By Samuel Baid,
Non-inclusion of former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi in Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s reconstituted cabinet has caused some surprise in the media in Delhi. The former was scheduled to visit Delhi in July for holding talks with his Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna on India –Pakistan bilateral issues in pursuance of the programme agreed by the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries in Thimphu on the sidelines of a meeting of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries.
India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir agreed on February 6 on resuming deadlocked dialogue between the two countries without calling it the composite dialogue which had started in 2004 and got jammed in 2008 when Pakistan-supported terrorists attacked Mumbai. The two Foreign Secretaries, with the approval of their respective governments, decided that talks on eight subjects would be held at the level of Foreign Secretaries and followed by wrap up talks between them. Then will follow a meeting between the Foreign Ministers of the two countries.
Although the phrase, composite dialogue, has been avoided, it is undeniably a re-incarnation of that. The two Foreign Secretaries have agreed to talk on counter – terrorism, humanitarian issues, peace and security, including confidence building measures, Jammu and Kashmir, promotion of friendly exchanges, Siachen, economic issues and the Wullar Barrage / Tulbul Navigation Project. Additional Secretaries or surveyors General of the two countries would discuss Sir Creak.
There was excitement in India, and perhaps in Pakistan too when the two Foreign Secretaries announced their agreement to start the dialogue. But when Mr. Shah Mehmood Quereshi was not returned the Foreign Minister’s portfolio in the reconstituted cabinet, some doubts about Pakistan’s seriousness about the scheduled dialogue arose. A section of the Delhi Press headlined this report thus : “Set back to India – Pakistan Dialogue”.
But the dropping of Mr. Quereshi should not affect the scheduled dialogue because a civilian Foreign Minister or for that matter, a civilian government, is not the master of foreign policy vis-à-vis India, Afghanistan and the United States. The foreign policy in respect of these countries is controlled by the Army / ISI.
The Army / ISI will want to keep India – Pakistan relations to remain a hostage to Kashmir. Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, whose meeting with his Indian counterpart Rao ignited hopes, reverted to the old tune of “core issue Kashmir” once he returned home. He told Diplomatic Correspondents Association of Pakistan in Islamabad that “Unless this core issue is resolved satisfactorily in accordance with the aspirations of our Kashmiri brothers and sisters, I don’t see prospects in terms of a self – propelling peace process”. He said the upcoming talks must take cognizance of the actual ground situation in Jammu and Kashmir and resurfacing of uprising which was being “increasingly acknowledged by the international community and this cannot be wished away……… That has given an urgency to dealing with this core issue”.
As reported in the Indian Press, Mr. Bashir didn’t refer to what is the core issue for India : terrorism, particularly the November 26, 2008, terror in Mumbai committed by Pakistani nationals backed by Pakistanis Army and its intelligence agencies as revealed by Lashkar-i-Tayyaba operative David Headly, now in jail in the United States. Since the Army and the ISI were involved in the Mumbai carnage, the civilian government led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has no guts to punish the culprits. Lashkar’s founder, Hafeez Mohammad Saeed , was declared a terrorist by the United Nations for his hand in the carnage but he is a free man in Pakistan spitting venom against India. India has repeatedly asked Pakistan to punish Hafeez. But Prime Minister Yousaf Raja Gilani replied that resumption of India – Pak dialogue should not be held hostage to Hafeez Saeed.
From Mr. Bashir’s briefing to the Diplomatic Correspondents Association of Pakistan it is clear that Pakistan wants to aggressively pursue its own “core concern” – Kashmir – at future India – Pakistan dialogue and trivialize India’s “core concern” – terrorism – by countering Mumbai carnage with the Samjhuta Express bombing , which killed number of Pakistanis, and with allegation of India’s hand behind the insurgency in Baluchistan.
In our efforts to normalize relations with Pakistan we have to accept the reality that since November 1988, when democracy was revived after General Ziaul Haq’s death in August that year, elected civilian governments have only been the front of military dominance. The real power has been wielded by the Army / ISI and obscurantist fundamentalist parties. See, for example, the elected PPP government cannot take a decision about the fate of American diplomat Reymond Davis, who is in jail in Lahore for having shot dead two motorcycle borne men who, Davis said, wanted to rob him. There are suspicions they were ISI men. The PPP government is under tremendous pressure from the United States to release Davis, but just can’t do anything for fear of the jehandi groups’ insistence that he be hanged for double murder.
Ms. Sherry Rahman, a PPP member of the National Assembly is facing fundamentalists’ ire for having moved a bill for the amendment of the controversial Blasphemy Laws. A fatwa has been issued to kill her. Her party’s government cannot help her. Interior Minister Rahamn Malik suggested to her to flee the country. And now a Multan court has asked the police to take action against her on the basis of a report filed against her for her views on the Blasphemy Laws expressed in the National Assembly.
The elected government cannot take any action against Hafeez Saeed, despite India’s repeated demands because he has the support of the Army / ISI, fundamentalists and the courts in Punjab.
The question arises: should India waste its time talking to a government, which although has voters’ support, has no power to act against the wishes of anti – India forces in the Army and among fundamentalists? The answer is that talking to Pakistan has never been counter – productive. Talks either totally failed or yielded some results. Increased trade, bus and rail links, people to people and cultural contacts are some of the results of persistent talks amid unfavorable conditions.
The upcoming talks, too, may either yield no result or some negligible result. One cannot imagine they can be counterproductive. But one can also not imagine that festering problems of terrorism and Kashmir would move towards solution as a result of these talks. There is another reality which India has to deal with : terrorism has become the skin of the Pakistani concept of national security like the military uniform of General Pervez Musharraf had become his skin. He had to run into self exile when he took off his uniform. The Pakistani Army has made it known to the world that its support to Afghan Taliban and terrorist groups like Lashkar-i-Tayyaba is for the survival of the country’s security policy in the region.
As for Kashmir, the Army seeks in it its self- sustenance. In the past six decades it has taught the common men to live by Kashmir. How effectively this lesson has been drilled into successive generations is reflected in Fatima Bhutto’s book “Song of Blood and Sword”. She writes that the Kashmir valley was “Promised to them (the people of Pakistan) by their ancestors………”. That shows the misconception of a young America-educated girl about Kashmir. You can imagine the conceptions of madrassas and government-educated people about Kashmir. It will be a good idea if India insists that Pakistan teach correct history of Kashmir to its school and university students and allow teaching of this history in schools and colleges of occupied Kashmir. That would help ease tension over Kashmir.