India may be Forced to Match Musharraf's Act

India may be Forced to Match Musharraf's Act
Praful Bidwai
The Black World Today, 15 January 2002

India, which accorded a cautious, mixed, and ambivalent reception to President Pervez Musharraf's landmark ''anti-terrorist'' speech Saturday, may nevertheless have to reciprocate Pakistan's moves and de-escalate its military posture. New Delhi is certain, in the coming days, to face increasing pressure to appear more appreciative of Musharraf's actions against 'jihadist' militants, and to de-escalate the massive military build-up along its western border. The defusing of tension between the two South Asian arch rivals, both nuclear powers, could herald a breakthrough in their deeply troubled relationship. The ball is now in India's court.

If New Delhi drops the US-style aggressive posture it adopted following a militant attack on its Parliament building on Dec. 13, it could engage Islamabad in negotiations to ratchet down tensions, restore normality, and prepare the ground for a peaceful resolution of all problems, including Kashmir. If India chooses, for short-term domestic political reasons, to remain adamant, and demands that Pakistan surrender all the 20 terrorists it has named, it could lose a unique chance for reconciliation. Worse, it could contribute to precipitating a ruinous and prolonged military conflict, with possible escalation to the nuclear level - with horrific consequences.

India has said that while it ''welcomes'' Musharraf's speech, it will watch if its promises get translated into ''effective action''. Some of the action is already evident - with arrests of more than 900 'jihadist' militants in Pakistan's biggest-ever crackdown. Musharraf has categorically ruled out handing over Pakistani nationals to an external agency, but said he could consider acting against non- Pakistani suspects if they are found to be in his country. The question India faces is how far it should push for the extradition of terrorist suspects. India and Pakistan do not have an extradition treaty. Neither can be compelled under international law to hand over suspects to the other.

A way out could be found if a ''neutral'' agency like Interpol is given custody of suspects for interrogation. But if this is made a precondition for military de-escalation, India-Pakistan border tensions could persist for a dangerously long time. World opinion, especially the US view, would seem to be averse to that. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, scheduled to visit India and Pakistan later this week, can be expected to counsel a quick resolution of the issue. India will find it hard to resist US pressure. It has allowed Washington to become a key player in the post-Dec. 13 confrontation with Pakistan.

Indeed, India's strategy has been brinkmanship - building enormous military pressure on Pakistan in revenge for Dec. 13, and extracting concessions through coercive diplomacy. This pressure has been exercised through a mediating agency, the United States, by frightening it with the prospect of a South Asian nuclear confrontation, and getting it to tell Pakistan to act against terrorists.

Thus, Pakistan froze the accounts of terrorist groups (Lashkar- e-Toiba and Umma Tameer-e-Nau) within hours of the United States putting them on its ''foreign terrorist'' suspect list on Dec. 23-24. Similarly, it arrested Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed soon after India announced that it would halve the strength of diplomatic missions, and cancelled all travel-and-transportation links with Pakistan.

Although it has produced favourable results, this brinkmanship has a menacing nuclear dimension, which is inconsistent with New Delhi's professed position against ''nuclear blackmail'' and threat mongering. But in the process, New Delhi has become more vulnerable to US arm-twisting. It will find it hard to resist the United States as a mediator or facilitator, by whatever name, on Kashmir.

Officially, the Indian stand is that Kashmir is a strictly bilateral issue, which must be resolved through peaceful negotiations. But in practice, India will have to make some concessions to the ''the international community's '' - the US - opinion. India has been courting the United States as a ''strategic partner''. After Sep. 11, it uncritically supported the new Bush Doctrine equating terrorists with their harbourers. It entered no reservations when the United States launched the Afghanistan war, bypassing the United Nations system. And it has not had a word of criticism of the construction of a US military base at Jacobabad in Pakistan.

New Delhi has tried to mimic Washington in numerous ways: by equating Dec. 13 with Sep. 11 as an attack on ''democracy'' itself, by rejecting genuine multilateral diplomacy, and by targeting, in keeping with the Bush Doctrine, terrorism's ''supporters'' (Pakistan). India has been partially motivated by resentment at having been sidelined by the so-called global ''anti-terrorist'' coalition, which favoured Pakistan.

However, an equally important motive has been domestic - related to the trademark politics of the Hindu-sectarian, right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). For the BJP, the ''anti-terrorism'' slogan has become a stick to beat Muslims with, and to mobilise Hindu-chauvinist votes. These votes are crucial to the BJP's electoral gamble in Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state, where it faces a make-or-break contest next month. If it loses Uttar Pradesh, its national coalition would itself be in jeopardy.

In a desperate bid to avert a rout, the BJP has exploited the post-Sep. 11 climate by promulgating a draconian ''anti-terrorist'' law, and through malicious propaganda equating Islam with ''terrorism''. Musharraf's decoupling of Kashmir from terrorism has thrown a spanner in the BJP's works. It cannot claim that Musharraf's ''concessions'' represent its triumph, or acknowledge their significance without losing face. The BJP would have been in a less unfortunate position had Musharraf confined himself to banning Lashkar-e-Toiba (Soldiers of God) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) militant groups. But, on Jan. 12, he announced a paradigm shift by severing the connection between religion and politics, and putting Pakistan on to the road to secularisation and ''tolerance''. The agenda is probably the most far-reaching programme of change that any Muslim-majority society has attempted since Turkey's Kemal Ataturk. The Indian government cannot claim that this is the result of its coercive diplomacy or military preparations. It will eventually have to respond by reciprocating Islamabad's moves. The less hesitation it shows, and the fewer its nitpicking reservations, the better for it.

The main obstacles in India's way are its own right-wing hawks. One of them is reduced to pleading that India must not ''de-escalate the crisis'' to ''let Pakistan off the hook''. This, he admits, ''will not only show that it had been bluffing, but also next time it will not be able to mount a credible threat of force''. That brutally shows up the limits of brinkmanship. Like a game of poker, brinkmanship inevitably involves a degree of bluffing. But the good gambler knows that once one's bluff is called, there is no point attempting an even bigger bluff.

Copyright 2002 The Black World Today