Another Indo-Pak Reset: The Good, The Bad and The Question Marks

Sushant Sareen, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

The curious thing about the Joint Statement issued after the meeting between the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers in Ufa is that it is being interpreted by both sides in a way that suits them. The problem is that these divergent interpretations raise questions about whether there is indeed a clear understanding on where the road map that the two countries have set to re-engage with each other will lead. That the statement was somewhat loosely worded and left enough wriggle room for both sides could either be a case of masterly drafting or a monumental goof up. In either case, it doesn’t inspire much confidence that the nth resumption of talks (even this is debatable) will end up any different from the previous talks between the two countries.

Besides getting the monkey of international pressure to engage with Pakistan off India’s back, perhaps the only positive spin that can be put on the ‘understanding’ reached by the two Prime Ministers is the fact that they are both being criticised in their countries is indicative of their having met each other mid-way. This means they both showed a degree of flexibility to accommodate each other in order to kick-start a dialogue of sorts. At the same time, they haven’t given away anything substantial that would open them to the charge of a sell-out. In other words, compromise yes, capitulation no. It is another matter that public opinion in both countries has hardened so much that even a compromise which ostensibly entails no significant cost has very few takers.

If things were to be stretched more and another positive spin was to be given to the Ufa statement, then it could be said that the main talking point between India and Pakistan is now going to be terrorism and security. India has long been insisting on terrorism being accorded centrality in any discussion with Pakistan. Ufa has achieved that with the two NSAs to discuss terrorism, and security officials from both sides to open a track to ensure stability along the borders. Having got what it wanted, the Indian side accommodated Pakistan’s desire to put the issue of Jammu and Kashmir on the table by tangentially including a reference to it under the rubric of being “prepared [emphasis mine] to discuss all outstanding issues”. Presumably this includes not just J&K but also trade and all other issues because in the statement it comes in the context of and follows the bit about “collective responsibility to ensure peace and promote development”.

The criticism of Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan over the absence of the K-word is perhaps not as silly as the excitement in India at the inclusion of the phrase “voice samples” and the reference to the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. In other words, the exclusion of the K word doesn’t necessarily mean that Kashmir is off the table, just as the inclusion of “voice samples” and expediting the Mumbai case trials (in Pakistan) doesn’t mean there will be any forward movement on it. If anything, the reference to 26/11 is merely cosmetic because both sides agreeing “to discuss ways and means to expedite the Mumbai case trials…” means nothing. The two sides can discuss these ‘ways and means’ till the cows come home. That the Pakistanis have no intention of delivering on 26/11 should have been clear to India after top ministers declared in the Pakistani parliament that the government has no intention of banning the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. What is more, they even told a brazen lie that there is no evidence of any link between the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jamaat-ud Dawa, even though it is well documented that the JuD was formed on the eve of an international ban on the LeT way back in 2001.

But chances are that if Pakistan gives India the run around on 26/11, India has the space to wriggle out of talking Kashmir because no structure has been specified for discussing it and India can always stonewall by saying that being ‘prepared’ to discuss is not quite the same as actually discussing Kashmir. Clearly, going strictly by the text of Ufa, there is no framework laid out under which Kashmir will be discussed and for the Pakistani Advisor of National Security, Sartaj Aziz, to claim that there will be no talks without Kashmir doesn’t conform to the letter of the Ufa Joint Statement which only says that the two NSAs will “discuss all issues connected to terrorism”. It is of course another matter that India has no reason to be chary of discussing Kashmir with Pakistan. After all, India has a solid claim over a part of the Indian state that is under Pakistan's illegal occupation and which India wants Pakistan to vacate, not by force of arms but through a dialogue. Therefore a dialogue on Kashmir doesn’t mean discussing the issue on parameters determined by Pakistan. On the contrary, if India discusses Kashmir it will be to forcefully put forward India’s position. What is more, since India hasn’t given up its claim over Pakistan occupied Kashmir and it keeps protesting Chinese activity in that area as well as the fraudulent ‘elections’ that Pakistan conducts in the occupied areas, India must discuss these issues on the table with Pakistan.

What the Ufa Joint Statement has also done is that it has for all practical purposes ended the Composite Dialogue process and structure. Out of the basket of issues that comprised the Composite Dialogue, the focus is primarily on terrorism which the NSAs will discuss. There is really no new framework or structure to discuss the other ‘outstanding issues’. Border issues will be discussed between BSF and Pakistan Rangers and between the two DGMOs, which in itself is no earth shaking development considering that the DGMOs and the BSF-Rangers officials have been meeting in the past as well. For now at least this is the sum total of engagement. While earlier it was the Foreign Secretaries who dealt with Peace and Security and J&K, followed by the Foreign Ministers who took stock of the process after each round was over, now it will be the NSAs who will be the points-men on both sides but only for discussing terrorism. They could discuss Kashmir and other issues but it is unlikely if those will be the central point of discussion. It is entirely possible that they may come up with some forum where these issues could be discussed in a more structured manner, but that remains to be seen. The decision to release fishermen and their boats is laudable and addresses a humanitarian issue that affects both sides. The mention of religious tourism is extremely vague and it isn’t clear who will decide on the “mechanism for facilitating religious tourism”.

The problem with the Ufa statement isn’t so much with its text as it is with the context. The text is quite in India’s favour; the context less so. And since the text is somewhat divorced from the context, harbouring any expectations from the tentative resumption of dialogue is quite misplaced.

The fact that India sought a meeting with Pakistan will send a wrong signal to the Pakistanis who will see it as India dealing with them from a position of weakness. The way the Pakistanis see it, the evolving regional strategic environment is going in their favour. Their apprehensions about Afghanistan and its closeness to India are now being addressed. So much so that the Pakistanis think they have pretty much got Afghanistan stitched up with Ashraf Ghani bending over backwards to appease them and their Taliban proxies all set to move into the driving seat in Afghanistan. On the economic front, the Chinese investments in Pakistan under the umbrella of the Economic Corridor will kick-start the economy and prove to be a game-changer. Any compulsion to deal with India for the economic benefits that would come Pakistan's way is no longer operative. Not just India, the Pakistanis also think they don’t need to do every bidding of the Arabs since they now have Chinese money to fall back upon. The Western pressure, for whatever it was worth (and it wasn’t worth much anyways as far as India is concerned) to crackdown on terror infrastructure has for all practical purposes ended. The Americans and the other Western countries are tilting in favour of Pakistan, bestowing them with military equipment and economic assistance. The Russians too are wooing the Pakistanis and appear to be using Pakistan to balance their ties with India which they think is moving away from them. The Central Asian States are also interested in dealing with Pakistan, both to get a handle over terrorism as well as to possibly link up with the CPEC to get an outlet to the Arabian Sea. In this regional context, the Pakistanis will be justified in thinking that India is now getting isolated and hence is forced to reach out to Pakistan. And by asking for talks India has only reaffirmed this feeling among the Pakistanis. Whether or not the Pakistanis are over-estimating their strategic importance is hardly important. What is important is that this is their perception and in light of this it is quite pointless to expect them to be reasonable in their relations with India.

The second aspect of the context is that nothing has changed on the ground which would lead anyone in India to think that Pakistan has decided to turn over a new page in its relations with India. If anything, the ground situation and the sentiment has only turned negative over the last year and a half. Pakistani propaganda against India, much of it directed by the military establishment, has become hysterical with some embedded Pakistani analysts even accusing India of backing the rise of IS in Afghanistan apart from levelling the usual litany of lies about Indian hand behind the Pakistani Taliban, the Baloch insurgents, the disturbances in Karachi and what have you. According to the paid media in Pakistan, the Indian intelligence agency has set aside a sizeable amount of money – some claim around a billion dollars – to sabotage the CPEC. In addition to this propaganda is the ratcheting up of rhetoric on Kashmir, both domestically as well as internationally. There is also the increasing activity inside Pakistan of terror groups operating against India. Hostile actions against Indian interests in Afghanistan are also on the rise, including the suspected attack on a hotel in Kabul where the Indian ambassador was supposed to be present. At the political level, the rhetoric in both countries also belies any possibility of a détente between them, forget about rapprochement.

Given that nothing has changed on the ground, by re-engaging Pakistan, the Modi government has fallen back on the failed template of the past. Prime Minister Modi’s predecessors made the same mistake of imagining that they will be able to make a difference until their imagination was dashed on the rocks of reality on ground. Clearly, by re-engaging Pakistan despite nothing on ground to suggest that the result of this re-engagement will be any different from the past such efforts, Mr Modi has dashed the hopes of those who thought that his government will forge a new template on how to deal with Pakistan. All that has happened in Ufa is that the old template has been tweaked and repackaged but in substance it is no different from the past which is that talks is the only option. If it is the only option then it is so because other options haven’t been developed, which was precisely what was expected from the Modi government. Even otherwise, talks just for the sake of talks has been tried in the past and hasn’t led to anything except shake off whatever international pressure there is to keep the temperature in the subcontinent from boiling over. The problem is that this remains a fragile process and one big terror incident is enough to bring this process crashing down. Worse, the Modi government will have to pay a heavy political price if such an incident takes place.

Arguably the worst thing to happen with the re-engagement process is that it has erased whatever red-lines the Modi government had laid out, particularly on Kashmir. When Finance Minister Arun Jaitley declared that Pakistan will have to decide whether it wants to talk to the government of India or to those who want to break up India, it was a clear red-line. This was breached when during the ill-advised ‘SAARC Yatra’ the government decided to turn a blind eye to meeting between the Pakistani diplomats and those ‘who want to break India’ as long as these meetings happened before or after a respectable and reasonable time of an official meeting between the two governments. The question that now hangs in the wind is whether the government of India will refuse to engage with the Pakistani NSA if during his visit to Delhi he decides to meet with the Kashmiri separatists? Or will the government acquiesce to a meeting between Pakistan and those who want to break India before or after such a meeting. What will be the signal that this will send out?

Finally, there is the whole question of whether Mr Modi’s counterpart in Islamabad has anything in his store to deal with India. Does Nawaz Sharif even call the shots in his country especially when it comes to dealing with India? Will any purpose be served in dealing with a Prime Minister who is reduced to handling municipal functions and performing ceremonial duties while the real power rests in the GHQ in Rawalpindi?

Chances are therefore that the re-engagement with Pakistan will not go anywhere for the reasons outlined above. India may have scored some diplomatic points in Ufa, but there will be a cost to be paid when this process collapses. Instead of taking the Pakistanis at face value – top officials in the Ministry of External Affair have said that they take what is told to them seriously instead of what is said in Pakistan for domestic consumption – India should judge Pakistan on the basis of ground realities. This means laying out a set of metrics by which India can judge if indeed Pakistan is ready to make a break from the past and forge a new relationship with India. If such a change is visible, India should go the extra mile to engage Pakistan; if there is no such change, then India should go the extra-mile to remain disengaged from Pakistan. Hopefully, after the process that started at Ufa collapses, this will be the trajectory that the Indian government will adopt.

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Published Date: 15^th July 2015, Image Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Vivekananda International Foundation)

The Neighbour from Hell - India-Pakistan: Iron in the Soul

Prabhat P Shukla, 

Distinguished Fellow, VIF

The decision to call off the scheduled Foreign Secretary level talks with Pakistan appears to have taken many by surprise, and left many in India quite unhappy. They seem to be unable to understand that a meeting between the Pakistan High Commissioner and various Hurriyat leaders could call forth such a response from the Indian Government. These persons have accepted the Pakistani argument that it was routine for Pakistani leaders to meet the Hurriyat, and so there was no call for the talks to be cancelled.

The Pakistanis have spoken with one voice, as they usually do on India-related matters; there are no doves on their side. Not one person from Pakistan who appeared on our TV shouting matches has accepted that their High Commissioner was wrong to disregard the clear message given by the Indian side of the consequences of going ahead with the meeting with the Hurriyat.

Instead, they have utilised the occasion to come across as the injured innocents, and have added that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was keen on improving ties with India; that he deserved credit for coming to India for Modi’s swearing-in and staying overnight for a meeting; that he was under pressure, and needed support, not this snub; and that the Indian action had strengthened the hard-liners in Pakistan. In short, they have spelt out the usual paradigm, in which the onus is on India to show restraint because otherwise bilateral relations will suffer.

To dispose of the most frequently-employed argument in this case: it was routine for Pakistani leaders and diplomats to meet Hurriyat representatives. All too true, but it was rarely the case that we did not make our unhappiness known to the Pakistani side. They knew well that we did not like it, but in our typical craven approach to Pakistan, we never did anything about it. In these circumstances, it is only appropriate that the Government should have reacted by cancelling the FS level talks. The fact that we did not react in this manner in the past is no reason why we should not do so now. Indeed, it is important that the Government draw up a series of red lines vis a vis Pakistan, like the use of terrorism directed against India, which if crossed would involve appropriate punitive measures.

Think about it: the Pakistanis have also made it a routine to use terror against for the past thirty years, starting in Punjab, going on to Kashmir, and then all over the country. And after each such act, once the initial outrage passed, the Indian side would crawl back into some sort of dialogue. Does that mean that this is the right pattern of behaviour? Or, take the fact that Pakistan, in egregious violation of its international legal obligations, refuses to allow Indian exports into Pakistan on MFN basis - on the most puerile of excuses. If we were to take action on this, is it any defence to say that they have been doing this for twenty years?

If the Indian Government decides to address these brazen violations of international law and takes counter measures, it would be no defence to say that these are all ongoing issues of long standing. No, Pakistan had it coming, and cannot play injured innocent now. The fact that earlier Indian Government’s did not take the required counter measures on a host of transgressions by Pakistan does not mean that that the present Government should desist from so doing.

Then there is the argument about Nawaz Sharif. There are two angles to this one: one, is he really the friend he is projected to be? And, two, even if he is, does that mean he can be allowed to hurt our interests? On the first, it would be worthwhile remembering his record since the early 1990’s. It was during his tenure as Prime Minister 1990 – 93, that the horrific Mumbai blasts occurred and Pakistan was place on the watch-list of state-sponsors of terrorism by the US. And it was during his second term that he gave us Kargil, and then allowed that he was not in the know. In fact, he was very much in the know.

And in this term, he has raised the Kashmir issue at the UN, and with the US President. He has also talked of moving forward on trade, but has refused to accept his WTO obligation of giving Indian exports MFN treatment. Cease-fire violations continue apace, are in fact, growing in number and intensity, including across the international boundary.

The second angle is equally important. From the days of Ayub and the Tashkent Agreement, we have made ourselves mental prisoners of the logic that we have to “do something” to help one or other leader. With Ayub as “best bet”, it was the hard-line ZA Bhutto, who had to be held off, with his promise of a thousand-year war. Irony of ironies, this very same man had to be helped at Simla in 1972, because he was now the man of peace! These “best bets” have been dangled before us subsequently too, right up to the present, through Benazir Bhutto, Zardari, and of course the perennial Mian Sahib; they should by now be a warning to Indian policy-makers inclined to gamble with the fate of India.

It would also be legitimate to ask, doesn’t Modi need to be given a leg-up by the Pakistanis? This same Nawaz Sharif let down Vajpayee with the Kargil War, and no one accused him of letting down a sincere interlocutor. In the same way, he has let down Modi, who clearly wanted to seek a fresh start. Even at his Independence Day speech, he did not respond to Mian Sahib’s remarks on Kashmir the previous day. And yet, our mind-sets remain the same: India must put up with Pakistani rogue behaviour, the other side has no stakes in showing concern for our interests.

The other charge is that Modi has strengthened the Pakistani hard-liners with this decision. History tells us that, in fact, the hard-liners – and they are all over, not just in the Army – were softened up after 1971, when they tasted humiliation after their over-reach. The appeasement of the last two decades has, in fact, strengthened the hard-liners. They have come to accept that India will turn the other cheek, and come back to the negotiating table sooner or later, if only Pakistan stood its ground. And this has become the set pattern of behaviour.

In fact, this is a good opportunity for Mian Sahib, if indeed he wants good relations with India but is being held back by some other hard-liners, to turn to those who drove the pro-Hurriyat stance and ask what they now propose to do. It is they who are boxed in, not Modi. The harsh truth is that we do not need Pakistan for any of our strategic purposes. There was a time when it could play spoiler, but that time is now gone. On the contrary, it is Pakistan that needs India. Pakistan needs electricity, which it is horribly short of, and there are shutdowns of up to 18 hours a day in urban centres too. Things have got to the point where it is becoming a social and political problem. We were prepared to sell electricity to them, but should now reconsider. Similarly, we were preparing to sell imported natural gas to them, and this again is something Pakistan desperately needs, since all its own import schemes have come a cropper – the country is effectively bankrupt.

All this, however, now needs to be fitted into a new pattern of relations. . Of course, this means consistency, and a steady hand: good behaviour will call forth a generous response; aggressiveness will be met with a firm response involving penal measures. It will take time, but the hard-liners will get the message. There are some externalities in the equation, and they cannot be ignored. But they can, and ought to be, be tackled with some pro-active diplomacy. It would also be imperative to look to our defences.

Essentially, what Pakistan was doing was probing Modi, testing his resolve – was he the same as all those who went before him, or was he different? They have got an answer, but the testing of his firmness, and capability, will continue. The Pakistani deep state is committed to this provocative policy stance, and has been indulged by us for three decades. It will not give up easily, and we should also recognise that they are resolute and tactically smart. But they are financially and strategically bankrupt, and those are the weaknesses we have to play on.

There is, certainly, every chance that the country will implode before all that happens. As this is being written, Islamabad is under siege from the shock-troops of Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri. Where all this will lead is anybody’s guess, but the Pakistani commentators, even the sober ones, seem to be growing ever more pessimistic about the country’s future. It may thus come to pass that the country itself might disintegrate. That poses a different set of issues, and we need to prepare for every contingency arising in our North-West.

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Published Date: 21^st August 2014, Image source: https://pakistanisforpeace.files.wordpress.com

The Right Balance in Asia

Kanwal Sibal 

(Advisory Board, VIF)

What impact will President Barack Obama’s re-election have on the United States of America’s strategic ties with India? It needs recalling that the US defines its strategic partnership with India very broadly, not limiting it only to hard security issues.

Cooperation in the priority areas of energy, agriculture, science and technology, education, health and information technology is viewed as generating the building blocks of the strategic partnership. The US’s stated objective is to build Indian capacities in various sectors so that India’s role in global affairs can be enhanced. The thrust of US policy in Obama’s second term should remain this.

Work on large parts of the ambitious India-US bilateral agenda remains unfinished. India’s nuclear liability legislation continues to hinder nuclear energy cooperation. The US spokesperson has identified this issue for a solution after Obama’s win. In agriculture, issues pertaining to genetically modified crops remain unsettled; in education, legislation allowing foreign universities to play a greater role in India has not yet been enacted.

With regard to obtaining easier access to US high technologies, including dual use technologies, with the loosening of export controls, Indian expectations haven’t been fully met. The hike in visa fees and denial of visas to Indian service providers are adversely affecting our information technology sector. We have moved on allowing foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, but significant reforms in the financial and labour sectors sought by the US are awaited. Obama, who had commented critically some months ago on the reforms slow-down in India, is likely to return to the theme, particularly as his focus on economic issues in his second term might become sharper in order to bolster flagging US economic growth.

The US’s efforts to obtain a larger share of our defence procurements will continue in Obama’s second term. Already in the last seven years, the US has obtained orders worth $9 billion. This has had a political impact on our defence relations with Russia whose pre-eminent position as supplier is being eroded. India’s strategic challenge would be to keep both the Russians and the Americans reasonably satisfied.

On terrorism and homeland security, improved Indo-US cooperation will continue. Obama had begun his first term as president with uncongenial views on terrorism, Kashmir and our relations with Pakistan. His experience of Pakistani duplicity has changed the US official discourse on Pakistan’s links with terrorist groups. After declaring the Lashkar-e-Toiba a terrorist organization earlier, the US has now declared the Haqqani group as such, exposing Pakistan to the application of the US’s anti-terrorism legislation. Obama will continue to sanction drone attacks on Pakistani territory notwithstanding the strong public reaction in Pakistan. This suits our interests.

On Kashmir, Obama moved to a non-interfering position; while on Afghanistan, after initially discouraging any prominent India role there in deference to Pakistani sensitivities, the US now openly supports higher Indian engagement with that country, and co-operatively with the US where possible. In US strategic thinking today, India is seen as the economic anchor of the whole Central Asian-South Asian region, which the Americans want to integrate economically through the New Silk Road concept. In this scheme of things, the US will continue to be interested in improved India-Pakistan ties, especially economic, as this has an important bearing on the situation in Afghanistan. The US wants to lower its economic burden in maintaining stability in Afghanistan post-2014 through more trade and investment from within the region. The US will therefore continue to play hot and cold with Pakistan as the latter cannot be alienated beyond a point. This approach is reflected in the recent waiver given to Pakistan to enable economic and military aid to flow. Nevertheless, with the heightened attention the US is giving to India’s regional role, the US factor in our relations with Pakistan will continue to make easy the situation strategically for us.

Unlike China, which owes its economic and financial strength to US strategic choices in the 1970s to counter the former Soviet Union and is now seen as threatening US interests, India’s rise is not seen as a threat by the US. The flourishing US-China economic partnership has not been translated into shared political values and security understandings, which the US would have wanted for an enduring alliance of interests. India, on the other hand, shares the values of democracy, pluralism and human freedoms with the US, without as yet developing a matching level of economic collaboration. The US therefore believes India’s ascent with increased economic muscle will only strengthen the cause of democracy globally.

The US has tried to enlist India as a major component of its re-balancing policy towards Asia. China is being recognized increasingly as a strategic competitor by the US. China’s relations with its neighbours, some of whom are major allies of the US, have become tense. Its position on the South China sea reflects, apart from territorial aggrandizement, its naval ambitions. The US wants to signal its intention to maintain a balance of power in Asia, but, constrained by its financial and economic problems — which would inevitably require a reduction in its massive defence expenditure — it would rather not assume solely the burden of this strategic enterprise. It would prefer spreading it by co-opting partners like India which have their own reasons to be wary of China’s growing strength and the bilateral imbalance that has consequently emerged.

It is significant that the US’s approach to the two biggest adversaries of India has evolved positively for us. India, however, is unwilling to actively exploit this to its advantage, both because it recognizes the limits to US countervailing actions or strategies towards these two countries and India’s own independent interest in engaging them in order to dilute tensions and friction. Which is why, even as the US’s relations with China and Pakistan deteriorate, India is seeking to improve relations with both. Notwithstanding this, India gains passively from the downturn of US ties with these two countries and the simultaneous improvement of US-India relations because India’s strategic profile increases, compelling China and Pakistan to take cognizance of the new equations. This positive strategic advantage should get consolidated in Obama’s second term if we play our cards astutely.

The problem areas ahead are Iran and Syria, where it is not as yet clear how far Obama redux will go to effect a regime change through direct or indirect military action. Logic would dictate against another war with an Islamic country for geo-political reasons. But Obama has repeatedly said that Iran will not be allowed to acquire nuclear capability come what may. On Syria, he has declared that President Bashar al-Assad must go. The second term gives him political flexibility as he is not constrained to make bad choices under electoral pressure. The Iranian regime is under stress because of sanctions and may search for an honourable compromise. The beleagured Assad regime may yet collapse through stepped-up external support to the insurgency. India has distanced itself from the American position without serious bilateral contention. But if Obama decides on coercion, the US-India strategic partnership will come under some strain.

On the whole, however, Obama’s re-election will move the US’s strategic engagement with India forward.