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Burying the legacy of Partition

By C. Raja Mohan

Mr. Vajpayee needs to publicly articulate India's conception of peace and its consequences for the region.

AS THE Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, climbs on to the ramparts of the Red Fort for the fifth time, he has an opportunity to address the Subcontinent as a whole and not just India. The ides of August are an occasion to celebrate the independence of India and Pakistan. Mid August is also a time to reflect on the causes and consequences of Partition and on how to go beyond it. The impending elections in Jammu and Kashmir and in Gujarat are, in essence, about the bitter legacy of Partition. The nation and its neighbours will be waiting to hear Mr. Vajpayee's thoughts on what the extended communal rioting in Gujarat earlier this year means for the future of India and its commitment to secularism. There will be equal interest in a possible initiative by the Prime Minister on Jammu and Kashmir to alter its political dynamics.

In his musings at the beginning of the last two years, Mr. Vajpayee had affirmed the importance of burying the bitter legacy of Partition. He had emphasised the urgency of ending five decades of debilitating conflict between India and Pakistan. He had underscored his commitment to get off the beaten track in finding a solution to the Kashmir question. Since then, Mr. Vajpayee's political authority over his party and Government has come under questioning. The communal violence in Gujarat and the complicity of the State Government in abetting it have generated serious doubts about the willingness of his party to abide by the secular principles of the nation. Mr. Vajpayee will hopefully respond to these questions.

Mr. Vajpayee will also have an occasion to survey the unbelievable transformation of the Subcontinent after September 11. The world has impinged on the region in ways entirely unexpected and forced the political elites of South Asia to deal with their security problems with an immediacy never seen before. The Subcontinent is teetering between the threat of war and the new opportunities for resolving old conflicts. If there was ever a moment for India to define a larger vision for peace and prosperity in the Subcontinent, it is now.

The American war on terrorism after September 11 has ousted the Taliban, representing an egregious form of religious extremism that was determined to take the region backward. Pakistan is under international pressure to confront the sources of international terrorism that had been nurtured in that country for nearly two decades. The low-intensity conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has turned into a full-scale military confrontation after the December 13 attack on Parliament. To prevent this from turning into a nuclear exchange, the Anglo-American powers have initiated a level of engagement with the region not seen in decades.

Beyond the efforts to defuse the immediate crisis between New Delhi and Islamabad, the international community has begun to focus on the fundamentals of the Indo-Pakistan tensions. The U.S. is pressing Pakistan to put an end to cross-border terrorism and India to engage in a credible process that deals with the Kashmir problem in its internal and external dimensions. The current international interest is not limited to the Kashmir problem. The world is involved in facilitating a final settlement to the civil war in Sri Lanka and is ready to cooperate with the Government in Kathmandu to deal with the immediate challenge of Maoist insurgency and the long-term one of rapid economic development.

The security of South Asia has been truly globalised after September 11. There is no running away from it. There can be quibbling about "internationalisation" of the Kashmir and other disputes in the Subcontinent. But the real question is whether India can take advantage of the new international interest in South Asia to help move the region towards peace and stability. Two broad principles that have come out of the international developments since September 11 are in India's favour. First, terrorism is unacceptable; whatever might be nature of the grievance. Whether in the Middle East or in South Asia, the U.S. has refused to countenance the argument that movements for self-determination must be exempted from the ambit of the current international concerns on terrorism. Second, further partition of nation-states will not be promoted in the name of self-determination. The U.S. refusal to consider partition of Afghanistan and its support to the principles of unity and federalism in the Sri Lanka should set at ease concerns about renewed map-making in the Subcontinent. This has created an extraordinary external environment to deal with the many security challenges in the region.

Equally important has been the impact of economic globalisation on the region. The impulses of free trade are breaking down the economic barriers erected along the borders in the Subcontinent in the wake of Partition. As the largest and fastest growing economy in the region, India is in a position to set the pace and define the character of the integration of the smaller neighbours into its market. The question before Mr. Vajpayee is whether India can take the initiative to accelerate the integration of the region. Or will it just let bureaucratic drift constrain the historic opportunity to end the economic Partition of the Subcontinent. At the heart of a strategy to bury the political and economic consequences of Partition is the restructuring of relations with Pakistan. Much of India's diplomatic energies in the last five years have in fact been devoted to dealing with Pakistan. But the failures of the previous attempts at Lahore in February 1999 and Agra in July 2001 should not hold Mr. Vajpayee back from conceptualising a third peace initiative towards Pakistan. Indian officials say the Government is prepared for a substantive dialogue with Pakistan, including on Kashmir, once the elections to the State Assembly are held and Islamabad resists the temptation of sabotage them.

The world has by and large endorsed this Indian position on future negotiations with Pakistan. But that does not reduce the importance of articulating at the highest political level, a vision of where India and Pakistan could head if there is an end to cross-border terrorism. Talking about peace and its dividends for India and Pakistan and as a consequence for the Subcontinent as a whole, sceptics would argue, is premature. But unless we know where we are headed, we might never get there.

The creation of a peace constituency across the borders and a recognition of the need for flexibility are critical for the success of any process aimed at a final settlement of disputes. Frequent and harsh restatement of the terms for talks, without a larger vision of peace, could in fact undermine their very prospects. Even as Mr.Vajpayee holds firm that a dialogue with Pakistan would only follow an end to cross-border terrorism, he needs to publicly articulate India's conception of peace and its consequences for the region. The prospects for burying the legacy of Partition are at hand. Fifty-five bitter years are long enough. These should be at the core of the message from India to the Subcontinent this Independence Day.

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