Tracking George Bush’s gaze

It devolves on the US to enable Musharraf to implement his January 12 promises

ONE reason why western interlocutors are sometimes out of sync with Indian appraisals of Pakistan is because they focus exclusively on Kashmir while discussing relations between the two countries. And not only do they focus on Kashmir, they seem to have a variety of solutions ranging from the Farook Kathwari group’s solution to a lazy settlement on the LOC. The difficulty is that if they come forward with ready-made solutions, what is it that India and Pakistan will discuss if and when they meet? Kashmir is such a high-voltage issue in the internal politics of both India and Pakistan that neither side can be seen to be making concessions.

Palestine, Cyprus, Ireland are all poor models. There is, however, an element or two in the Northern Ireland situation which could be noted. The legislature at Stormont, on Belfast’s outskirts, consists of a range of Unionists, Protestants who seek continued union with Britain, and the Republicans, seeking Irish unification. The status of Northern Ireland will not change unless the majority of the people in Northern Ireland change their minds.

The Protestants are in a majority. Meanwhile, a series of cross-border cooperative ventures in tourism, fisheries, dairy, ecology have been put in place which have a dynamism of their own. A consequence of this dynamism was I was able to drive from Belfast to Dublin without being checked. The Stormont legislature, by comparison, marks time. The dispute has, in other words, been managed and may be resolved in geological time.

I am not for a moment comparing Ulster with Kashmir. I am suggesting something very small: the mantra with which you go into talks with Pakistan is non-negotiable just as the British ma-ntra on the ‘‘wishes of the people of Northern Ireland’’ is. “Indian secularism protects am-ong almost a billion others the world’s second largest Muslim population and any issue, including Kashmir, must be addressed keeping this very sensitive detail in mind.’’

During the last days of the Clinton administration the Americans were very directly engaged with both India and Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir. The Bush administration’s intentions on this, as on other issues, are guided by the day-to-day improvisations on the anti-terror campaign.

At one stage it seemed Somalia had more or less come in the American firing line. Then one day Christiane Amanpour appeared on the terrace of a house in Mogadishu to drop knowledgeable hints that Somalians had had a change of heart about America and would be spared. Everything now points to a focus on Iraq.

If Iraq acquires high saliency in the war against terror, who is going to respond to Hamid Karzai’s lamentations in Kabul? And what attention span can we expect from the Americans on Pakistan and Musharraf’s predicament? Indian moves, or the lack of them, towards Musharraf and Pakistan will to a large extent be determined by the kind of stamina the Americans demonstrate in staying focussed (not just loosely engaged) on Pakistan, the returning Al-Qaeda cadres from Afghanistan and so on.

By flailing their arms in all directions, the Americans may let slip an opportunity they have stumbled upon in Pakistan to clean up the main reservoir of Islamic extremism. The Pak, Saudi, American combination to oust the Soviets in Afghanistan with the ISI as the engine of the operation, the Mujahideen, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda that mushroomed in these conditions — all this is commonly known. What is not realised in the West is all these were manifestations of the basic malignancy afflicting the Pakistani state.

Here was a country which had come into being on a platform of hatred. We the Muslims cannot live with them, the Hindus, and must have an Islamic state. In 1971 Islam proved a weak glue to keep Bangladesh and Pakistan together. Since then the authors of the Pakistani state (not the people in Pakistan at all), taking advantage of the Afghan developments, embarked on a project of double and triple distilling Islam, distorting it to a militant anti-India, anti-Hindu force — that becoming Pakistan’s only national self-definition.

Naturally, this kind of anti-India militancy began to construct its opposite numbers in India as well. But India is not only a vast country, it is also a vigorous democracy. It could mediate social aberrations through the ballot box. But Pakistan was a project of hate and militancy, in perpetuity. It was potentially the world’s most dangerous terrorist state. It is foolish to deny that it has not impacted on India’s delicate social balance.

That is why General Musharraf’s January 12 speech is a watershed not only for Pakistan but for India and the world. And it devolves on the Americans to see the project through, protecting Musharraf if need be and enabling him to implement what he has promised. And this cannot be achieved if Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Somalia distract the US.

Complete Afghanistan and Pakistan first, until India and Pakistan are seated on eight different tables covering each one of the issues in the comprehensive dialogue. The eighth table, the one on Kashmir, will have the two sides in a scrum just that much longer until political temperatures on both sides drop.

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