There is no game plan

THIRTY years ago, an American journalist went to interview Chairman Mao. ‘‘Mr Chairman,’’ he asked the Communist dictator, ‘‘What do you think was the historic consequence of the French Revolution?’’ Mao pondered for a while, and then said, ‘‘I think it is really too soon to say!’’

How I wish everyone could emulate the Chinese leader’s sense of restraint. The rush to pass judgement on the Agra summit began almost as soon as President Musharraf set foot in Delhi. There were favourable comments on his ‘‘body language’’ after he visited Rajghat, and gloomy remarks after the failure to produce an ‘Agra Declaration’.

I can’t say that I share Mao’s ‘sit back and wait for centuries’ attitude, but I do agree that it might have been better to wait a bit. So here, having waited a month, is my judgement on the Agra summit conference: General Musharraf arrived with a strategy, carried it out brilliantly, and went home triumphant.

There were, I remember, some harsh remarks on the ‘Commando President’ being ‘‘a man with an excellent grasp of tactics, but no clear strategy’’. I am sorry, but my reading of the situation is that it was we who misunderstood Musharraf, not the other way around.

Did Pervez Musharraf come to India thinking that he could bamboozle India’s leaders into gifting Kashmir to him? Not a bit! A glance at scores of pronouncements, going back all the way to Ayub Khan and Lal Bahadur Shastri at Tashkent, would have told him otherwise. No, the Pakistani dictator knew that the talks would be essentially futile, and I am morally certain that the Pakistani delegation came prepared to the last detail — including the excuse about Indian hardliners derailing the talks.

The truth is that General Pervez did not come to India to talk about Jammu and Kashmir. He came to impress two different constituencies — his own people back home, and the United States. I think he succeeded brilliantly. So much so that one Pakistani acquaintance told me, only half-jokingly, ‘‘Thanks to you people, democracy is dead in Pakistan for the next five years!’’

So what exactly did the self-appointed president of Pakistan set out to achieve? Well, he wanted tangible proof to demonstrate to his compatriots that he was ‘serious’ about Kashmir. The failure of the summit, thanks to demands known to be unacceptable, was a victory for General Musharraf. He can now stand up and say that he was willing to forgo the platitudes of an ‘Agra Declaration’ for Kashmir’s sake.

Does anyone remember Vice-President (as he then was) Richard Nixon’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1959? While visiting the first American exhibition in Communist Moscow, Nixon manoeuvred Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev into the famous ‘Kitchen Debate’. The next day every American newspaper carried photographs of a bristling Nixon jabbing the Russian leader. It was lousy diplomacy, but it was wonderful publicity with the next presidential elections due in 1960.

Well, Agra was the stage chosen by Pervez Musharraf for his own ‘Kitchen Debate’. When Prime Minister Vajpayee cannily refused to oblige him with a joint press conference, the Pakistani leader calmly used the now-infamous ‘breakfast conference’ to press home his points. No, Indian journalists couldn’t provide as dramatic a counterfoil as the Indian prime minister, but they were better than nothing.

All this drama enabled General Musharraf to go home as the first Pakistani leader who brought India to discuss Kashmir while on Indian soil. Anyhow, that was the image which he carefully cultivated. (I have it from excellent sources that Kashmir was scarcely the only topic discussed during the one-on-one conversations with the Indian prime minister.)

As I said above, the Pakistani people are only one of the two constituencies whom Pervez Musharraf must cultivate. The second is the United States.

The ‘failure’ of the Agra conference did not please Washington. The western powers don’t give a tinker’s cuss about Kashmir (except for a few noisy activists who don’t matter). They are definitely concerned, however, about a couple of other things — the possibility of a nuclear confrontation and about Islamic fundamentalism.

Everyone knows that the possibility of nuclear weapons being used in a South Asian conflict is actually rather remote. It provides a nice handle to try to interfere, but that is about it. Frankly, neither India nor Pakistan would like to be seen as being pushed around on this issue by the Americans.

But if he cannot offer any satisfaction on this issue — and he can’t unless India plays along — Pervez Musharraf can always extend the carrot of containing militancy. This, of course, is an issue that is almost entirely in Pakistan’s court.

It is all about placating public opinion. The average American couldn’t care less about a war breaking out in South Asia. But the safety and security of Americans themselves is another matter — and it is precisely this which Osama Bin-Laden and his Taliban friends seem to threaten. So much so that Bin-Laden has won the dubious distinction of becoming the first Asian to make it to the top of the USA’s ‘Most Wanted’ list.

If General Musharraf tries to woo the United States by throttling militancy, it lays him open to attacks by the fundamentalists. However, here he is shielded by the halo of Agra. ‘‘I am fighting for Kashmir,’’ he can say, ‘‘but these militants are ruining my plans by forcing me to fight on two fronts.’’

Permit me to digress a bit. I couldn’t care less if thirteen black cats cross my path forcing me to walk under a ladder. But I have always believed in one omen — the ‘C-C Factor’. Briefly, this states that the performance of the Indian Cricket XI is a foretelling of what shall happen to the country as a whole.

The victories in the West Indies and England presaged the Bangladesh War. The World Cup in 1983 and the World Championship in 1985 sandwiched the greatest parliamentary majority ever granted to an Indian prime minister. And, sadly, Tendulkar’s men failed to win 120 miserable runs in the West Indies just before the Congress (I)’s ‘Easter Bomb’ threw the markets into turmoil in 1997.

Watching four Indian wickets fall for a measly 24 runs — on Independence Day at that — I couldn’t help reflecting on the perils of over-confidence and under-preparation. Will that also be true of the Indian Foreign Office at the next Indo-Pakistan summit?

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