No Alternative to Dialogue

No Alternative to Dialogue
Eqbal Ahmad
Dawn, 28 June 1998

Pakistan's High Commissioner in Delhi is an unexpected beneficiary of this trend. During the week I was there he was a featured speaker at two public events arguing his terms for Indo-Pakistan peace. Both took place at the India International Centre, the hub of Delhi's intellectual life. I attended the second of the two meetings. Like the first, about which read in the press, this too was distinguished more for the bonhomie that prevailed among the speakers than for the contours of peace they revealed. In both, the Pakistani looked very good indeed but neither yielded nor obtained from his colleagues on the platform - a shift from long held positions. The dialogue was inconclusive.

Ashraf Qazi is a talented, very impressive man. He is soft spoken, attractive, and wide ranging. A well read diplomat, he engages Delhi's intellectuals in smoke filled rooms with the same ease with which he entertains guests at a formal dinner. He spoke first. The nuclear tests have inaugurated a "new era", he said, in Indo-Pakistan relations, and invoked the necessity to jettison "obsolete concepts" such as balance of power, spheres of influence, even nuclear deterrence. The tests entailed a shift from an environment of ambiguity to openness, a playing out with nuclear weapons from a lower to a higher level, from implied to overt threats and preparations. In such an environment, the "probability of war" may be small, yet it entails "large consequences". Avoidance of war and quest for peace is a moral and political imperative, a responsibility we must not shirk. The governments of Pakistan and India, he said, have made exploratory proposals. Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) are on the agenda. "But in the absence of trust these can be doomed. At the heart of the distrust between us, he came around to saying with a smile as charming as the suave Irish-Baloch-Pathan could muster, lies the "K-word"; "the K-word is the one thing that comes between us". During this part of doing his job - he did announce that he was not doing his job there and speaking only in his personal capacity - Ambassador Qazi threw a pregnant line. While arguing the necessity to put Kashmir seriously on the negotiating agenda, he said something to the effect that "delay in reaching a settlement notwithstanding, we need to find mutuality in dealing with the differences". The next speaker, a BJP official, failed to follow up on the opening Ashraf Qazi had offered. His failure appalled me as it did several Indians I talked to later.

Mr N.N. Jha, a BJP expert on international affairs, is an adviser to Prime Minister Vajpayee. He started exactly the way Mr Qazi had so fervently appealed against - with a polemical review of the past. The history of Indo-Pakistan relations shows, he argued, that we have made friendly and peaceable gestures not reciprocated by Pakistan and recalled the unrequited concessions India had made after the 1965 and 1971 wars. Then he proceeded to extol the virtues of bilateralism which he insisted the international community favours as shown in the resolutions of the UN Security Council, the G8, and the P-5.

In the end he too mellowed a bit. Displaying some pride in the scientific accomplishment of two South Asian countries - "the only Third World countries to become nuclear powers" - he argued that while India and Pakistan differ in respect of Kashmir and other matters, their positions on FMCT, CTBT, and the sanctions are symmetrical. In these matters, the two should act jointly. "With joint effort we could both enter this most exclusive nuclear club". It was hard not to be amused and also feel a certain sympathy for his sweet dreams of club membership. I wondered though as to what Mr Jha imagined to be the privileges of belonging to the "exclusive club". Since many Pakistanis nourish the same dream, our official ought to give serious consideration to Mr Jha's low-cost, high-CBM-yield proposal.

Mr Mani Shanker Iyer of the Indian National Congress began by announcing that he agreed much more with his "friend" Ashraf Qazi than with the BJP representative. He was forceful and very effective in criticizing the BJP government decision to test. "India's international standing today is the lowest since 1947. Even Russia failed to veto this time a Security Council resolution that refers to Kashmir, and Joseph Korbel's daughter is making statements about Kashmir no American official had dared make. An arms race with Pakistan may now be inevitable as the level of weaponization is likely to be a reciprocal process. it is not realistic to expect an agreement on the level of deterrence between the two countries. The BJP has now pitted India against China even though none of China's fourteen inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM) were aimed at India, and our relations were improving. The level of preparedness we now seek vis-a-vis China will compel Pakistan to catch up". It was a bitter broadside that made BJP supporters more uncomfortable than angry.

What then to hope for in the future? It is a question dozens of Indians, including influential citizens, senior ex-military officials, and opinion makers, are asking. Built into their questions are implied criticism of the decision to go overtly nuclear. Most people I spoke to also acknowledged that BJP officials had pushed Pakistan toward carrying out its own tests, and nearly all were anxious for peace between the two countries.

"We think Nawaz Sharif wanted peace with India, and he enjoyed a large mandate. Chances of a settlement were never better than now", is a how a prominent columnist expressed a widely held belief in the centrist intelligentsia. Although some inquired into alternative solutions to the Kashmir dispute, I found no one who was willing to concede Pakistan's demand for a UN-supervised, two-way plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir. Yet, all hoped that Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif will take a step forward toward peace when they meet in Colombo.

"It can't be", says Congress leader Mani Sahanker Iyer, and asks: "Does Sharif believe that Vajpayee will last?" He does not acknowledge that weakness can compel compromise, and mistakes may induce reflection. Both leaders will arrive in Colombo next month carrying more burdens on their shoulders than feathers on their caps. Both need to show the world that they are statesmen, cognizant of the power they possess, and good at diplomacy. A first step obviously would be for them to order their foreign secretaries to start talking in accordance with the agreement already reached.

But other gestures and understandings may matter more: Pakistan's prime minister would do humanity and the Muslims of India a great favour if he were to openly denounce the recent massacre of a Hindu marriage party in Jammu. For, whoever committed that ghastly crime were friends neither of Islam nor of Muslims, neither of Pakistan nor of Kashmir.

In turn Mr Vajpayee owes us a clear denunciation of the massacre which armed men committed in an Azad Kashmir village. Equally, he ought to be told that his government's connivance in building a temple over the ruin of Babri Mosque will be viewed in Pakistan as a repugnant act of bigotry which will create distrust and communal hatred. Finally, some means have to be found to end the exchange of savagery that takes place, invariably at the expense of innocent people, allegedly between the secret services of the two countries.

These do lasting damage to state and society, and serve no national interests. They are the handiwork of men bred in an environment confused and violent. As Ashraf Qazi and Mr Iyer said, a Kashmir settlement may be long in coming. Meanwhile, there is need to raise the threshold on nuclear warfare, and that requires an agreement on rules and some civility of exchange.

Copyright 1998 Dawn