley or not, India's state and society will be fundamentally shaped by whether the Valley remains with us or not. There are serious consequences for the major powers to tomorrow's strategic equations in that fact; persuading others is also necessary to our handling of Pakistan.

(The writer is a former envoy to Pakistan, China and the U.S. and currently Chairman, Delhi Policy Group.)

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