Attack on Hamid Mir: Pak Media Caught in Pincer of Military, Militants & Market Printer-friendly version

Sushant Sareen, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

The attack on one of the best known Pakistani journalists, Hamid Mir, has only reaffirmed Pakistan's reputation as one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Mir, who took six bullets, barely survived the well planned ambush carried out in broad daylight on a busy road in Karachi when he was heading from the airport to his office. The attempt on his life created a veritable storm in the Pakistani media, more so after his brother alleged that the ISI chief, Lt. Gen Zaheerul Islam, was responsible for the attack.

According to reports in the Pakistani media, Mir had confided in his friends and family about the threats to his life from ISI and had even recorded his testimony on paper and in a video which was to be made public if something happened to him. Naturally, as soon as news of the attack broke, fingers started being pointed at the ISI. The military spokesman was quick to condemn the incident and deny any involvement of the ISI in the incident. But cut to the bone by the audacity and temerity of the journalists who were accusing the ISI of being behind the attack, the intelligence agency, which is a virtual state within a state, unleashed its army of plants in the media to launch a fierce counter offensive, not just against Mir (accusing him of all sorts of anti-national activity) but also the media group –Jang/Geo – that he works for. For the rival channels, this was a Godsend opportunity to pull the Jang Group down from its pedestal as the most popular and powerful media group in Pakistan.

For some months now, the ISI has been using a rival channel ARY (owned by a dubious UAE based Pakistani-origin businessman who is alleged to be hand in glove with Dawood Ibrahim and involved in all sorts of shady deals, including Hawala and gold smuggling) to target Jang, its owner and its journalists. After the Hamid Mir attack, other channels like Express (owned by the Lakhani group) have also jumped into the act. The idea is to severely damage, if not destroy, Jang’s credibility and popularity and at the same time increase their own market share at Jang’s expense. The icing on the cake will be currying favour with the real power centre in Pakistan – the Pakistan Army.

The Jang group has faced tough situations in the past, but always came out winner. This is however the first time that it is pitted directly against the military. The tiff with Musharraf in the last few months of his regime cannot be compared with what is happening today when it is facing a sustained and vicious campaign entirely backed by the dirty tricks department of the military. To an extent, the Jang group must share the blame for what it is facing. Over the years, it has carried out exactly the same sort of campaigns against civilian governments, weakening them to a point where they became pushovers for the ‘establishment’. The only time they failed was with Asif Zardari who despite the unremitting and unfair hostility of the Jang group managed to ride out all the storms that this media powerhouse created. In the case of the Nawaz Sharif, the Jang group was clearly seen to be leaning in support of the PML (N) government by demanding greater accountability of the army and was not just backing the prosecution of the former dictator, Pervez Musharraf, but also raking up other issues that rankled with the Men in Khaki. Perhaps, with the Jang group starting to believe that it could make and break (and even save) governments, the Pakistani establishment had already made up its mind to disabuse it of this notion and de-fang it. The charges levelled against the army and ISI in the Hamid Mir case will only give further impetus to the plan which is already underway.

What makes the attempt on Mir’s life so sinister is that it comes against the backdrop of mounting tensions between the civilian government and the military. Apparently, the army was pretty cut up with the government on the issue of former dictator Pervez Musharraf’s treason trial, the peace process with the Pakistani Taliban and the trade deal that the government was all set to sign with India. Things got a little tense after some rather strong words were used by cabinet ministers against Musharraf, which the media twisted to present as though these were aimed at the army. Adding further fuel to fire, some TV channels started playing an eight year old fiery speech of the Defence Minister, Khwaja Asif, in which he had railed into the military for meddling in politics and taking away the Lion’s share of the national cake without having anything to show for it.

Things seemed to have cooled down a bit after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad and expressed his confidence in the army and held up the Army Chief, Gen Raheel Sharif, as a role model for the newly commissioned officers. But the attack on Mir, coupled with the allegations against ISI, seems to have muddied the waters once again. Although Nawaz Sharif has set up a judicial commission of inquiry, the Mir case threatens to snowball into a test case for establishing civilian supremacy and making the military accountable. However, if Nawaz Sharif tries to brush this under the carpet, and the army continues on its offensive against those who question its dubious policies as well as its monopoly on defining national interest, then all the tall talk of civilian supremacy will remain just that. Already, the government, under pressure from the army, has retreated on the issue of opening trade with India (which isn’t such a bad thing from India’s point of view because of the sort of concessions which the Manmohan Singh government had given in return for getting a not quite MFN status). Even on Musharraf, there seems to be a move to let him off the hook and allow him to flee Pakistan. If now the government backs down on getting to the bottom of the attack on Mir, then it will be, for all practical purposes, reduced into a glorified municipality, like its predecessor. It may survive in office for a full term, but wield no real power to take any important decision, unless this is endorsed and sanctioned by the military.

Mir is of course not the first prominent journalist to come under fire, nor will he be the last. Just a couple of weeks earlier, another well-known journalist Raza Rumi escaped by the skin of his teeth after his car was ambushed in Lahore. Raza’s driver died in the incident and he has reportedly left Pakistan. Although in Raza’s case, the Taliban (through one of their affiliated organisations, the Sunni sectarian Lashkar-e-Jhangvi) are believed to be responsible, a number of other journalists have claimed threats from state, quasi-state and non-state actors. Interestingly, the ideological persuasions of the threatened journalists cover the entire spectrum of opinion. In other words, it is not just liberal people like SAFMA Secretary General Imtiaz Alam and columnist Kamran Shafi, but also Taliban advocates and sympathisers like Ansar Abbasi and Ahmed Noorani who have received threats, from both the military and the militants. Hit lists containing the names of journalists have also been floating around for some time now. But more than the threats, which are a professional hazard in a country as disturbed, divided and intolerant as Pakistan, it is the sheer impunity with which journalists are threatened and targeted that exemplifies the dysfunctional nature of the state and its institutions. Nothing illustrated this fact better than the utterly useless report of the commission that investigated the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad, who is also believed to have been killed by the ISI after he published a story that the Al Qaeda had infiltrated the Pakistan Navy.

Like Shahzad, Mir had frequently been crossing the unwritten red lines of the military by highlighting issues like the enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killings by the army and paramilitary forces, the human rights violations in Balochistan, the need to prosecute Musharraf, the rising civil-military discord etc. The problem was not just with the stories he was covering but also the fact that Mir thought he had become too big to be touched. This hubris was his undoing, as it has been of scores of journalists before Mir who thought that their prominence put them out of harm’s way. In Mir’s case, his past must also have gone against him. He was at one time seen as a blue-eyed boy of the ISI (his detractors claim he was on the payroll) and an Urdu paper he used to edit some years back was alleged to have been funded by the ISI. What is more, he used to espouse the cause of Jihadist terrorists and had developed close links with them. He also had a very rabid stance on India and Kashmir. When such a person tries to assert his independence, his former patrons are bound to be furious and the attack on him is likely to have a ‘salutary’ impact on other journalists who were outspoken, something that is already becoming apparent in the sort of guarded statements and comments that Mir’s colleagues have been making on TV and in the print media.

It wasn’t, however, just the military, but also the militants who were reported to be gunning for him. Although he was quite adept at walking the tight-rope on the issue of Taliban, there were times when he took positions that didn’t go down well with the Islamists. While the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has denied any involvement in the attack, there are some unconfirmed reports that the Punjabi Taliban have claimed responsibility. But this claim doesn’t appear to be very credible because Mir is known to have close links with the Punjabi jihadists, something that came out clearly when a tape emerged of a conversation between him and the Punjabi Taliban discussing the links of a kidnapped former ISI official, Khalid Khwaja, with the CIA. Khwaja was later shot dead by the Taliban after Mir virtually pronounced a death sentence on him by declaring him a CIA agent. If the Punjabi Taliban have now launched this murderous attack on Mir, then it would mean that there has been a big break between Mir and the so-called mujahideen.

Although the involvement of the TTP or its affiliates cannot be completely ruled out, the circumstances surrounding the attack on Mir shifts the needle of suspicion away from them. Despite their strong presence in Karachi – they have claimed responsibility for at least three or four attacks on media houses like Express and AAJ in recent months – for the Taliban to target an Islamabad-based Mir in the port city would require an intelligence and operational network capability which is probably out of their league. But if indeed it was the Taliban that carried out the attack on Mir, then it means that Pakistan is in far more serious trouble than what it is apparent. Apart from the Taliban, the ISI mouthpieces in the media have been quick to blame India for the attack. Some of these loonies have also named CIA and Mossad. Clearly, the intellect and worldview of these characters (which includes fairly senior retired military officers) is based on Bollywood masala movies like Ek Tha Tiger and Agent Vinod. Even more hilarious was the bizarre theories that some of the ‘analysts’ came up with: Mir was dubbed a RAW agent who was shot because he had outlived his usefulness; one genius morning show anchor even doubted that he was injured; another ‘analyst’ asked whether he staged the incident himself and accidentally got shot more than planned; yet another blamed the Jang/Geo group for the attack so it could paint the ISI in lurid colours!

More seriously, the fact that ISI touts have been using this opportunity to train their guns on India, their favourite whipping boy, raises serious questions about all the talk of the army being on the same page as the civilian government on the issue of improving relations with India. For some months now, known military mouthpieces have been carrying out a vitriolic and virulent campaign against India and have been taking pot shots at the Nawaz Sharif government accusing it of a sell-out. While the Manmohan Singh government, as is its wont, remained somnolent on this issue, what is surprising is that the so-called well informed Indian analysts on foreign affairs have continued to delude themselves that Pakistan has changed. The fallout of the Hamid Mir attack should serve as a reality check to all these Indians about how nothing has changed in Pakistan.

General in The Gaol: Musharraf’s Arrest and Its Implications

Sushant Sareen, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

In what is being called a first in Pakistan’s history, a former military strongman, Gen Pervez Musharraf, has been formally arrested on charges of terrorism and illegal confinement of judges. Musharraf’s detractors see his arrest as a sign of the fundamental changes that have come in the political power structure in Pakistan. According to them, the power of the Pakistan Army has been seriously eroded with the restoration of democracy and the reinstatement of the judiciary, and this is reflected in the failure of the army to stand behind its former chief in his hour of trial and tribulation.

The cynics disagree. They are of the view that the army still remains the most powerful political player and beyond a point it will not allow its former chief to be humiliated by the judiciary because this will deal a body blow to the power of the military and the impunity and immunity enjoyed by the Generals. According to them, even the judges are aware of the limits of their power and will desist from crossing the red-lines as far as the army is concerned. The dramatic arrest of Gen Musharraf, the cynics are convinced, is therefore nothing but a farcical drama. After all sides in this drama (particularly the judiciary) have played their roles, that is to say, established their credentials and made their point, the curtain will fall on this so-called demonstration of civilian supremacy and rule of law. Musharraf, at the end of the day, will not be thrown into prison, forget about being taken to the gallows for committing treason. He may, however, have to suffer the indignity of appearing in court to face the various cases that have been filed against him.

Historically, no Pakistani military dictator has ever been imprisoned. Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan were put under house arrest but this was more out of political necessity than for their crimes against law and constitution. One other army chief, Tikka Khan, was also arrested for a short periods’ of time for participating in political agitation after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was deposed. But Tikka Khan, better known as the Butcher of Balochistan and Bengal, never was made to answer for the crimes against humanity that he committed. A Naval Chief, Mansur-ul-Haq, was imprisoned on charges of corruption but was soon released after a plea bargain which involved returning a large part of his ill-gotten gains. Other than these cases, no other top serving or retired military official who remains embedded in the ‘establishment’ has been prosecuted for any act of commission or omission.

The important point is that only defeated or deposed military strongmen in Pakistan have had to face any sort of action, albeit of a fairly benign kind. Unlike civilians who have been thrown in prison, humiliated, even tortured, the military officials have been treated with kid gloves, enjoying incarceration in the comforts of their extremely well-appointed homes. Another important criterion for determining the kind of action taken against a general is whether he is part of the ruling establishment. Musharraf’s almost successor, Gen Ziauddin Butt did suffer imprisonment and loss of all privileges but that was because he was seen as a man who was siding with the political establishment against the military. Officers like Major Generals Akbar Khan and Zaheerul Islam Abbasi were imprisoned but that was because they rebelled against the military hierarchy. On the other hand, Generals Aslam Beg, Hamid Gul and Asad Durrani have had no action taken against them despite their public confessions that they subverted the political system.

The eternal wisdom of Shakespeare that “there is a tide in the affairs of men which, when taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries” also comes into play in how dictators are treated in Pakistan. When things are going in their favour, everything they do is kosher and receives kudos; but when the tide turns, anything they do is a disaster and is denounced. Musharraf should have realised that his time as the master of all he surveyed was up. But his proneness for miscalculation coupled with his propensity for throwing caution to the winds has led him into a somewhat sticky situation. Clearly, apart from some of his foreign benefactors and guarantors (reportedly the Saudis) Musharraf was banking upon the army to ensure that he wasn’t going to be put through the mill of justice in Pakistan. To an extent, both the Saudis and the army delivered. The Saudis ensured the deafening silence of Nawaz Sharif who had till recently been clamouring for Musharraf’s prosecution. President Asif Zardari in any case wasn’t interested in taking any serious action against Musharraf. For its part the army made sure that Musharraf was provided all necessary security.

But what Musharraf didn’t budget for was that he had become both an embarrassment and an inconvenience for the military. While the army would not like to see its former chief humiliated or thrown in prison, it would also not go out on a limb for Musharraf and take on the judiciary, the political class and the public by overthrowing or even destabilising the entire system for his sake. In other words, the army wouldn’t want to see Musharraf mistreated but was also not going to lose any sleep if Musharraf was forced to fight his cases in courts. As the army saw it, Musharraf had been forewarned against returning to Pakistan because of the changed circumstances in the country which limited the ability of the army to protect its former chief from the rampaging courts. If despite this warning Musharraf returned, then he would have to bear the cross of his decision. Having barely regained its image that was badly sullied in the last years of Musharraf’s rule, the army was unlikely to once again let its image take a blow for Musharraf’s sake. What is more, the army is embroiled on too many fronts and would be loath to see another domestic front open only because of Musharraf. Most of all, the cases that would open against Musharraf would also open a can of worms involving serving military officials and the army in general, something that made the top brass extremely uncomfortable.

Compounding the problem for the military is the fact there is currently a sort of uneasy balance between the judiciary and the army which could be disturbed because of Musharraf. The judiciary has been asserting itself against all pillars of the Pakistani state and winning. But as opposed to its tearing into the civilian government and elected politicians, the judiciary has been a lot more circumspect when it comes to dealing with the army. In numerous cases where there is clear evidence against serving officials – for instance, in cases involving extra-judicial killings, illegal detentions, unlawful use of force etc. – the judiciary has been all fire and brimstone but has refrained from taking any meaningful action against the guilty officials. This unstable equilibrium could get disturbed if either the judiciary or the army take any precipitate action, either to fix Musharraf or protect him.

In a way, Musharraf has left the military, the judiciary and the politicians with difficult choices. If the army leaves its former chief in a limbo then it will be setting a dangerous precedent. After all if Musharraf can be prosecuted and punished for whatever illegal and extra-constitutional actions he did, then other generals too will be opening themselves to similar legal action in the future. This clearly is not quite acceptable. Already, the army feels that there has been a steady paring down of its power and influence. And while it still remains a player in the politics of the country, its role and influence is no longer what it was in the not so distant past. Increasingly, the army is able to only assert itself on strategic policy and direction and not so much on domestic politics. If this trend continues and is not reversed, the army will see a whittling down of its political role, something which the generals wouldn’t exactly be happy about. But reversing the trend is going to mean intervention at a level that the army might find difficult to handle.

The politicians are meanwhile chary of exploiting the situation in their favour. If anything, they are waiting to see the outcome of the tussle for supremacy between the army and the judiciary and therefore are quick to throw the ball either in the court of the army or the judiciary. No surprise then that cutting across the political divide, the political class, notwithstanding fiery statements against Musharraf, has not really tried to book Musharraf for treason and left it to the courts to take suo moto action in this matter. Despite the fact that only the government can institute a treason case, neither the erstwhile PPP-led coalition, nor the caretaker, and in all likelihood not even the next elected government is likely book Musharraf for treason and will be happy to take the lead from the judiciary.

With the ball in its court, it now remains to be seen how far the judiciary will go against Musharraf. For now, the judiciary has been operating on the time honoured but unchivalrous Pakistani principle of power: kick a man when he is down and out. The manner in which his bail was refused by the Islamabad High Court judge in a bailable offence case, orders for his arrest issued by the same judge who also slapped him with terrorism charges, is a classic hatchet job. Quite aside the fact that Musharraf didn’t help his case by his loud-mouthed brazenness and brashness (admitting in an interview to allowing drone attacks and defending his action against the judges is just one example), the vindictiveness of the judiciary was also on display. The judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui is a man with a very dubious past. He was in the vanguard of the lawyers who threw rose petals on the assassin of the former Punjab governor Salman Taseer. While hearing the case against Musharraf his bias was reflected when he said that even he had been detained after emergency was declared on November 3, 2007.

Forget about this judge, the entire superior judiciary is working overtime to fix anyone they don’t like – law be damned – and arrogating power to a point where it is literally becoming a supra-government. Every morning, it seems, the registrar of the Supreme Court scans the newspapers and prepares a brief for the chief justice on any issue which he thinks is of public interest and by evening suo moto notices are issued. From elections to electricity and from gas allocation to transfers and postings, the courts are calling the shots with the government behaving like a mute spectator to this travesty. This is fast becoming an untenable situation and something has got to give if there is to be even a modicum of administrative coherence. Perhaps, the cases against Musharraf might become the tipping point.

Out of all the cases against Musharraf, the only really serious case is the treason charge for imposing emergency on November 3, 2007. All other cases – Lal Masjid, Akbar Bugti assassination, Benazir Bhutto assassination, illegal confinement of judges etc. – are political cases in which it will be impossible to find any real evidence of wrong doing against Musharraf. For example, the Lal Masjid operation was a legitimate operation against terrorists holed up in the complex. Regardless of the sensitivities involved and the repercussions that followed, Akbar Bugti’s killing was also the result of action against a declared insurgent. In Benazir Bhutto’s case, the only thing against Musharraf is that he didn’t provide her adequate security and that he is supposed to have threatened her. And in the judges confinement case, none of the judges who were confined illegally are a complainant! This leaves the treason case. But if the judiciary goes down that path, then under the letter of the law, a whole lot of people will be prosecuted, including the current army chief. What is more, the current chief justice will also find it difficult to justify sitting on the bench that sanctified Musharraf’s 1999 coup and gave him the power to change the constitution. Although the parliament indemnified that coup, the point is whether the parliament had the power to change the basic feature of the constitution, something the Supreme Court of Pakistan has repeatedly said is not permitted.

While the legal and constitutional drama will unfold in the days and weeks ahead, the only thing that can be said with any degree of certainty in Pakistan is that Musharraf is history. If he was a genuine political leader with some following, his current trial would win him sympathy and rehabilitate him in the eyes of the people, as has happened with people like Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif. But as a man who has a following only on Facebook, and no real party or organisation to back him, Musharraf is a political has-been. Whether he will now become a trailblazer by becoming the first coup-maker to be imprisoned in Pakistan or whether he will be let off like his predecessors is the only thing in which he has any further contribution to make in Pakistan's sordid politics. 

Rowdy Rehman

Sushant Sareen 

(Senior Fellow, VIF)

If ever there was any delusion among Indian policy makers of Pakistan’s changed policy towards India, or any expectation of receiving satisfaction on bringing the planners and perpetrators of the 26/11 attacks to justice, the visit of rowdy Rehman Malik to India last week should have rudely awakened them out of their self-created fantasy world . Ironically, Malik insists that his visit has removed whatever trust deficit existed between India and Pakistan! Clearly, Mr Rowdy Rehman is either so thick-headed that he just doesn’t get it that he has effectively blown apart the elaborate charade of his country being serious and sincere in improving relations with India; or else he was deliberately shooting his mouth off in India to play to the gallery back home and appease the militant-military alliance with his straight-from-the-shoulder remarks in India – a repeat of Agra 2001.

That Malik is known for making the most ridiculous statements is hardly a secret. Sample this: at a time when Pakistan's commercial and business capital Karachi has been reeling under the phenomenon of politically and religiously motivated target killings – hundreds of people have fallen victim to this phenomenon – Malik came out with a gem blaming most of the killings on ‘wives and girlfriends’. His bizarre utterances, which includes calling the terrorists who attacked the PNS Mehran naval base as being dressed in black like characters from Star Wars ’, have made him a figure of ridicule and the only reason he survives in his job is because he is a crony of President Asif Zardari.

Ostensibly, Malik was keen to come to India to ratify the new visa agreement between India and Pakistan. For some inexplicable reason, he considers this to be such a great achievement that he wanted to take credit for it. While the new agreement does relax the visa regime between the two countries marginally, it is hardly something that will prove to be a game-changer. Far from throwing open the Radcliffe line for the peoples of the two countries, the new visa regime will affect only a very small number of people, if at all. What great political capital Malik wanted to squeeze from putting his personal stamp on this agreement therefore remains something of a mystery, especially since the visa agreement is unlikely to sway any voter in Pakistan in the forthcoming general elections in Pakistan. What is more, Malik has absolutely no political constituency of his own that he could impress with this ‘achievement’. Perhaps the only rational explanation for his desperation to visit India was that he sees this visa agreement, which incidentally could have been signed just as well by some obscure bureaucrat, as his legacy to his country. But this begs the question: who, if anyone, remembers the name of the persons who negotiated or even signed the last visa agreement between India and Pakistan?

Be that as it may, Malik’s desperation for visiting India was also motivated by two other factors which left a very small window of opportunity open for him to come to India. One, there are reports that he might well be on the verge of losing his job because Asif Zardari is cut up with him and is looking for a suitable replacement. With the axe expected to fall, Malik could not afford to wait for much longer and hence forced himself on his somewhat reluctant hosts. Two, there is a lot of speculation in Pakistan that the dates for the next election would be announced by middle of January and a caretaker government would take office by around the same time. Thus, if Malik wanted to visit India, he could only do it during this time.

Fortunately for him, there was no longer any Chidambaram in New Delhi who kept him at an arm’s length and treated him with thinly disguised contempt that any self-respecting Home Minister reserves for a SHO/DSP level police officer, which is what Malik really is. With Sushil Shinde as the new Home Minister, Malik probably felt he could force his way into India and get away with saying the sort of things he said on Indian soil without any fear of being put in his place. And as it turns out, he proved correct in his assessment of his Indian counterpart who against good advice of officials, and probably to curry favour with the Prime Minister, decided to provide Malik a stage from which he could abuse India.

If anything, Shinde’s mealy-mouthed response to Malik’s provocations are even more jarring than the message Malik was delivering. Malik has effectively signalled that India should forget about any satisfaction on 26/11 trials and other issues related to terrorism directed against India. While a lot is being made about the judicial commission that will once again visit India from Pakistan to collect evidence from Indian officials, Malik has already let it be known that the judicial commission’s proceedings are not going to make any difference because Kasab’s testimony isn’t enough to prosecute the Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed or any of the others whom Kasab had named. In essence, Malik has told the Indian government that regardless of the evidence that is given to Pakistan, it will never be enough and that if India doesn’t like this it can lump it, which the incumbent government in Delhi seems more than willing to do.

Malik not only dismissed the testimony of David Headley but also was brazen enough to wash his hands off Abu Jundal calling him an Indian agent. Of course no one on the Indian side bothered to ask him what this ‘Indian agent’ was doing in Pakistan for so many years, why he was present in the ‘control room’ guiding the monsters of Mumbai to carry out their grisly task, or why the Pakistani intelligence agencies were trying so hard to dissuade the Saudis from deporting him to India. On Lt. Saurav Kalia’s torture, murder and the mutilation of his body, Malik responded with typical disingenuousness by blaming it on the weather. But if anything the weather on the LoC in Kargil sector should preserve bodies rather than lead to their decomposition. In any case, bad weather doesn’t gouge out eyes, chop off genitals, place marks of cigarette burns or leave torture marks on bodies.

While Malik did what was entirely in his character, the big question is why the government of India refuses to learn from past experience. What has changed in Pakistan’s attitude towards India that makes the Indian Prime Minister so keen on pushing for normalised relations with Pakistan? Except for a whole lot of sweet-talk, in tangible terms what has Pakistan done to indicate that it is serious and sincere in cultivating good relations with India? None of the metrics which would indicate a paradigm change on part of Pakistan – shutting down terror training camps, effectively curbing the activities of terror groups operating against India, ending the recruitment of Indian Muslims to carry out subversive activities inside India, clamping down on infiltration across the border, ending the export of counterfeit currency, stopping the flow of narcotics into India (despite Rahul Gandhi correctly pointing out that an entire generation of young people in Punjab is being destroyed by drugs, his party’s government continues to insist on embracing Pakistan), putting the Khalistani terrorists out of business, ceasing hostile anti-India propaganda on the issue of Balochistan, Afghanistan and water, getting off the Kashmir hobby-horse, it’s an endless list – have been met.

And yet, the turn-the-other-cheek liberals and professional track-II activists are unquestioningly lapping up the Pakistani line and pressing the government of India to make concessions on issues like Sir Creek and Siachen to reach out to the Pakistanis. In their defence, these characters point to the opening up of trade by Pakistan as a sign of change. But since when has opening trade become a concession? Trade by definition is something that benefits both parties. Pakistan is no US or EU that can give trade concessions to India. If anything Pakistan needs trade with India more than India needs it with Pakistan. After all, India’s trade with Pakistan will be less than 1% of our total foreign trade of around $ 600 billion. What is more, for Pakistan to grant India MFN status is no favour; rather it is an obligation under WTO rules. And even this status remains elusive because politicians in Pakistan are afraid that if Pakistan lives up to its commitment to grant India MFN status by the end of the year, they could lose votes in the forthcoming general elections. If indeed this is the case, then it begs the question as to how opening visas is politically popular but opening trade is not?

Quite frankly, the only sensible thing that this government has so far done on Pakistan is refuse the PMs visit to that country. For Manmohan Singh to visit Pakistan on the Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary would have been rather unseemly not just because the dates corresponded to the fourth anniversary of the 26/11 attacks but also because it would have been deeply embarrassing for Dr Singh to be seen in company of Khalistani terrorists who are always present at the Gurdwaras to abuse India, incite the Sikh pilgrims and if possible recruit them for carrying out terrorist acts inside India. And after Malik’s bull-in-a-China-shop performance in India, which has left the Manmohan Singh government cringing with embarrassment, chances are that the Prime Ministerial visit is for all practical purposes off. What this does to Dr Singh’s expressed desire that he will think he has done a good job if India-Pakistan ties normalise is altogether another matter. One only wishes that instead of wanting to normalise relations with Pakistan, Dr Singh was to consider removing crony capitalism and rampant corruption in which his government is deeply immersed, improving the state of the Indian economy, providing quality education and health services to the people of India as part of his job.

Pakistan’s Russian Roulette

Sushant Sareen

Senior Fellow, VIF

From the day of its creation, Pakistan has always looked for an external patron, one which will pay its bills (or at least a part of them), indulge it with easy money for national projects, provide it with military hardware (or if you will, ‘toys for the boys’ so that they could indulge in their adventurism, mostly against India), lend it diplomatic and political support (once again mostly against India), and bolster its security against imagined and self-created enemies. The country which did all this and more for a larger part of the last sixty five years was the USA. During this period, China also started playing a crucial role in Pakistan's strategic calculus. But unlike the US, which ideologically never subscribed to giving a free lunch but always ended giving one to Pakistan, the Chinese who always spoke about giving free lunches (remember they are at least nominally communists), never gave a single free lunch to Pakistan. Not surprisingly, China has never really been able to stand in as a replacement for the US and the Pakistanis understood this even if they never publicly acknowledged this.

In recent years, however, relations between Pakistan and the US have seen a sharp downturn and nearly reached breakpoint on a couple of occasions. Although both countries have, for the moment at least, papered over their very deep differences, there is no trust, and certainly no love, left in the relationship which is all but broken. Notwithstanding expressions and assurances of fidelity by both sides, they are both preparing for life after separation. As a superpower, the US could easily turn its back on Pakistan except for the fact that Pakistan is not only a fountainhead of Islamist terror but also a nuclear weapon country and a nuclearised Jihad is probably the US’ worst nightmare. Add to this the US desire for maintaining a presence in the form of military bases in Afghanistan, for which it will need to remain engaged in some form or another with Pakistan. As far as Pakistan is concerned, it needs to scour for possible sources for replacing all the goodies and benefits it enjoyed from a patron state like the US. Thus it is that in the last couple of years Pakistan has been trying to readjust and reorient its foreign policy so that it can stay afloat after it loses the anchor of the US and its allies, both Islamic (read Saudi Arabia) and infidel (read Western bloc). Domestically too, it pays the government and military establishment in Pakistan well to make an attempt to break out of the US stranglehold and open new diplomatic options.

It is precisely in pursuit of this objective that Pakistan has been sweet-talking India (but without any change in its inimical policy towards India or any let or hindrance in exporting terror, illegal arms and narcotics into India), trying to re-energise its relations with Iran, and desperately wooing Russia. In the Pakistani calculus, if it can enlist the support of both Russia and China – the only two countries that Pakistanis believe can together serve as a possible, even likely, countervailing force to the US – it will be able to tackle the fallout of a divorce with the Americans. The example of Syria, which is being propped up by Russia and China in the face of an onslaught by opposition forces backed by the West and the Saudi-led Arab bloc, has only buttressed this viewpoint. Russia, along with China, is not only seen as a alternative source of supply for military hardware but also as a counterweight to the US in international fora like the UN Security Council.

Over the last couple of years, a number of visits have been exchanged between Pakistan and Russia. President Asif Zardari went to Moscow last year and met his then Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev. Later, Pakistan foreign minister Khar visited Moscow. The Russians also held meetings with Pakistani leaders on the sidelines of SCO summits and became part of a Quadrilateral arrangement which included Tajikistan and Afghanistan to discuss regional security issues and economic cooperation. Russian delegations have been visiting Pakistan and making a pitch for some high profile infrastructure projects like the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, restructuring the Pakistan Steel Mills, building electricity transmission lines for export of electricity from Central Asian states like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan under the CASA 1000 project. There is also a big security dimension to the quest for improved ties. The Russians would like to engage with Pakistan to contain the fallout in its own Muslim dominated regions as well as its soft underbelly in Central Asia from a destabilised, or worse, Taliban controlled Afghanistan. The Pakistanis on the other hand are looking for Russian investments, Russian political and diplomatic support in the event of a breakdown in relations with the US, Russian military supplies and of course a higher volume of trade with Russia.

But, as the old saying goes: if wishes were horses, beggars would be ride. While Pakistan’s motives in wooing the Russians are quite clear, the big question is what does Pakistan bring on the table that will make the Russians want to thumb their nose at the US? This is the point on which the entire Pakistani strategy, and indeed Russian coquetry with the Pakistanis appears very iffy. For now it seems that the Russians are only exploring the possibilities of deepening their relations with Pakistan and the benefits this will bring and costs it will entail. It would therefore be highly pre-mature to talk of a budding strategic relationship between Russia and Pakistan at this stage. One obvious problem in building this relationship is that Pakistanis have convinced themselves that the Russians will be more than willing to embrace Pakistan in order to even the scores with the US in Afghanistan. Perverse though it may be, the Pakistani logic is that just as they used the US to unravel the Soviet Union, now they can probably use Russia to bloody, if not break, the US. Of course, the Pakistani mind is unable to factor in the possibility that if indeed the Russians want to even the scores with the Americans, then how come they don’t want to do the same with the Pakistanis who never stop boasting about their role in the breakup of the erstwhile Soviet Union. And if the Russians are hankering for revenge, then is it possible that they could be willing to tie up with Pakistan because this way they will kill two birds with one stone. In other words, the Russians could be getting even with both the principal (US) and the proxy (Pakistan) by playing them against each other and settling the scores for the loss and humiliation suffered by Russia in Afghanistan. After all, if it only wanted revenge against the US then all Russia would need to do is block the Northern Distribution Network and this will fix the Americans while giving the Pakistanis a leg up to squeeze the US for keeping open its logistics lines. 

Revenge as a motive might appeal to an immature country like Pakistan. But it would be puerile for a Great Power like Russia to base high policy on a matter of far reaching significance on something as silly as revenge. It is important to evaluate the strategic and economic benefits that a relationship with Pakistan offers Russia. For now at least, it seems that the Russians are taking a page out of the Chinese book on dealing with the Pakistanis. Just as the Chinese use Pakistan as a ready market for dumping its obsolete technology and armaments and as a virtual captive market for building infrastructure projects at highly inflated costs, the Russians too want that they be given contracts for projects (for instance on the IP pipeline and Pakistan Steel Mills expansion) without any competitive bidding. So far the Pakistanis haven’t said yes but they also haven’t said no. But this dilly-dallying is touted as a major reason for Russian president Putin cancelling his much anticipated visit to Pakistan late last month. That despite all the tall talk of a fruitful relationship, fuelled in part by the visit of the Russian foreign minister to Islamabad and the Pakistan army chief to Moscow, things are not quite hunky dory is clear from the fact that there was no meeting between Putin and Kayani in Moscow, nor one between the Russian foreign minister and Asif Zardari in Islamabad. Normally, if things were good and there was a deal in the offing then Zardari isn’t the sort of man who would stand on protocol or prestige to avoid a meeting with a visiting dignitary to show his displeasure. That he decided to do so with Sergei Lavrov suggests that there was more optics and little substance in the relationship for now.

In purely strategic terms, Pakistan's utility for Russia and China in terms of controlling the spread of Islamist terrorism is very doubtful. Even though Pakistan would like to present itself as a critical player and a stabilising force in the region, the facts on the ground suggest something completely contrary: Pakistan has practically no ability to contribute meaningfully to bringing in peace, prosperity and stability in the region; its real value is its nuisance value in terms of its ability to destabilise the region, something it has demonstrated over the last few decades. In other words, Pakistan can fuel the fire of Islamic terror; it cannot douse this fire. Forget about stabilising Afghanistan, there is a big question mark over whether Pakistan can even get a handle on the Islamist terror groups which are operating inside Pakistan. While the Pakistani military establishment retains a large measure of control over jihadist terror groups that operate against India, it has steadily been losing its hold over the Taliban proxies like Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its affiliates. Therefore, if the Russians are looking towards Pakistan keeping in view the experience of the 1990’s when the Pakistanis spawned the Taliban to establish control over Afghanistan, then they need to understand that the past was a different country, both in Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan. Back in the 1990s the Taliban were neither fighting Pakistan, nor were they aiming to Talibanise Pakistan. Today, both these conditions do not obtain and there are serious questions being raised over whether or not the Taliban will be amenable to following Pakistan's lead or even breaking ties with international jihadist groups like Al Qaeda, East Turkestan Islamic Movement, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or the militants from Chechnya, Dagestan and other parts of Russia.

Both the Russians and Chinese are also confronted with another big dilemma. While they are not comfortable with the presence of US troops in the region, they are also aware of the instability that will result once the Americans leave the region. Post 2014, the menu of options before Russia and China is basically a Hobson’s choice: they can do most of the heavy lifting themselves and at the same time depend partly on a mercenary state like Pakistan to handle the political and military affairs in Afghanistan in return for some military and economy aid; alternatively, they can just wait and watch and try to insulate themselves to the extent possible from the adverse fallout of Afghanistan’s descent into chaos. In either of these cases, Pakistan will almost certainly get sucked into the Afghan vortex, something that will only destabilise Pakistan further and spell ruin for its already bankrupt economy.

There is of course the possibility that China and Russia might lend some economic and military support to Pakistan. But chances are that this support will be woefully short of anything that Pakistan might require to continue staying afloat. On the flip side, a close military relationship with Pakistan will rob Russia of a lucrative market like India, especially in the field of defence supplies. No amount of military and economic cooperation with a basket case like Pakistan will be able to compensate Russia for the loss of a market like India’s. After all, how many countries will be willing to spend close to $ 3 billion for a worthless tub like the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and sill uphold it as an example of close defence relationship with Russia? Unlike India which pays Russia in hard currency for defence equipment, Pakistan will only want it either gratis or on long deferred terms of payment (which in the Pakistani context generally translates into ‘forget about the money’).

Put it all in perspective, and it becomes quite clear that the much of the talk in Pakistan of building an alliance with Russia is for the moment at least only that. 

India - Pakistan Relations: Lessons of History, Perils in the Present

Sushant Sareen
Senior Fellow, VIF

Folklore, if not history, has it that the King of Delhi, Prithviraj Chauhan, worsted in battle the Afghan invader, Mohammed of Ghor, some 17 times. After each victory, Prithviraj acted graciously and with typical, if also entirely misplaced, Rajput chivalry and spared the adventurer from Ghor his life. Unfortunately, the ruler (and as increasingly seems to be the case post-independence, rulers) of Delhi never understood the driving force that prompted, nay compelled, the attacker from the North-West to keep trying his luck. Nor for that matter did the latter appreciate, let alone acknowledge, the gesture that was shown to him. That Mohammed of Ghor had no use for such senseless displays of chivalry became clear after he defeated Prithviraj. Not only did he carry Prithviraj into captivity as a trophy of war but also subjected him to the worst sort of torture. What followed was a sordid tale of ceaseless invasions and conquests for the next millennium.

Today, the rulers of Delhi are once again faced with a close to Prithviraj Chauhan like moment. The question is whether the historical blunders of the last millennium will once again be repeated, as it wasnot too long back in Shimla in 1972. Under the mistaken pretext that the time is ripe to reach out to the legatees of Ghor (after all doesn’t Pakistan still swear by the Afghan invaders, so much so that it has named its missiles Ghori, Ghazni and Abdali), the Indian leadership is being inveigled to make far reaching concessions and grand gestures in the fond hope that this will help in normalising relations with Pakistan. Alternatively, will the Indian leadership press home the advantage afforded by fortuitous circumstances and events (almost all of them the result of a blowback of Pakistan’s monumental folly of using terrorists as an instrument of state policy) and drive a hard bargain that secures India’s economic and political interests, guarantees its security, settles its borders, enhances its strategic outreach, and rids it of the constant needling and irritation that Pakistan has caused for the last 65 years. In other words, will India fall for the nonsense of not forcing a Versailles on Pakistan?

If the track record of the Manmohan Singh government is anything to go by, India will probably go the Prithviraj Chauhan way, ignoring not just the lessons of history but also cavalierly disregarding the continuing hostile actions emanating from Pakistan which are aimed at undermining India’s security and its economy. Quite aside the irony that even as the Pakistani foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar underscored the need to ‘let bygones be bygones’ and ‘forge ahead without being held hostages to the past’ (alluding to the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai four years ago) she couldn’t resist mentioning the ‘K’ word (a 65 year old issue), the fact remains that Pakistan’s State and non-State actors have continued with their inimical actions against India. From pushing in narcotics (which is destroying an entire generation in Indian Punjab) to infiltrating terrorists and jihadists, from smuggling fake Indian currency notes (FICN) to recruiting young Indians to carry out Pakistan's murderous agenda, from instigating and inciting communal violence through its proxies to sponsoring anti-India and anti-Hindu propaganda, from providing sanctuary and support to anti-India groups to attacking Indian targets and development projects in Afghanistan, from trying to sabotage India’s diplomatic initiatives at the UN to using India’s neighbours like Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to forge a front against India, Pakistan hostility towards India is unrelenting.

And yet, the Indian leadership’s unfathomable quest to embrace Pakistan, knows no limits. Admittedly, over the last few months, the Pakistanis have gone out of the way in talking sweetly to India. Statements of top Pakistani leaders – President Asif Zardari, Prime Ministers Yusuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf, foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar, leaders of parties which are partners in the ruling coalition as well as senior opposition politicians – have all been expressing their desire to improve relations with India. There has even been a softening in the line taken by the Pakistan army, as was evident in the statement of the army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani during a visit to the Siachen sector. But notwithstanding all the nice words being mouthed, there is little on the ground to show that Pakistan has made a strategic shift.

When judged against the metrics that will actually demonstrate a paradigm shift in Pakistan's attitude and approach towards India – namely, handing over the most wanted terrorists who have been given refuge in Pakistan, ending the export of narcotics and FICN, providing India transit rights to Afghanistan and beyond, ensuring the end of ceasefire violations along the LoC, supporting India’s entry into the UN Security Council, dismantling the infrastructure of jihadist terrorism, reforming the school curricula by indoctrinates young children against India and Hindus, ceasing hostile propaganda and baseless allegations against India, and last but not the least, ending their irredentist claims on the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and stopping the recruitment and incitement of Indian Muslims against their country – there is practically nothing that would indicate that indeed Pakistan has changed course on relations with India.

The only positive development has been trade front with Pakistan moving from the restricted positive list of tradable items to a negative list (comprising some 1200 products) and holding out the assurance of granting India MFN status by the end of the year. But even this move needs to be qualified. First and foremost, trade is not a concession, especially not if the side relaxing trade stands to gain much more. The most optimistic projections of Indo-Pak trade estimate that bilateral trade will touch $ 10 billion in the next five years or so. By this time India’s total foreign trade will be around $ 700-800 billion. In other words, trade with Pakistan will constitute a miniscule portion of India’s foreign trade, just around 1.5%. But in Pakistan’s case, trade with India will be over 10% of its total foreign trade. Secondly, and more importantly, by projecting trade as a huge concession, Pakistan is pushing India to make ‘concessions’ on issues like Sir Creek and Siachen as a quid pro quo. In fact, there seems to be a certain desperation on part of Pakistan to get India to abandon Siachen. Since there has been little give so far on these two issue from India, despite turn-the-other-cheek liberals pressing the government to give in, Pakistan has stalled all further progress on the trade front.

Clearly, the thinking in Pakistan was that it would be able to get the best of both worlds by liberalising trade with India – it would benefit from the trade and at the same time beguile India into surrendering territory. To an extent, the Pakistanis seemed to have been vindicated in this belief of theirs by the unnecessary euphoria that the opening up of trade generated among not only the Indian businessmen but also among a host of political leaders cutting across the political divide. Partly to keep Pakistan engaged and partly to oil the wheels of this trade, India has tried to generate goodwill by relaxing the visa regime making it easier for certain categories of people to travel across the Radcliffe line. Indian officials insist that proper safeguards have been built into the new visa regime, and that the introduction of business visas, tourist visas, spouse visas and visa on arrival for senior citizens and children will not compromise the security interests of the country. But given the state of affairs and the sort of pulls and pressures that are brought to bear on officials to grant visas to Pakistanis, the new visa regime doesn't inspire too much confidence. Quite simply, there is really no failsafe method of ensuring that undesirable elements dont come into India using the relaxed visa regime. For instance, it is an open secret that many Pakistani businessmen who are keen on trade with India are also big financiers of terror groups like the Jamaatud Dawa, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Jaish-e-Mohammed etc. Keeping an eye on all these characters and stopping their entry into India is easier said than done.

Much of the bonhomie on display by both India and Pakistan is aimed at paving the way for the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Pakistan. His visit to his ancestral village Gah is being touted as a landmark in Indo-Pak relations and the spin doctors of the government are busy churning out a prodigal-son-returning-home sort of narrative. But given that no Napoleonic feat will be achieved during this visit, why anyone should be going so gaga over his visit to Gah is rather mind-boggling. If anything, it would seem that Manmohan Singh will go to the land of his birth bearing gifts that the land that gave him refuge after he was unceremoniously thrown out from what is now Pakistan (and as many Hindus today are being hounded and forced out) can ill afford to give. For their part, the Pakistanis are quite clear that India will have to compromise on issues like Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek and water for any forward movement in bilateral relations. None other than arguably the most well-informed Pakistani journalist, Najam Sethi, insisted on this in his TV talk show a day after the Indian foreign minister returned from his visit to Pakistan. And Sethi is supposed to be the liberal, modern, moderate voice in Pakistan!

Quite clearly, until Pakistan can get over its compulsive hostility of India, normalisation of relations between the two countries will remain a pipedream. But breaking with the past will require a complete overhaul of Pakistan, something that appears practically impossible. While India must keep lines of communication open, there is absolutely no reason for it to push for a negotiated settlement and that too on Pakistan’s terms, even less so at a time when Pakistan is on the ropes. Let India follow the Chinese maxim that if you sit long enough on the banks of a river you will watch the body of your adversary float by. At the same time, if Pakistan forsakes the use of Islamist terror and other forms of sabotage and subversion as an instrument of state policy against India and accepts the reality and existence of India, then it will find India a more than willing partner, one that will go the extra step like it has done in the case of Bangladesh.

Pakistanitis Bug Bites Yet Again

Sushant Sareen

For over six decades now, there is one issue on which successive Indian Prime Ministers have insisted on committing the same mistake again and again, refusing to learn anything from the bitter experiences of their predecessors. This peculiar Indian syndrome is called ‘Pakistanitis’. It is essentially an ailment which involves an inexplicable desire on the part of every Indian Prime Minister to be the one to settle all problems and disputes with Pakistan and usher in an era of peace, stability, friendship and prosperity in the region. The quest for this chimerical peace deal is always in utter disregard of the ground realities and flies in the face of information and intelligence inputs which militate against the possibility of any major breakthrough in relations with Pakistan.

Some Indian Prime Ministers have reached out to Pakistan after losing a war and under pressure from Pakistan's Western patrons (Jawaharlal Nehru after the 1962 debacle); others after winning wars and then frittering away the gains on the negotiating table in the fond hope of achieving lasting peace (Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tashkent after 1965 war, Atal Behari Vajpayee in 1999 after the Kargil war when he invited Gen Pervez Musharraf to Agra and again when he entered into a peace process in 2004 following the military stand-off after the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, and even Indira Gandhi at Shimla after the 1971 war); still others who not only succumb to the delusion of Pakistan's changed attitude towards India, but are also influenced by the utterly false notion sold to them by some aides, analysts and officials (people whose analysis and opinions always change according to what the man they seek to ingratiate desires) that the time was ripe to enter into a ‘Grand Bargain’ (read appeasement) to sort out issues with the hostile neighbouring country (Morarji Desai in the late 1970s, Rajiv Gandhi in 1989, IK Gujral with his ‘Gujral Doctrine’ in the 1990s and now Manmohan Singh since 2004 and even more since the 26/11 attacks in 2008). Needless to say, they have all had to bite the dust with nothing to really show for their labours. And yet, this obsession – actually more of a psychological ailment – persists with no cure in sight.

It is not just Indian Prime Ministers who tend to go overboard on the issue of Pakistan; the Indian public as well as the intellectual class, think-tankers, media personnel and what have you, is not much better. There are some common fallacies and fantasies that invariably guide the Indian public’s thinking process on Pakistan. These are as follows:

a) Personal friendships and relationships are often extrapolated to the political and the national level and it is imagined that the two states can share a relationship similar to that between individuals.

b) Social courtesies and overwhelming hospitality extended by Pakistanis (more a cultural characteristic rather than a sign of a desire for good relations) is often misinterpreted as a genuine change of heart.

c) A tendency to take things at face value. For instance, some senior Pakistani official (serving or retired) will always be quoted to buttress the case for reaching out to Pakistan. That the Pakistani interlocutor being quoted might not be telling the truth or may be telling a half-truth is something that is blithely ignored. Despite deception being one of the oldest tricks in the book, the Indians refuse to believe that they are being led up the garden path.

d) Greater value seems to be attached to words and optics rather than to actions on the ground that would actually prove the genuineness of the words.

e) Policy analysis and recommendations are made not on the basis of reality on the ground as it is but as it is imagined to be. Worse, these recommendations are based on interactions with the ‘usual suspects’ (many of them very decent, upright and genuine people who are nothing more than a fringe group, or if you will, an endangered species). What is more, Pakistan's window to the world is a bunch of around 500 extremely articulate people who interface with the rest of the world and are reasonableness personified. In the process, the grim, and often ugly reality, of what Pakistan is really up to tends to get brushed under the carpet.

f) Finally, there is the old and by now done-to-death ‘saviour complex’ suffered by Indians who are always ready to try and save Pakistan from itself. The way this works is that sometimes the threat of a military takeover and at other times the threat of a mullah takeover is waved frantically to present a case for making concessions to Pakistan. It is argued that India needs to seize the opportunity (short-hand for a compromise by India) to reach out to a beleaguered Pakistani regime (and/or Pakistani state) which in turn will eagerly and gratefully accept the Indian gesture and pave the way for ‘peace for all times’. It is of course quite another matter that every time India has done this, it has ended with the worst of both worlds: it has conceded ground to Pakistan without being able to save the regime for whose sake the concessions were made in the first place.

All these elements have once again come into play. India is being told that Pakistan has realised the folly of its ways and was now genuinely interested in peace and normalisation of relations with its eastern neighbour. The economic crunch coupled with the threat of Talibanisation and the deterioration of relations with the West have left Pakistan with no choice but to seek a peace deal with India, which should seize the moment. In order to strengthen the hands of the beleaguered Pakistani regime and convince the Pakistani public of the efficacy of the dialogue process, India should ‘pluck the low hanging fruit’ i.e. settle the Siachen and Sir Creek issues, which will give a fillip to the peace process. Interactions with Pakistani interlocutors, especially retired military officials, on the track-II circuit are offered as evidence of the changed mindset in Pakistan. The clincher is that India must strengthen the hands of moderate forces in Pakistan to isolate the radical Islamists who could otherwise takeover the Pakistani state.

There is however complete silence – both from within the Indian establishment and without – on the question of what Pakistan has done in tangible terms to convince India that a paradigm shift has been affected in Pakistan's strategic perception of India. Indeed, none of the metrics – to name just a few, stopping the export of terrorism and dismantling the infrastructure of terror directed against India, ending the inimical actions against India in Afghanistan, giving up their irredentist claims over the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, altering the school curriculum that portrays Hindus as Untermensch, stopping hostile propaganda (including the ISI-sponsored Difa-e-Pakistan Council which is whipping up anti-India sentiment and inciting people to violence against India) – that would conclusively indicate that the changes in Pakistan’s attitude towards India are not merely a tactical adjustment aimed at keeping the Eastern border settled at a time when the economy is tanking, tumultuous developments are unfolding on the Western front, and relations with the NATO/ISAF countries are on the downswing, are anywhere to be seen. The only thing on offer is the forward movement on the trade front – Pakistan has shifted from a positive list to a negative list of trading items pending grant of MFN status to India by the end of the 2012 – which is being sold as a huge concession on the part of Pakistan.

Bluntly put, liberalising the trading regime with India would have been a concession only if one side (India) stood to gain from it. The fact, however, is that Pakistan hopes to benefit as much from trade with India as India expects to profit from it and as such normalising trade relations cannot be called a concession on the part of Pakistan. True, opening trade with India would not have been possible for the civilian government in Pakistan without the concurrence of the top military brass. But this is less out of a change of heart and more out of economic compulsions and the need to protect the corporate interests of the Pakistan military. In any case, while normalisation of trade between India and Pakistan needs to be celebrated for its intrinsic value, it would be a delusional to treat trade as some sort of a magic bullet or a game-changer which will develop such strong vested interests in both countries making conflict and hostility a thing of the past. Quite simply, the level of mutual interdependence that could bring about such a state of affairs is years, if not decades, away. And even then, there is no guarantee that burgeoning trading relations will drastically reduce tensions between the two countries and help in resolving outstanding issues between them – remember the 1965 war when despite sharing close economic relationship and enjoying a very healthy trade surplus, Pakistan imposed war on India?

With the move by Pakistan towards granting MFN status to India being falsely projected as a big concession, the turn-the-other-cheek liberals in India have now started mounting pressure on the government to return the ‘favour’ by settling the Siachen and Sir Creek disputes more or less on Pakistani terms. Quite asides the fact that there is an astounding amount of ignorance about the nature of these disputes and the correctness of the Indian position, there is also a cavalier disregard for the strategic and tactical implications of settling these disputes on Pakistan's terms. Unfortunately, this attitude is also to be found in sections of the government who are very keen to push forward with the peace process with Pakistan regardless of the costs it entails. So much so that some top government officials (close to retirement and desperately eyeing a cushy post-retirement job) are stoutly defending the proposal to export 5000 mw of electricity to Pakistan as a goodwill gesture despite large parts of India is reeling under massive power shortages!

Notwithstanding the breakthrough of sorts on the trade front, the inherent limitations of what the revived peace process can achieve should be staring India in the face. Even though President Asif Zardari has always been interested in normalising relations with India, and in the first few months of his government he did try to break the logjam, his efforts were effectively stymied by the military establishment. Today, the limits of how far he can go in resolving issues with India is circumscribed not just by the Pakistan army but also by his own dwindling political capital. With Pakistan practically in an election mode, Zardari is hardly in a position to deliver anything tangible on any of India’s important metrics. If anything, he will be seeking to extract something substantial from India which he could then capitalise on to improve his party’s political prospects. Unfortunately for him, even if India did give him something, it won’t be of much help to him at the hustings. The problem is also that the weak and increasingly unpopular government of Dr Manmohan Singh is today in no position to make the grand gesture that Zardari might be seeking. Neither the Congress party, nor the opposition, is likely to support such a measure by the Manmohan Singh government.

Chances are, therefore, that while both India and Pakistan will for the foreseeable future continue with the process of engagement, no big breakthrough can be expected. The relationship will remain transactional with perhaps some incremental progress on the issues that are on the table. Come to think of it, until and unless the ‘mother of all problems’ between India and Pakistan is addressed – Pakistan’s pernicious Islamofascist ideology that renders it incapable of living in peace with India – it is practically impossible to have normal, let alone friendly, relations between the two countries.

Tail-piece: There is a lot of talk that the Zardari visit was part of a ‘Made in China’ peace process. If so, then all the more reason for scepticism because the odds are that like most Chinese made products, this peace process won’t be very durable!

Author is Senior Fellow in Vivekananda International Foundation

Asif Zardari’s Visit: India Should Avoid The Old Mistakes

Sushant Sareen

Quite clearly, between two countries which share an adversarial relationship, there is nothing that can ever be called a ‘personal’ visit by one head of state to the other country. And between India and Pakistan, this is quite simply impossible because in this era of 24x7 TV, a media circus will inevitably surround such a visit giving it saturation coverage and analysing every turn of the head, every wink, nudge, shrug, nod and what have you. At the political level, such a ‘personal’ or even a ‘non-official’ visit (for instance a cricket match) serves as a convenient excuse for the leaderships of the two countries to touch base and use the occasion to confabulate with each other. Thus it is that the moment it became known that Pakistan's President Asif Zardari wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Ajmer, the Indian leadership not only extended all due protocol to him but also graciously invited the Pakistani president to stop over in New Delhi en route to Ajmer for a meeting followed by a lunch with the Indian Prime Minister.

The official line in both Islamabad and New Delhi is that Mr Zardari’s visit is purely personal and the Indian PM is hosting a lunch for him only to extend courtesy to a visiting head of state. There is really nothing on the ground to suggest that the officials are burning the midnight oil to prepare for some kind of intense dialogue. And yet, hardly anyone in the two countries is taking the official line on face value. Notwithstanding denials by officials who are going blue in the face trying to dispel any notion that the meeting between the Pakistani President and Indian PM has been elaborately choreographed, most analysts are convinced that the pilgrimage is actually a smokescreen for holding direct high level talks between Mr Zardari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Asides the fact that political leaders of India and Pakistan are notorious for entering into a dialogue without adequate preparations – Agra 2001 is a prime example – the speculation that the meeting between Zardari and Manmohan Singh will give some sort of a push to the dialogue process between the two countries is also fuelled by the recent breakthrough in trade relations with Pakistan moving to a negative list of trade items pending the grant of MFN status to India. This was a long standing demand of India and is being seen (quite wrongly, it must be said) as a concession made by Pakistan. What is more, ever since the obnoxious Shah Mehmood Qureshi was removed as foreign minister and was replaced by Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan has been making all the right noises towards India, sending signals that it is genuinely interested in normalising relations with its eastern neighbour. Although the Indian permanent establishment is rather sceptical about genuineness of Pakistan's professed intentions for good relations, at the political level the Indian leadership appears to be falling over itself in trying to reach out to Pakistan and clasp the extended hand. Not surprisingly then, observers are waiting to see what, if anything, comes out of the meeting between Zardari and Manmohan Singh. And it is precisely this expectation, rather anticipation, that India needs to guard against.

To some extent, there is recognition in India that Zardari probably doesn't have the political capital to effect any major breakthrough with India and therefore it would be unrealistic to expect him to deliver on anything substantial on issues of critical importance to India. Many in India would also argue that any assurances that Zardari gives to India on the issue of terrorism cannot be taken seriously because he just doesn't have the power to fulfil these assurances. After all, the terror machine in Pakistan is controlled by the military establishment of that country and given the frailty of the political system, and his own precarious position, it is unlikely that Zardari can or will take on the powerful Pakistan army in order to live up to any commitment he makes to India. As a result, no one should be surprised if the issue of terrorism is raised in only a very pro forma manner by the Indian side.

Paradoxically, it is this palpable weakness of successive Pakistani leaders that serves as a trump card for them in their dealings with India. Chances are that Zardari will play up on both his sincere desire for good relations with India as well as his weak position within his own country to try and extract some major concession from his Indian interlocutors, without of course conceding anything in return. In other words, what Zardari will do is that when pressed on the issue of terrorism, he will explain his difficulties and constraints in addressing this issue immediately. He will in all likelihood play the ‘Mullah-Military card’. His pitch will be: “help me by giving me something that I can take back with me to my country and marginalise the military-mullah alliance on the back foot; without such a grand gesture from India the mullahs and the military will destabilise my government, depose me and take over power and then India will have to contend with a radical or at least a very hard line government in Pakistan, dominated, if not run, by the military-mullah alliance”. He will wave the trade deal as a sign of his commitment and in turn seek concessions on what some ignorant analysts, commentators and other sundry peaceniks call ‘low hanging fruit’, namely Sir Creek and Siachen, on which there is a false propaganda that a deal is all set to be inked if only the Indian leadership summons the political courage and displays the political will to do so. This is exactly the tactic used by successive Pakistani leaders with their Indian counterparts and this has always been successful in extracting concessions from India – Ayub Khan used this after the 1965 war, Bhutto after 1971, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif when they were at the helm of affairs.

Having fallen for the same beguiling Pakistani logic time and time again, India now needs to put a stop to this Pakistani version of ‘Apres moi le deluge’ and no better occasion to do this than Zardari’s forthcoming visit. While India should wish Zardari well – he is probably the most visionary leader Pakistan has got in a long, long time and his policies, domestic and external, hold the potential for making Pakistan a ‘normal’ state – his survival is neither India’s responsibility nor is it India’s primary interest vis-a-vis Pakistan, and most certainly not if this has to be achieved at the cost of surrendering India’s vital security interests or compromising on India’s sovereignty.

The big problem however is the obsessive quest of the current Indian dispensation to settle all the problems with Pakistan even if it means sacrificing India’s interests in the process. No one should therefore be surprised if India once again makes the same old mistake of trying to rescue a Pakistani leader by making concessions and ending up with the worst of both worlds – not only giving the Pakistanis what they wanted at India’s cost, but also failing to save the person for saving whom these concessions were made in the first place.

Author is Senior Fellow in Vivekananda International Foundation