Musharraf must not do a Sharif

Saeed Naqvi

Prime Minister Vajpayee’s invitation to Pakistan chief executive, General Musharraf and its acceptance has lifted a sort of oppressive stillness that has characterised recent India-Pakistan relations. There is now a gentle breeze blowing across the subcontinent.

But such is the nature of relations between our two countries that, lodged at the very heart of this relief, is the fear that it might be transient. This tragic uncertainty when it comes to contemplating Indo-Pak ties can be easily understood if you reflect, say, on that bus journey to Lahore.

I was on that bus; it was cheered all the way from Amritsar to Wagah. Yes, up to Wagah only. The bus carrying Vajpayee and his entourage never actually drove all the way into Lahore. Vajpayee was received by Nawaz Sharif, on what is virtually no-man’s land. A helicopter flew them to Lahore.

Indian journalists flew all the way from New Delhi to Lahore, then drove up to the Wagah border merely to catch a glimpse of the two prime ministers. Why weren’t the journalists given visas by Islamabad to cross the land border along with Vajpayee? After all, it was the bus journey to Lahore they were covering. I am not making a huge point here, but the question has nagged me. In hindsight, it is much easier to comprehend the other question which bothered some of us then: why didn’t the two prime ministers drive all the way to Lahore?

The very next day we understood why Nawaz Sharif could not have driven the short stretch from Wagah to Lahore. Street riots delayed the state banquet at the Lahore Fort. Rioting was reported even as Vajpayee made that historic statement at Minar-e-Pakistan.

Just imagine a prime minister who has evolved through the RSS, Jana Sangh and BJP declaring, at the very sanctum sanctorum of the idea of Pakistan, that Pakistan’s stability and well being was in India’s best interest! And, yet, Kargil happened.

Clearly, very little homework had been done by Sharif and his men on that bus journey. How could a prime minister have been so out of touch with what went on around him? Was he the virtuous musician who played in a brothel without knowing what went on there? Or was he a double dealer?

Or, was he plain incompetent? Either he did not anticipate that riots would break out in Lahore or he had himself engineered them. The conclusion is inescapable: Sharif was not prepared. That is why there is both hope and fear in the air today. Unless General Musharraf has done his homework, nothing will happen in Delhi.

The suddenness of Vajpayee’s invitation deserves an explanation. Of course, the ceasefire in Kashmir was not working. But for quite some time the PM had been muttering to those around him — ‘How long can we postpone a dialogue with Pakistan?’ Clearly, General Musharraf was not quitting in a hurry. At the crucial lunch with the PM on May 23, Home Minister L.K. Advani took upon himself the responsibility of informing the Sangh Parivar of it. Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh got in touch with world capitals already primed for such an initiative. The SAARC process was proceeding satisfactorily at the official and technical levels, albeit at a low key. Hence the invitation.

If General Musharraf comes armed with a script for peace, he will find the Indian side sensitive to his difficulties — the problem of navigating between the Pakistani people, the professional Islamists and the army hawks.

Kashmir is the high voltage issue to be discussed. But Pakistan’s ruling elite, increasingly receptive to extremism, has projected Kashmir as the sole issue. This, I believe, has been in pursuit of a misplaced quest for national self definition. Of course, Kashmir is extremely high profile in our internal politics, too. But can an issue ever be resolved when it is in a state of fiery contention between two sides? Kashmir has to be defused, discussed and then resolved. The trick is to bring down temperatures on that issue while according it the highest priority with the utmost sincerity.

In recent months, particularly after the Lahore fiasco, I have sometimes slipped into acute agnosticism on the question of peace between our countries. Last September when I attended that meeting at the Acton Town Hall in London, in which important Sindhi, Mohajir, Baluchi and Pathan leaders described the Partition as ‘‘the biggest blunder’’, I wondered if there was in that meeting a clue to the future. Only if General Musharraf comes with a script for peace, can those gathered at Acton be dissuaded from their path.

If Islamabad does not like the term ‘‘composite dialogue’’, it must find a synonymous phrase to describe the whole gamut of issues that will constitute the agenda, of which Kashmir must be the most important part. To pretend it is the only issue to be resolved before other items on the agenda are taken up, is to subvert the process before it begins.