I doubt if anybody could have come up for such a strong pro-peace initiative as General Musharraf has in the last few weeks. He began by condemning the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament. He followed it up by offering to crack down on some of the Jihadi groups which have been accused of this act. Then, when nobody was expecting it, he shook hands with Mr. Vajpayee in the SAARC meeting in Kathmandu. On the evening of 12th January, he took three significant policy decisions. The first, and most important one, was to declare in so many words that the government will not allow Pakistan’s soil for conducting acts of violence in the name of Jihad. The second was that he banned the organizations which have long been accused of following a militant policy in Kashmir. The third is that he has announced that from now on there will be certain curbs on the religious lobby, especially that part of it which was militant.
The boldness of these steps lies in the fact that they represent an about turn, not simply a change, in the policy of the Pakistani establishment, especially the intelligence services and the army itself. Of course, such boldness had to be made palatable to the Pakistani public by warning India to stay on its own side of the border and also that he would not return Pakistani citizens accused of crimes to India. He would, however, try them in Pakistan and if they are not Pakistani citizens then a flexible approach could be followed.
I do not see how any right-thinking Indian analyst or decision-maker can find fault with this formula. How can any leader exist by declaring that he would not repel an attack? Moreover, how can anybody give up even the pretence of sovereignty (we were arm-twisted into giving up the substance in some respects by the U.S.A earlier) as far as India is concerned and still hold the country together? I am glad Indian decision-makers seem to have accepted the idea that peace should have a chance but the hawks, especially in India, still think that this is a temporary expediency not a change of policy. I hope, however, that it is a genuine change of policy.
Let me clarify, before going on, that I have never followed a pro or anti-government line in my writings. For the last twenty years or so I have consistently written for peace. I was very young in 1965 but later, when I read what had happened, I accused the Pakistani decision-makers of having sent in fighters across the line of control in Kashmir which precipitated a war. In 1971 my point of view was that, instead of a military action in Dhaka, the people of Bangladesh should have been asked in a referendum whether they wanted independence, loose confederation or the rule of the Awami League all over Pakistan. During the Siachin conflict I accused India for having sent in troops on a piece of barren earth which was not worth even one human life. I also kept insisting that if this one conflict can be solved independent of Kashmir then it should be solved to save expense and human lives on both sides. During the Kargil conflict I praised Nawaz Sharif, the then prime minister, for pulling back the fighters backed by Pakistan. In the present stand-off I blame India first for threatening war and secondly for not responding fast enough to General Musharraf’s peace initiatives by calling back the troops.
I have repeated this history because the moment one writes in favour of government policy, a number of people accuse one of being a paid stooge, a syeophant and a puppet. I need not, however, defend myself at length. All the reader has to do is to read my columns if he, or she, can endure their tediousness!
By reversing the establishment’s policy of more than a decade General Musharraf has taken a very great risk. The religious militants have been nurtured by the agencies of the state, especially the army, and it is conceivable that he meets with passive resistance in the implementation of orders. This might manifest itself in senseless acts of violence to destabilize the regime. This is the time when all those who value peace, both in Pakistan and India, must support pro-peace policies. As it happens hawkish statements and acts by India only support the hawks on our side. They do so by vindicating the hawks’s position that the opponent only understands force. Moreover, if the opponent make conciliatory gestures, the hawks interpret them as weakness. In short, nothing works as far as the hawks are concerned and countries slide into war. This is what happened just before the decision-making leading to the two world wars.
Thus, the present Indian stance that the troops would not withdraw to their peace locations till all acts of violence come to an end is a recipe for possible and unintended disaster. First, not all the acts of violence are by Pakistan-based groups. Second, even when organizations are banned they keep operating as underground forces. Third, individuals antagonistic to General Musharraf might spite him by continuing spordic acts of this kind. It is completely unrealistic for Kashmir to became a land of eternal peace after a decade of violence. It is, however, realistic to expect the level of sustained violence to go down over some period of time. The saner elements in India know it but, because hawks dominate decision-making in most places, they cannot make themselves heard.
Another point which is worth noting is that in Pakistan at least, people do not want a war. They have heard of nothing but Kashmir for the last fifty years and yet, when it comes to the crunch, they respond with great good sense. In India, from what I see of e-mail and internet, at least some educated Indians definitely do not want a war though they are more bitter about the recent happenings in India than the events themselves would seem to warrant. In short, at least in Pakistan, General Musharraf’s attempts at averting a war and curbing religious extremism will go down well. They will also go down well in the outside world.
At the moment the ball is in India’s court. If India does not respond positively to General Musharraf’s peace plan it will look---and indeed will be---a war monger. Apart from the immediate losses in battles India will have one big worry, that of esealation and unacceptable damage. Equally frightening is the prospect of a takeover in Pakistan by hardliners and hawks. There are several of them and not only the religious fanatics but also nationalists and chauvinists of all descriptions. India should be as afraid of such kind of people as Pakistan should be of the saffron brigade. These are people who do not value life in the ultimate analysis. They might be neorophiliacs (lovers of death), sadists or irrational people as Hitler, Himmler and Stalin were. They might also be so emotional about abstract concepts, such as the nation or military glory, that they would rather die than live and let live. Or, alternatively, they might be hate-crazed with years of propaganda. In all such cases they are just the kind of people who want to start a war even if they do not win it. If both Pakistan and India want to avoid such kind of decision-makers then they should encourage moderates. And, at the moment, General Musharraf has proved himself to be a moderate. To reject his hand of friendship means India would harm its own long term, rational self-interest.
In the end it should be emphasized that the changes in the madrassas, the ban on the religious extremists and the restrictions imposed on them will not work immediately. Policies which have taken two decades to mature cannot be transformed by a word of command. Pakistan should accompany these policies along with a massive investment on education and the alleviation of poverty. It is more fruitful to eliminate the breeding grounds of madrassas i.e poor disadvantaged children, than to suppress them or impose unacceptable syllabi upon them. It is far better to give people jobs, self-respect and avenues of development to them than to leave them on the streets where anyone who wants a private army can employ them. In short, the journey towards peace will be long and slow. General Musharraf has already walked two miles---will Vajpayee walk with him a mile?