India’s Dialogue with Pakistan a Trap

Kanwal Sibal, 

Dean, Centre for International Relations and Diplomacy, VIF

Our response to the killing of five Indian soldiers last week by the Pakistanis inside our Line of Control has again shown our inability to deal effectively with the dual issue of dialoguing with Pakistan and scotching the terrorist threat from it.

The issues are closely inter-linked as using the arm of terrorism against a neighbour is not how a normal state conducts itself. To believe that such a state can be persuaded through political talks to give up a lever that it uses to further its strategic goals is not realistic. It will change its conduct either if the cost of use becomes too high or if it achieves its objectives.

Pakistan will, therefore, not cease supporting terrorism unless we impose costs on it or offer it concessions. If we conclude that we cannot force Pakistan to stop terrorist activity against us and that we have no choice but to talk to it, hoping that it will control the jihadi groups in the country’s own longer-term interest, then we play into Pakistan’s hands, leaving it to decide how and when it will deal with the issue based on its internal and external calculus.

The composite dialogue is therefore a political trap for us, as Pakistan views it as a platform to constantly press us for concessions without needing to make any of its own, particularly as we appear unduly anxious politically to keep the dialogue going.

Our appeals to Pakistan to cease support to terrorism for the dialogue process to succeed lack logic. Pakistan actually believes that because we cannot handle terrorist pressure externally as well as internally because of our divided polity, we cling to the dialogue option and seek accommodation with it.

We are in confusion when we say that we can make progress in settling our differences only in an atmosphere free from violence. Are we implying that we are holding up progress in some areas because Pakistan is not suppressing terrorism as we want?

What “progress” will we offer on Kashmir to satisfy Pakistan? Will we withdraw from Siachen if Pakistan controls jihad against us? Will we accept the Pakistani position on Sir Creek? Will we accept its case on the Wullar Barrage and our hydroelectric projects on the western rivers allowed by the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT)? What progress can we offer on nuclear matters?

Contradictions

In reality, if no progress is being made on our differences it is because Pakistan is fixated on obtaining concessions from India rather than making any of its own. On Siachen, they want us to basically accept that we are occupying territory that is rightfully theirs and vacate it. Apart from lack of strategic equivalence in the scope of the withdrawals, the reality is that even what Pakistan is currently holding is strictly illegal because we consider the whole of the erstwhile state as legally ours. Pakistan should in the first instance end its cartographic aggression by showing the cease-fire line correctly as ending at NJ9842 and not extended to the Karakoram Pass. Pakistan should also be required to remove the presence of China as an intruding third party in POK, consistent with its claim that J&K is “disputed” territory.

On Sir Creek, Pakistan should accept the median line as the border in accordance with international law rather than insisting on a one-sided solution. On water related issues, it should cease to further vitiate the atmosphere by accusing India of diverting water in violation of the IWT which is in fact is exceptionally generous to it. In the nuclear field, apart from increasing its holdings at a break-neck pace, it is introducing tactical nuclear weapons in the sub-continent and dangerously lowering the threshold of their use.

On trade, Pakistan has yet not moved to grant India MFN status stalled since December last year, even though it is obliged to grant it under international trading rules. If it does so eventually, it will be because of its economic woes rather than as a goodwill political gesture. On our side, were Pakistan to cease violent activity against us, an area in which we could contribute to “progress” would be people to people contacts.

Straitjacket

It is time that we released ourselves from the diplomatic straitjacket of the composite dialogue. On all the agenda items, barring terrorism, Pakistan seeks concessions from India. We are exposing ourselves to blame for being rigid if no progress is made, with some of our own commentators joining Pakistanis in faulting us for not culling the so-called low hanging fruit such as Siachen and Sir Creek. On terrorism and trial of those responsible for the Mumbai attacks, our demands have become ritualistic through fruitless repetition and Pakistan ignores them. Worse, we have allowed

Pakistan to put us on the defensive on the issue by tagging the Samjhauta Express incident to the issue of terrorism.

Need

We had a confused response to the recent border incident because of concern that holding the Pakistan army directly responsible would have jeopardized the resumption of the composite dialogue and the meeting of our Prime Minister with his Pakistani counterpart in New York next month. We have lost our margin of manoeuvre by investing too heavily in the policy of holding a broad-based dialogue with Pakistan despite its truck with terrorism. The Pakistani premier is pressing for the composite dialogue as it serves Pakistan’s interests well, the onus of making progress having been heaped on India’s shoulders. We should reverse the burden and ask Pakistan to deliver concretely on terrorism before we resume a process that has produced virtually nothing for years.

Prime Minister Sharif should put his money where his mouth is to inspire confidence.

India’s Compass on Terror is Faulty

Kanwal Sibal 

(Member, VIF Advisory Board)

Afzal Guru’s hanging shows the ineptness with which our political system deals with the grave problem of terrorism.The biggest challenge to our security, and indeed that of countries all over the world that are caught in the cross currents of religious extremism, is terrorism.

Traditional military threats can be assessed on the basis of the size of the armed forces, equipment and logistics available to the adversary. A militarily weak country would normally hesitate to attack a stronger one as defeat is never honourable and the price could be loss of territory. A casus belli has to be established to negate any charge of unprovoked aggression; the laws of war are applicable. The international community can intervene through the UN or otherwise against a state resorting to military aggression.

Challenge

Terrorism has a different logic. It is asymmetric warfare by non-state actors outside any law. The numbers involved are small and the targets are unsuspecting and unprepared individuals in the street, in public transport, hotels or restaurants or peaceful public spaces. Suicide bombers and car bombs can cause substantial casualties indiscriminately. Shadowy groups with leaders in hiding orchestrate these attacks. The involvement of state institutions through groups nurtured by them is on the basis of the practiced art of deniability. The international community cannot even agree on the definition of terrorism. The extraordinary challenge that terrorism poses to societies has to be dealt with exceptional levels of alertness, discipline, training of personnel, technical capacity, policing and organisational response.

India’s problem with externally supported terrorism is amongst the severest that any country faces. Our next door neighbour has been long using terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Even if some countries like Libya were accused of supporting terrorism, the acts imputed to them were not so blatant, wide-spread and persistent as those of Pakistan-based terrorists against India. North Korea has been accused of sporadic terrorist acts and Iran has supposedly targetted political opponents abroad and supported terrorist groups attacking Israel, but the Israeli-Arab confrontation has no parallel with the reasons for Pakistan’s animosity towards India and North Korea and Iran have no territorial claims that they seek to advance through terrorism. Pakistan supports terrorism to destabilize India, to make governance in Kashmir as difficult as possible, to nourish separatism there, to cause a communal divide in India. It is also a consequence of the deepening Islamisation of its society.

To meet the enormity of such a threat India needs political consensus and cohesion within the country. We have, instead, political bickering and confused thinking in the civil society and sections of the media. Afzal Guru was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court, his review petition was rejected by the same court and yet the government took well over 6 years to decide on his mercy petition. To claim that this delay was not political in character is being disingenuous. Because the delay was motivated by political considerations, the decision to hang him is being inevitably attributed to political calculations. Action against terrorists should not be vitiated by competition between government and the opposition for political or electoral advantage. With those responsible for killing Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh escaping hanging so far, the question of selective decisions arises. Sections of our mainstream press consider it appropriate to present Afzal Guru as a victim of the Indian judicial and political system rather than a brutal terrorist deserving condign punishment.

Travesty

The dictum “better late than never” would have provided adequate social catharsis if the delay in hanging was actually for reasons beyond government’s control. If some members of the National Advisory Council could plead with the President to save Kasab- a Pakistani who personally killed hapless, innocent Indians- from the gallows, one can imagine the resistance within the system to hang Afzal Guru. If the milk of human kindness flows within our society for terrorists like Kasab, who were actually waging a proxy war by Pakistan against us, it is hard to imagine how we can steel our will and hone our organizational responses to combat terrorism zealously.

Blunder

We have voluntarily confused the debate over Pakistan’s culpability for terrorism against us by declaring that both countries are victims of terrorism. We have damaged our case further by not resisting Pakistan’s attempts to equate the Mumbai terror attack with the attack on the Samjhauta Express. By playing up of disclosures about terrorist attacks by right wing Hindu extremists we are bracketting Pakistani abetted terrorist attacks in India and local acts of terrorism that have nothing to do with Pakistani territory. The previous Home Minister blurred the focus on externally supported terrorism by highlighting domestic religious extremism. His successor has scored a self-goal by speaking of Hindu terrorism and RSS/BJP run training camps. The External Affairs Minister, whose words have more echo outside because of his position, has endorsed the Home Minister’s accusation, no doubt adding to the confusion abroad about the ground realities.

There is no parallel between the highly deplorable but isolated terrorist activity of vengeful Hindus and the terrorist industry in Pakistan and the Islamic world sustained by oil wealth and pernicious religious thinking. There are no NGOs or Hindu preachers in India publicly advocating religious violence against Pakistan on the basis of religious texts. There is no state support for such activities. If we think our domestic jockeying for political advantage can be insulated from the external dimension of the terrorist threat facing us, we are committing a costly error. We let the Kashmiri separatists, who are de facto political accomplices of the terrorists, travel to Pakistan to meet even the Army and ISI chiefs there without reaction. Our compass on terrorism is faulty.

Nettlesome Neighbour

Kanwal Sibal 

(Member, VIF Advisory Board) 

We need to take proper stock of our policy towards Pakistan after the recent incidents on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir and the manner in which the government of Pakistan has reacted to them. A re-examination of some of the assumptions underlying our policy is needed. We believe that the principal problem in our relations with Pakistan is lack of trust. 

This implies that our differences are not of a fundamental nature and can be overcome by dialogue and correcting misperceptions on both sides that have been allowed to endure for decades. 

Have we made real progress in reducing the trust deficit between the two countries? The latest incident of mutilating the bodies of two of our soldiers and beheading of one of them by Pakistani troops reveals the undercurrents of hate that exist. 

Even if we were to treat it as an isolated incident, the reaction of the Pakistani government to the incident is perturbing. The right thing would have been for the Pakistani government to take note of our accusation, promise proper investigation and appropriate action against those responsible if the charges proved to be factually correct. 

Instead, it conveyed the deplorable message that Pakistan is dismissive of India’s anguish, to the point of even imputing that we have contrived the incident. 

Pakistan’s foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar, has excelled herself in cocking a snook at India. She is appalled at what she terms as absolutely unacceptable Indian charges. She has accused India of war mongering, adding contemptuously that if a billion Indians ask questions Pakistan is not obliged to answer them. 

If the exercise of the last eight years and more was for building trust between the two countries, then the kind of tongue-lashing that Ms Khar has given India hardly demonstrates that it has been successful. She represents the civilian government of Pakistan, which is supposed to be more committed to improve ties with India. 

People of goodwill in Pakistan and India never fail to exhort the government of India to strengthen the civilian set-up in Pakistan against the security establishment. Well, it is the civilian government that is deriding our concerns and sentiments. If the civilian foreign minister of Pakistan is such a servile tool of the Pakistani military that she cannot even choose diplomatic vocabulary befitting her responsibilities, then the civil-military distinction we are asked to make is of limited consequence. 

We have tried to build trust with Pakistan by agreeing to a composite dialogue even without satisfaction on the terrorism issue. Despite our pleas Pakistan has not brought to justice those responsible for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. We protest about Hafiz Saeed but live with the reality of his uncurbed venomous rantings against us. We have not resisted Pakistan’s strategy to wrong-foot us on terrorism by bringing the Samjhauta Express issue into discussions. 

Visa restrictions

The Pakistani interior minister Rahman Malik, comes to India and equates the Mumbai attacks and Babri Masjid, besides suggesting Indian complicity in the former, and we let it pass to avoid clouding the atmosphere. We have agreed to ease visa restrictions, permit sporting ties and increase cultural ones, besides welcoming the expansion of trade ties without Pakistan granting us MFN treatment, so as to enlarge the orbit of trust between the two sides. 

As against all this, what has Pakistan done to build trust? Pakistan has persisted with provocations on Kashmir. In early 2012, Pakistan’s parliament passed a resolution calling for resolving the Kashmir issue in accordance with UN resolutions, a position that president Zardari reiterated in his UNGA speech in September. 

After the recent LoC incidents Pakistan’s foreign minister has taunted us with an investigation by the UN Military Observers Group whose role India does not recognize since 1971. Pakistan insists on Indian withdrawal from Siachen which it never controlled. On Sir Creek, Pakistan is unwilling to accept a compromise solution consistent with established international principles. 

On water related issues Pakistan has deliberately distorted public perceptions by resorting to malevolent propaganda against India’s imagined high-handed actions. 

Pakistan has used its nuclear capability to promote terrorism against India, as it feels protected against any strong Indian conventional response. Pakistan distorts the content and intent of the India-US nuclear deal and under cover of that is expanding its nuclear arsenal and is preparing to introduce tactical weapons as a step to lower the threshold of use of nuclear weapons against India. 

As a victim of terror itself, Pakistan claims that it can hardly be accused of abetting terrorism against India. This is a specious argument because its military still considers jihadi groups targetting India as strategic assets. Kashmiri insurgents have safe-havens in Pakistan; infiltration across the LoC continues. The latest act of beheading an Indian soldier reflects a jihadi mind-set even in the armed forces in whose motto ‘jihad’ figures prominently. 

Our prime minister’s statement that it cannot be business as usual with Pakistan after this barbaric act and that Pakistan should mend its ways; if it wants friendship with India adequately captures the public mood. 

This does not mean no dialogue in the future. It means Pakistan has to act like a civilised country and do serious introspection about its destructive attitudes and policies before we can resume efforts to build mutual trust. 

Those criticising the suspension of sporting and cultural ties should not equate their political and moral duty as citizens to share public anguish at the treatment given to Indian soldiers by the Pakistani military with their right to be entertainment by Pakistani sportspersons and musicians. We must get our priorities right as a society.

Going by The Script

Kanwal Sibal 

(Member, VIF Advisory Board)

Rehman Malik’s provocative statements imply that powerful people in Pakistan such defiance of India on the core issue of terrorism.

All those who have criticized the Indian government’s decision to invite Pakistan’s interior minister Rahman Malik to the country to operationalize the revised liberalised visa regime have missed several pertinent points. If Indian ministers of external affairs, home and commerce can visit Pakistan as part of the mutual efforts to address disagreements or expand trade between the two nations, then, there is no reason why Malik cannot visit the country.

If the argument is that Pakistan has not dealt with the issue of cross-border terrorism effectively and has not brought to justice those responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks on November 26, 2008, the responsibility for doing that lies with the Pakistan government, not exclusively with the home ministry of that country.

If the government of Pakistan can be engaged at higher levels of political responsibility -meetings between the Pakistan president and the prime minister of India and that too despite Pakistan’s unwillingness to address the terrorism issue satisfactorily- then why should there be such squeamishness in engaging with Rahman Malik? Why do we think that cold-shouldering the interior minister would have sent a message that the Pakistan government is otherwise unwilling to hear? Would the Pakistani military and the Inter-Services Intelligence have become more amenable to good neighbourly behaviour if Malik had not been invited to India?

In any case, New Delhi has long broken the link between dialogue and terrorism. The government, no doubt, reminds Pakistan periodically that we expect an expeditious trial of those accused in the Mumbai case, but then we must remember that we are appealing, not laying any pre-condition, to Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan has been given the political space to stall without much cost, on the issue of terrorism.

Malik came to India with the knowledge that he can continue to side track India’s demands with disingenuous arguments. How would being “hard” with Malik on terrorism (by denying him an India visit) have compensated for being “soft” with Pakistan on the same issue?

Even the Pakistan government understands that the bilateral relationship is sensitive, especially when to comes to the issue of terrorism. The Pakistani minister would not come here without internal consultations and adequate briefing. It would be a mistake to believe that his seemingly outlandish statements were made by a loose-tongued individual on the spur of the moment. If not the exact language, the thrust of the remarks can be taken as “approved” internal thinking on terrorism of the Pakistani establishment.

Which is why the visit has been helpful: The minister’s remarks have underlined that Pakistan is not defensive on terrorism. On the contrary it is exploring ways to put India on the back-foot. Pakistan has already created, and India has in effect indirectly conceded equivalence between 26/11 and the Samjhauta Express bombing. Both cases have been mentioned in India-Pakistan joint statements. Malik’s reference in Delhi to this bombing in connection with 2008 attacks was, therefore, predictable.

But Malik went further in obfuscating the enormity of the 2008 attacks by offensively bracketting them with the Babri Masjid issue. This again was not an off-the-cuff statement: remarks made in public and their implications are usually discussed beforehand with advisers. Malik was giving the Babri masjid episode the character of a terrorist attack by a section of the Hindus against Indian Muslims on whose behalf, Malik insidiously implied, he could speak, just as he could on behalf of the Pakistani Muslims killed in the Samjhauta Express attack.

If Malik affirms that Abu Jindal, who was extradited from Saudi Arabia for his involvement in 26/11, is an Indian national and was in touch with India’s intelligence agencies and that India and Pakistani non-state actors in Pakistan in league with a US national staged the Mumbai attacks which, he argues, Indian agencies failed to prevent, it only shows how far Pakistan can go to reject any guilt for the attacks and how much the sense of being a victim of conspiracies is ingrained in the Pakistani mindset.

We have shown our anger by refusing to issue a joint statement and have justifiably called Malik’s statement on Abu Jindal “ridiculous”. But such statements only widen the gap in our respective perspectives on Pakistan’s complicity in terrorist acts against India. This and Malik’s boast of standing up to Indian pressure on Hafiz Saeed prove that we must draw proper conclusions about Pakistan’s readiness to deal with Mumbai honestly. We should shed illusions that after the Pakistani judicial commission comes here and examines the witnesses, Pakistan will move forward rapidly on the Mumbai case, as Rahman Malik dubiously affirms.

We may think that Rahman Malik’s visit has stoked controversy and damaged the ongoing trust-building effort. But Malik would believe that he has used his visit to convey Pakistan’s perspective on Mumbai bluntly and tell the “truth” to the Indian public which he thinks our government is hiding. If through this he was raising his political stock in Pakistan, it would imply that powerful lobbies there support such defiance of India on the core issue of terrorism.

Instead of paying any price for his provocative statements, Malik returned home with a prize: a liberalized visa regime, which is based on India’s hope of greater Pakistani restraint on India-directed terrorism, the reality of which the Pakistani minister was determined to deny.

PM Visiting PAK Now A Bad Idea

Kanwal Sibal
Member Advisory Board, VIF

As the bigger country, India is often exhorted to be generous with Pakistan. Those advocating a sustained dialogue with Pakistan, irrespective of its conduct towards us, have such thinking, an off-shoot of which are current urgings to the Prime Minister to go to Pakistan.

Diplomacy, however, is not transacted with the currency of generosity. It is taken for granted that countries act principally in self-interest. No country will easily accept that another has been gratuitously “generous” to it; it would look for hidden motives. A country obtaining more than what it expects from another is likely to think that it succeeded because of diplomatic skills or well-applied pressure. Besides, how does one measure “generosity” and who makes the evaluation? Reciprocity, therefore, is the acceptable currency of diplomacy.

Inequity

Those asking India to be “generous” expect it to make unilateral gestures of kindness towards Pakistan, or giving it more than it gives in return. Such an accommodative approach has, in fact, been tried over the years, but without tangible results. Little political, intellectual and practical basis is therefore left for advocating such an approach today.

In 1947/48 Pakistan committed aggression against us in J&K, but instead of undoing it, we appealed to the UN, which has left Pakistan in possession of vital strategic areas in the north which gives it crucial continguity with China and denies us one with Afghanistan. In 1965 Pakistan was not punished for its second bid to wrest Kashmir as it got back the strategic Haji Pir pass from us at Tashkent. Despite Pakistan’s military defeat in 1971, we did not, in a show of statesmanship, insist on a final settlement of the Kashmir issue at Simla, besides releasing the 93,000 Pakistani POWs in our custody without any political quid pro quo. In 1999, despite a decade of Pakistani terrorist onslaught on Kashmir, Shri Vajpayee journeyed to Pakistan in friendship, but the response was Kargil, to which India reacted purely defensively.

In 2001 the Pakistani terrorists attacked our parliament. The enormity of the provocation compelled us to threaten a military strike, but we stayed our hand and eventually chose a diplomatic response by inviting General Musharraf to Agra. We discuss Kashmir with Pakistan on an unequal basis with Pakistan insisting on its territorial claims on at least the valley and we no longer asserting our claim on the whole of J&K. We have not reacted to Pakistan’s parliamentary resolution in April this year that the Kashmir issue should be resolved on the basis of UN resolutions. We tolerate Pakistani leaders meeting Kashmiri separatists on Indian soil.

We have overlooked Pakistan’s arbitrary extension of the ceasefire line in J&K beyond NJ9842 eastwards to the Karakoram Pass. On Siachen we are willing to consider demilitarization if Pakistan were to agree to delineate and demarcate the actual ground position line there, giving the latter an unwarranted locus standii in our own territory. We are diplomatically quiet on China’s involvement in development projects in POK, including the Neelum river project, even though Pakistan has raised its contestation of the Kishenganga project by the claim that it violates the Indus Waters Treaty(IWT), which we have scrupulously adhered to despite all the Pakistani provocations. We have tolerated Pakistan’s obstruction of the Wullar barrage project for years.

While Pakistan has attacked the India-US nuclear deal for undermining its interests, we have not targetted Pakistan’s nuclear cooperation with China. We have not retaliated against Pakistan’s attacks on our Embassy and other interests in Afghanistan. We have not made an issue of US arms supplies to Pakistan. On the economic front we have lived with Pakistani denial of MFN treatment to us. We have not made Pakistan pay the price for its mischief in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka against our interests.

Terror

Our self-restraint on the issue of Pakistan’s export of terrorism to India since the mid-1980s has been exceptional. Before the Pakistani jihadi elements with official backing perpetrated the Mumbai terrorist carnage, we comforted Pakistan politically by accepting its line that it too was a victim of terrorism like us. We agreed to set up a joint anti-terrorism task force as if genuine cooperation was possible. We have now accepted Pakistan’s linkage of the Samjhauta Express to the Mumbai attack in terms of our answerability, even when the two cases cannot be compared. We are upset by Hafiz Saeed’s jihadist rantings against India, but have not allowed this to affect our dialogue.

Visit

Pakistan is violating the cease fire agreement even today, with training camps in place in POK and incidents of infiltration continuing, but we are overlooking this. While the US has begun targetting Pakistan on its duplicitous conduct on terrorism, we are not only not exploiting this to our advantage, we are actually releasing pressure on Pakistan by engaging it across the board.

By not breaking diplomatic relations despite Kargil and Mumbai attacks etc, India has kept its lines of communication open with Pakistan. We are welcoming the highest Pakistani political leaders to India and our Prime Minister is meeting the top Pakistani leaders bilaterally on the margins of international conferences as part of our bilateral engagement. If, it is felt, that the objectives of the dialogue can be durably attained only if the Indian Prime Minister visits Pakistan, there should also be recognition that the risks of durably derailing it must be removed beforehand. A visit to Pakistan by Prime Minister now will be a huge political mistake on our part as it will signal that the outstanding issue of terrorism and trial of those responsible for the Mumbai massacre has been closed.

Bitten already many times, we should be very shy.