Clueless in Kashmir

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Fifteen weeks after restive youth threw life in Kashmir out of gear in a wave of unprecedented protest parts of the valley are still under curfew. Where the curfew has been lifted, orders prohibiting assembly of people are in force. Schools and colleges are closed and shops shut. Some government offices are not functioning. 

In some places, policemen abandoned their posts. A few instances of snatching of weapons by protesters were reported, and 10 policemen were sacked for giving up their weapons without offering resistance.

The wave of unrest was touched off by Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani’s death in an encounter with the police on July 8. Young people, many of them in their teens, poured into the streets and stoned security personnel who replied with pellets. 

The supposedly non-lethal pellets have taken about 90 lives and injured more than 14,000 people. Pellets have blinded at least 100 youths. Two policemen have also been killed.

About 7,000 people are said to be in custody. They include several hundred detained under the Public Safety Act which allows the authorities to hold persons considered security risks without trial for up to two years.

Even as Central and state police were coping with the disturbance, cross-border terrorism flared up. In response to the attack on the Uri base, which resulted in the death of 19 soldiers, the army struck at terrorist launch pads across the LOC, killing two Pakistani soldiers and an unspecified number of terrorists.

Hardly a day has passed since then without firings across the LOC. Most of the exchange of fire caused only low casualties but last week retaliatory Indian fire killed seven Pakistani security personnel. 

The deterioration in India-Pakistan relations led to shelving of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Islamabad and mutual recrimination at the UN. Also, both the countries launched diplomatic campaigns to garner international support.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s bid to internationalise the Kashmir issue once again failed. So did Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid to isolate Pakistan. The US backed India’s call to dismantle terror camps in Pakistan but was not willing to brand it a terrorist state. China was even more protective of Pakistan. It would not even let the UN dub Pakistan-based Masood Azhar, whom India has identified as the mastermind behind the Mumbai attacks, as a terrorist.

In the recent past, prompted by India’s growing economic clout, the West was getting out of the habit of equating it with Pakistan. By juxtaposing Kashmir with Baluchistan and human rights violations on this side of the border with those on the other side, Modi has unwittingly put the two on the same level. 

As the unrest in the valley drags on and its shadow on India-Pakistan relations persists, a question arises: what next? The protagonists have no answer. 

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti cuts a forlorn figure as she urges protesters to go back, advises the police to hand-hold the misguided youth and pleads with Modi to walk the talk as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s first Prime Minister, AB Vajpayee, did. 

She heads a coalition comprising her People’s Democratic Party and Modi’s BJP. Under the agenda of governance drawn up by the two parties they are committed to “start a dialogue process with all shades of political opinion, including the separatists.” 

While Modi is vociferous on cross-border terrorism, he maintains studious silence on the youth unrest which has virtually eclipsed the Hurriyat Conference, the umbrella organisation of pro-Pakistan and pro-independence groups, which held the ground for several years. 

The youth movement is home-grown and leaderless. Alluding to the dangers inherent in the emergence of such a force, a Kashmiri commentator wrote last week: “Resist we will, resist we must, but if that resistance means turning men against men, denying people their livelihood, pushing society into an irrevocable chaos where anyone can attack anyone else, then our doom is sealed.” 

Not just the Kashmiris, but all concerned with the issue, which has been festering since the birth of India and Pakistan as free nations, are trapped in a no-win situation. The three wars the two countries fought did not yield a solution and it is foolish to imagine a fourth one will. The situation calls for out-of-the box thinking but there is no sign of it.

India has demonstrated its willingness and ability to hold territory. It needs to show it also has the ability to win the affection of the people who, by constitutional definition, are full and equal citizens of the secular, democratic republic of India. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 25, 2016

Peace need of the hour

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Much of India is in a state of high alert as the country waits to see how Pakistan responds to last week’s “surgical strikes” on terrorist launch pads across the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Home Ministry asked all states to step up vigil at strategic installations, industrial complexes, crowded places, airports, historical monuments and government buildings. Delhi and the states of Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra and Gujarat were identified as possible targets for a retaliatory strike by the Pakistan army or terror outfits based in that country.

Villages within 10 kilometres of the border were evacuated. Punjab also closed down schools as a precautionary measure.

Officials indicated that the heightened alert may remain during the whole of October as three major Hindu festivals which see large congregations fall during the month – Navaratri from the 1st to the 10th, Dussehra on the 11th and Diwali on the 30th.

India’s announcement on Thursday that its armed forces had conducted surgical strikes on several terrorist launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was followed by a warning by Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif that his country would give a fitting response to any misadventure by its adversaries. Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, whom India has identified as the mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to let the army hit back.

Pakistan barred low-level overflying by foreign commercial aircraft, citing operational reasons. Viewing it as a move directed primarily against it, India was said to be considering the advisability of banning Pakistani overflights.

India’s bare initial announcement of the surgical strike and Pakistan’s confused response – on the one hand it denied there had been any such action and on the other it threatened reprisal –– raised some questions about the nature and scope of the operation. However, they appeared to satisfy hawkish elements in the two countries at least partially.

The army operation was a calibrated response to the September 18 terrorist attack on the Uri brigade headquarters which had taken the lives of 19 soldiers. It followed diplomatic moves to isolate Pakistan, which were only partly successful, and a threat to review the treaty on sharing of Indus waters.

Pakistan took no precipitate action and no one of consequence condemned the Indian strike. International response was limited to advice to both countries to resolve all problems through talks.

Internally, the surgical strike helped Prime Minister Narendra Modi to redeem his strongman image, and the opposition parties quickly rallied behind him. He desisted from displaying the braggadocio which often characterises his public utterances, leaving it to the party faithful to blow the trumpet.

However, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar could not resist the temptation to make a scornful remark. “Pakistan is in a state of coma, just like an anaesthetised patient after surgery,” he said. His Pakistani counterpart Khawaja Muhammad Asif who talked of exercising the nuclear option invited a sharp rebuke from the US.

But hawks on both sides kept war talk alive. India’s jingoistic electronic media played up the strike across the LoC as a game-changer, but responsible commentators endeavoured to put things in the right perspective. They pointed out that there had been similar strikes in the past and cautioned against rushing to the conclusion that cross-border terrorism is now a thing of the past.

Indian officials put the number of launch pads destroyed in the attack variously at six to eight. Analysts noted that the attacks were not on terrorist training camps, scores of which exist in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but on launch pads which are places where trained terrorists halt briefly before being led across the LoC by guides.

Low-ranking ruling party politicians proclaimed the end of the policy of strategic restraint, but Modi and the army brass said nothing to that effect. In fact, they sought to convey a different message. While releasing information about the strike, the army had stressed that it was a one-time operation. In a speech on Sunday the Prime Minister said India did not covet anyone’s land and had never attacked another country.

A terrorist attack on adjoining army and Border Security Force camps at Baramula in the Kashmir valley showed that the game remains unchanged.

Amid the beating of war drums, leading public intellectuals in both the countries sounded notes of caution. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, head of the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank, wrote: “...in both India and Pakistan, regimes have now tied the mast of their popular legitimacy to taking strong action against the other. That is not a reassuring thought.”  Asma Jahangir, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, tweeted: “Epidemic of insanity hits India and Pakistan again. No one wins a war. End terrorism and violence against each other and within our countries”. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 4, 2016.

Time to move from rhetoric to reality

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

The daring cross-border attack on the Indian brigade headquarters at Uri in Kashmir, which left 17 dead and about 30 injured, several of them seriously, poses a severe challenge to the Narendra Modi regime even as it copes with the situation created by more than two months of civil unrest in the valley.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who has emerged as the government’s chief spokesman on Kashmir-related issues, blamed the attack on the “terrorist state” of Pakistan. Modi, in a tweet, assured the nation that those who were behind the despicable attack would not go unpunished.

The social media and television channels were abuzz with the informed and the uninformed offering Modi advice on what punishment to give. Suggestions from former army officers and diplomats ranged from calls for surgical strikes to passionate pleas for well-thought-through responses.

Terror groups have targeted military establishments on more than 10 occasions since the eruption of insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s. In terms of casualties, the worst attack was the one staged by a gang of three at the Kaluchak cantonment in 2002 in which 31 persons were killed and 47 injured. Of the dead, three were army personnel, 18 were family members of army men and 10 were civilians.

The most audacious of all Kashmir-related terrorist actions was the 2001 attack on the Parliament House in New Delhi. Six police personnel, two Parliament security guards and a gardener were killed but no MP was even hurt. The government, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader AB Vajpayee, viewed the event as a proxy attack by Pakistan and drew up plans for a military response but did not go ahead with it.

The Uri attack was the second one this year. In January a group of terrorists had sneaked into the large air force base at Pathankot. The encounter that followed resulted in the death of six defence personnel. It was apparently a calculated attempt to derail the India-Pakistan peace process. Following the attack scheduled official level talks between India and Pakistan were cancelled.

Going by the government’s accounts, the terrorists directly involved in all these attacks were liquidated in the encounters that followed.

Since the Pathankot attack, with one thing leading to another, there has been continuous deterioration in India-Pakistan relations. In his Independence Day address on August 15, Modi, in a marked shift from the position taken by all previous governments, openly voiced support for rebels challenging the authority of Pakistan in Baluchistan.

The ground situation in Kashmir took a turn for the worse when protests erupted after security forces announced the killing of young Hizbul Mujahideen commander Buran Wani in July. Many parts of the valley have been under prolonged curfew, and at least 80 persons have been killed, more than 100 blinded and several thousand injured in firing of supposedly non-lethal pellets by central security personnel.

As Pakistan despatched a large number of special envoys to world capitals to mobilise opinion against human rights violations in Kashmir valley, India decided on a similar effort with the focus on Pakistani rights violations in Baluchistan and Kashmir areas under its control. The flip side of such tit-for-tat manoeuvres is that they put India and Pakistan politically on the same level.

Some observers see in Modi’s toughening stance the influence of National Security Adviser Ajit Doyal, who, since retirement from the police, has attracted a bunch of admirers by recounting his exploits as an intelligence officer and has openly advocated a hawkish line. But he is also believed to be the one who sold to Modi the idea of inviting all South Asian leaders to his swearing-in ceremony in 2014.

For Modi the time has come to move from rhetoric to reality. Recent events have revealed two grave weaknesses which India can ignore only at its peril.

One is the ease with which terrorists have been able to intrude into fortified military establishments. The Uri attack resulted in heavy casualties as it took place when one unit was taking over from another. If the attack was timed with prior knowledge of the changeover, it indicates the terror planners have good intelligence support. Clearly, strengthening of the security environment deserves a higher priority than reprisal.

The other is the alarming degree of alienation in the Kashmir valley. In the past civil unrest manifested itself mainly in the form of demonstrations in Srinagar streets. This time young stone-throwers were out in the streets in the countryside and police personnel abandoned many stations. Restoration of normalcy must come first. All else can wait.

The Centre must not forget the healthy atmosphere that prevailed in the valley during the three armed conflicts with Pakistan. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 20, 2016 

Kashmir’s shadow over SAARC

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With India-Pakistan relations deteriorating in the wake of violence in Kashmir, now in its eighth week, the fate of the 19th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, scheduled for November 9 and 10, hangs in the balance.

SAARC, which comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, together account for 21 per cent of the world’s population but only nine per cent of the global economy.

SAARC members differ vastly in size and economic strength. India with an estimated population of 1,330 million and gross domestic product of $2,073.5 billion is much larger than the other seven countries put together. Pakistan, the second largest country, has an estimated population of 194 million and GDP of $270.0 billion. The Maldives with only 371,000 people is at the bottom of the population table. Bhutan with a GDP of $2 billion has the smallest economy, but it attaches more importance to gross domestic happiness than to gross domestic product.

India-Pakistan differences have held SAARC back from time to time in some areas. A common market is one of SAARC’s objectives but Pakistani fear of Indian economic domination has stalled progress in that direction. In 1995, a ministerial meeting decided on the creation of a South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) as a first step towards the goal of a common market. It was only in 2006 that an agreement in this regard went into effect. A decade later, intra-SAARC trade is still only a little more than the region’s GDP.

A South Asian motor vehicles agreement was negotiated by SAARC officials ahead of the last summit at Kathmandu in 2014 but Pakistan was not ready to sign it. Believing that it backed out as it now attaches economic integration with China more importance than South Asian economic cooperation, India decided to go ahead without it.

The relations between the two countries took a dive early this month when Laskar-e-Taiba chief called for demonstrations when Rajnath Singh visited Islamabad for a meeting of SARC Home Ministers. Rajnath Singh was flown from the airport to the meeting venue in a helicopter and he flew back immediately after the meeting without joining a lunch from which, curiously, even the host, Pakistan’s Home Minister stayed away.

Arun Jaitley stayed away from the SAARC Finance Ministers’ meeting in Islamabad last week, depriving it of much of its importance. Nevertheless, SAARC Secretary General Arjum Bahadur Thapa of Nepal called upon the group to move from SAFTA to South Asian Economic Union.

With India and Pakistan at loggerheads, speculation is rife over whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the November summit. Reports in a section of the Pakistani media have indicated that he might stay away although so far no one of consequence in India has suggested such a step is contemplated.

Modi made a personal investment in improving relations with India’s immediate neighbours when he invited the leaders of SAARC countries to his swearing-in as Prime Minister in 2014 and all, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, promptly turned up. Several setbacks followed but he demonstrated his readiness to walk the talk with an unscheduled stop at Lahore on his way home from Afghanistan to greet Sharif on his birthday.

The current wave of unrest in Kashmir began when protests erupted over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani by the security forces. At least 67 persons were killed, over 6,000 injured and more than 100 blinded by pellets as youths defied the curfew. Pakistan launched a campaign against the human rights violations and India responded by raising the issue of rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Baluchistan for the first time.

Even as Modi and Chief Minister Mehmooba Mufti, whose Bharatiya Janata Party and People’s Democratic Party which are partners of the coalition that rules the state, began efforts to restore peace in the troubled valley, Nawaz Sharif deputed 22 diplomats to internationalise the issue. Under the Shimla Pact signed after the 1971 war which resulted in Bangladesh’s formation, the two countries are committed to resolve issues, including Kashmir, bilaterally without outside intervention.

Some course correction may take place sooner or later since Sharif, as the host, and Modi, as the leader of the largest member country and one who began his prime ministerhip with a commitment to friendship in the neighbourhood, have much at stake in the success of the SAARC summit. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 30, 2016.

India-Pakistan talks are on again

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi confounded fans and foes alike when he got off the high horse he was riding and gave the nod for resumption of India-Pakistan talks and their elevation to the level of a “comprehensive bilateral dialogue”.

Modi had assumed office a year and a half ago in the presence of heads of governments of all South Asian nations, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, raising hopes of a new era of good neighbourliness in the region. Things went awry when he called off scheduled Foreign Secretary-level talks between the two countries in New Delhi to demonstrate his displeasure at the Pakistan High Commissioner’s confabulations with Kashmir’s dissident Hurriyat leaders.

Thereafter, falling back on the traditional Bharatiya Janata Party position, Modi insisted that the two sides should talk about terrorism first. A statement issued after Modi and Sharif met during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at Ufa, Russia, said National Security Advisers of the two countries would meet in New Delhi to discuss terrorism.

Sharif came under heavy attack at home for agreeing to a statement which did not mention Jammu and Kashmir, which Pakistan considers the core issue. Islamabad called off the meeting after India placed Hurriyat leaders under house arrest to prevent their travelling to New Delhi to meet Pakistan’s NSA, Sartaj Aziz.

With the two sides standing firm on publicly stated positions under domestic compulsions, an early end of the stalemate appeared unlikely. But, then, the NSAs met secretly at Bangkok, along with the Foreign Secretaries, on December 6 and announced they had discussed “peace and security, terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir and other issues, including tranquillity along the line of control”.

The breakthrough followed an unscheduled meeting between Modi and Sharif, who were in Paris for the Climate summit. There they agreed on a formula which accommodated the wishes of both sides. The NSAs met and discussed terrorism and the Foreign Secretaries met and discussed Kashmir, and the stand-off ended.

One-upmanship has been an essential part of India-Pakistan relations in the recent past. Observers on both sides sought an answer to question as to who had blinked first.

Indian analysts were of the view that New Delhi showed more flexibility than Islamabad. A report quoted former Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh as saying India had given up the stand that it would only talk terrorism and nothing else. Modi wanted to take a tough line on terrorism and at the same time prove to the world that he was more pragmatic than dogmatic, and in the process he was sending confusing signals to the Indian public, he said.

Alluding to the way the BJP, while in the opposition, had obstructed efforts at normalisation of relations with Pakistan, former ambassador MK Bhadrakumar observed it was some natural justice that the party was forced to eat its own vomit, ironically, with Modi as the master of ceremonies.

Another former ambassador TP Sreenivasan wrote that Pakistan had won this round. Modi fans attacked him in the social media.

The fact is that Pakistan, too, took a step or two backward. It went back on the repeatedly articulated position that Kashmir is the primary issue and agreed to resumption of talks at the level of NSAs.

A host of factors, including some whose roots lie beyond the subcontinent, appears to have contributed to the softening of the attitudes of the Indian and Pakistani governments which made the breakthrough possible.Sushma Swaraj

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visited Islamabad on December 10 for the annual meeting of the 14-member Heart of Asia conference on regional cooperation in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is committed to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Islamabad next year. Strained relationship with Pakistan does not bar Indian leaders from attending regional meetings held in that country, but it is sure to limit their interactions.

Observers believe the United States exerted pressure on India and Pakistan to start talking as good relations between the two countries is critical to its plans for Afghanistan.

Some link Islamabad’s changed stance also to the emergence of Army chief General Raheel Sharif as a key player in Pakistan’s foreign relations. An army officer close to him, Lt-Gen Nasir Khan Janjua, replaced Sartaj Aziz as NSA recently.

While resumption of dialogue is a welcome development, optimism over its outcome has to be tempered by the fact that the peace process is in the hands of security experts with limited diplomatic experience.-Gulf Today, December 15, 2015.

Back to square one

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

There is no need to shed tears over the aborted meeting of National Security Advisers of India and Pakistan. It could only have produced more rancour.

Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif was present, along with other South Asian leaders, at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in in 2014. The goodwill his presence generated evaporated when, barely three months later, the government cancelled a scheduled meeting of Foreign Secretaries of the two countries, to show its disapproval of Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit’s consultations with leaders of the Kashmir’s separatist All Party Hurriyat Conference.

The meeting of officials was part of composite India-Pakistan talks, which have a long history. In 1997, a Foreign Secretary-level meeting outlined eight outstanding issues of concern to the two countries and proposed mechanisms to address them in an integrated manner. Over the years the process yielded some small gains but lack of determined political intervention inhibited progress on major issues.

The 2008 Mumbai terror attack derailed the process. It was put back on track in 2011 with a meeting of Home Secretaries at which terrorism was on the agenda. A few rounds of talks followed but there was little to show.

The cancellation of the Foreign Secretaries’ meeting attracted some criticism at home since India had previously overlooked the Pakistani envoy’s contacts with Kashmiri separatists. But Modi was determined to send across a message that they were not acceptable to him.

Last month, Modi and Nawaz Sharif shook hands at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at Ufa, Russia, and discussed modalities of resuming bilateral talks. A joint statement issued later said they agreed India and Pakistan had a collective responsibility to ensure peace and promote development and that “they are prepared to discuss all outstanding issues”. It spelt out five specific steps, including NSA level talks, and contacts between army officials to improve the situation along the Line of Control which had witnessed continuous exchange of fire.

While the statement conveyed the impression that the composite talks were on again, India’s focus was on the first of the five proposed steps, namely a meeting of NSAs Sartaj Aziz and Ajit Doval in New Delhi to discuss terrorism-related issues.

Back home, Sharif came under attack for the Ufa statement as Pakistanis saw as one-sided inasmuch as it did not mention Kashmir, which, to them, is the central issue. They refused to buy official explanations that Kashmir had come up in the Modi-Sharif meeting and that the term “outstanding issues” covered Kashmir.

The Modi government has been projecting a hawkish image for some time to impress the Hindutva constituency. After Myanmar-based Naga rebels killed 18 security personnel in an ambush in Manipur, the Indian army conducted a retaliatory raid across the border. Official spokesmen said it was a warning to all terrorists operating from foreign soil.

As the scheduled meeting of NSAs approached, Pakistan was ready with a bait set. When India sent a draft agenda with terrorism as the only item, it sent an alternative one listing topics it wanted to be discussed, including Kashmir. Basit invited Hurriyat leaders to meet Sartaj Aziz over dinner.

To prevent the Hurriyat leaders from leaving Srinagar for Delhi, the Centre ordered that they be put under house arrest. As Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, whose People’s Democratic Party rules the state in coalition with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, remonstrated, the Centre decided instead to arrest the Hurriyat leaders on arrival at Delhi airport.

With the fate of the NSA meet sealed, the two sides played out a long charade in front of television cameras with the singular aim of backing off without having to take the blame. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj demanded that Pakistan convey by midnight its acceptance of India’s advice not to meet Hurriyat leaders and limit the talks to terrorism. That gave Pakistan the opportunity to pull out saying there could be no talks on the basis of conditions.

Material which has come to light in the past week shows that the two governments spent the last month preparing dossiers the NSAs were to exchange. The meeting having fallen through, they publicised the charges against each other through the media.

After a 15-month-long journey through a convoluted path, Narendra Modi is back at the starting point, so far as relations with Pakistan are concerned. If Sharif has to take into account the Inter Service Intelligence, he has to contend with the Hindutva establishment which is watching his steps. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 25, 2015

India-Pakistan reality check

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

’s on again. The joint statement issued after Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif met at Ufa, Russia, signals that India and Pakistan are ready to resume bilateral talks which have been moving on an ‘on-again, off-again’ course for years.

Modi had invited all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation leaders, including Nawaz Sharif, to attend his swearing-in ceremony last year, and they had all turned up. The development was widely seen as an indication of Modi’s eagerness to improve India’s relations with neighbours and their willingness to reciprocate.

However, India-Pakistan relations suffered a setback soon afterwards. Pakistan’s High Commissioner in New Delhi held consultations with some separatist leaders of Kashmir ahead of a scheduled meeting between Foreign Secretaries of the two countries, and the Modi government responded by cancelling the meeting.

Many at home criticised the decision. They pointed out that earlier, too, the Pakistani envoy had conferred with separatists before a bilateral meeting without inviting such a response. Besides, continued talks were the only sensible course before the two countries. However, Modi had to satisfy his Sangh Parivar followers who had been fed on anti-Pakistan rhetoric.

When India’s Foreign Secretary, S Jaishankar, was in Islamabad last March in the course of a tour of SAARC countries he discussed with his Pakistani counterpart, Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, ways to resume the dialogue process step by step without setting a time-frame.

The important decisions that emerged from the Modi-Sharif meeting include a meeting between the National Security Advisers of the two countries in New Delhi to discuss terrorism-related issues and a meeting between commanders of the Border Security Force and the Pakistani Rangers to de-escalate tension along the Jammu-Kashmir border, to be followed by a meeting between the Directors-General of Military Operations of the two countries.

India has entertained for long the feeling that Islamabad is not pursuing the case against the Pakistan-based terror group responsible for the 26/11 attack on Mumbai which left 166 people dead. According to Indian officials, a major takeaway of the Modi-Sharif meeting is Pakistan’s offer to cooperate in the terror attack trial by providing voice samples of suspects. It is not clear if the law permits the Pakistan government to do this.

Relations with Pakistan have been a contentious issue in domestic politics. Ironically the Congress, which was in power longer than any other party, is now plugging a critical line which is reminiscent of what the Bharatiya Janata Party did when it was in the opposition

For long the standard phrase in India-Pakistan joint communiqués was that the talks covered all issues, including Kashmir. After the cancellation of Secretary-level talks India was keen to shift the focus from Kashmir to terrorism.

Much of the latest communiqué is taken up by the issue of terrorism. What’s more, there is no specific mention of Kashmir. Indian officials cite this as evidence of Pakistani acceptance of the Indian stand.

However, they also concede, albeit indirectly, that India has been under pressure from the West to resume the dialogue with Pakistan. The US and other foreign governments have been warning India that recurrent exchange of fire along the line of actual control and belligerent statements by BJP leaders, including ministers, were leading to expansion of the Pakistan army’s engagement with terror groups.

The most positive aspect of the new situation is that leaders on both sides who were riding the high horse have come to terms with ground realities. However, they still have to proceed cautiously because of the compulsions of domestic politics.

Even as the BJP was labouring to present the Ufa outcome as a feather on Modi’s cap, Uddhav Thackeray, head of its closest ideological ally, the Shiv Sena, said the meeting with Sharif was unfortunate. “The neighbouring country needs to be taught a lesson in a manner it understands,” he added.

That the dialogue will now be at the level of National Security Advisers, and not Foreign Secretaries, suggests that India-Pakistan relations will be handled directly by the Prime Minister and his office, bypassing the External Affairs Ministry and its officials with experience of diplomatic engagements.

Modi and Nawaz Sharif were in Ufa for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. SCO admitted both India and Pakistan as full-fledged members at this meeting. It thus becomes another forum where the two countries will work together as equal partners.--Gulf Today, July 14, 2015.

Time to move forward in S. Asia

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a dramatic impact by turning his swearing-in ceremony six months ago into an occasion for an informal get-together of leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The air of goodwill that it created was missing when the regular Saarc summit was held in Kathmandu last week.

The mood was spoiled not by any specific bilateral or multilateral issue but the frigidity in India-Pakistan relations. Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif spent the first day studiously avoiding each other. Cameramen waiting to record the customary handshake were disappointed. They circulated pictures which showed Modi walking past Sharif without even a nod.

Officials of the eight-nation group were ready with three draft agreements — on energy cooperation, regulation of passenger and cargo vehicular traffic, and movement by rail. The result of an Indian initiative, the three agreements were to be signed at the summit. But Nawaz Sharif sulked. He argued there had not been sufficient internal preparations to go ahead with them.

On the second day the ice was broken through the efforts of Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala. When the leaders came together for their final session, Modi and Sharif shook hands, and the Foreign Ministers signed the agreement on energy cooperation. Koirala said the agreements on road and rail traffic would be signed after Saarc Transport Ministers met and reviewed the draft.

India’s business community, which stands to benefit the most from increased trade among the Saarc countries, was disappointed by the failure to sign the agreements on transportation. The Confederation of Indian Industry said the agreement for regulation of vehicular traffic would lead to seamless movement of cargo, personal vehicles and passengers across land borders. The railways agreement too would harness the region’s economic potential.

The India-Pakistan standoff came in the wake of firing across the international border and the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir during the past few months and the calling off of scheduled ministerial-level bilateral talks by Modi’s government to show its displeasure over the Pakistani High Commissioner’s talks with separatist leaders of Kashmir.

Border clashes have been occurring regularly since the middle of July, with military and civilian casualties on both sides. Each side routinely accuses the other of firing first. At one stage, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley warned Pakistan that if it did not stop unprovoked firing India would impose an unaffordable cost on it. Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khwaja Asif, responded with a subtle reference to nuclear power.

In 2013, Modi, as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, had repeatedly taunted the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for failing to respond effectively to incidents on the borders with China and Pakistan. In a tweet he said, “India is going through a troubled situation. China intrudes our borders, Pakistan kills our soldiers time & again but Centre doesn’t act!”

The Congress is now paying back in the same coin. Last week a Congress party spokesman said more than 400 ceasefire violations had taken place on the Pakistan border this year and 17 civilians had died, “compared to zero casualty last year and also in 2011.” As a party which has been in power for many decades, the Congress must know better than to exploit an issue of this kind for political gains.

India accounts for about 70 per cent of the area and population of the eight Saarc countries. Its prickly relationship with Pakistan, the second largest economy of the region, has been a hurdle in the way of realisation of the Saarc goal of a free trade zone. None of the other member nations has the clout to steer the group out of the India-Pakistan matrix. The leaders of the two countries themselves must, therefore, take the initiative in this regard.

In the six months Modi has been in office he has spent considerable time on foreign affairs, leading to whispers that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has been reduced to a dummy. Modi’s invitation to the Saarc leaders for his swearing-in gave rise to the impression that he accords high priority to development of good-neighbourly relations. However, he is yet to come up with any concrete proposals in this regard.

The United Nations having rebuffed Pakistan’s bid to internationalise the Kashmir issue once again, the time is ripe for India to make a fresh bid to carry forward the bilateral process. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 4, 2014.

Nobel Prize as a message?

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Of the Nobel prizes, the one for peace has been the most controversial. It has always carried with it the irony of rewarding peace efforts with profits from dynamite.

This year’s prize, shared by Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai and Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, produced rich irony on its own. Some critics asked what contribution did the two make towards peace and understanding.

Malala, 17, is the youngest person to win the prize. She was nominated for the prize along with Pope Francis and US whistleblower Edward Snowden. If there were certain political calculations behind her choice it is neither unusual nor unprecedented.

Kailash Satyarthi, who has been working quietly for rescue and rehabilitation of child workers in India, was not a widely known figure in his own country. There were a few references to him and his work in the Indian media in the recent past but there was no mention that he was a contender for the prize. His choice therefore came as a surprise.

Unesco has noted that since war begins in the minds of men it is in their minds that defence of peace must be constructed. Freeing children from bondage and ensuring that they are educated are, in a real sense, activities amounting to construction of defence of peace. However, educationally advanced countries are also known to start wars. Therefore, the question whether the right kind of education is being imparted is relevant.

There was heavy irony in the announcement of the award even as Indian and Pakistani security personnel were engaged in the fiercest clashes in a decade along the border in Jammu and Kashmir, over which the two countries have fought four times in their 67 years as separate nations.

Thorbjoern Jagland, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the committee “regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism”. Leaders of the two countries made feeble efforts to rise to the occasion.

While congratulating Malala Yousafzai, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said, “She has made her countrymen proud. Her achievement is unparalleled and unequalled.” He did not dwell on the fact that, unable to return home because of extremist threats, she is now living and studying in Britain, where she had gone for medical treatment after the failed murder attempt by Taliban.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Satyarthi had devoted his life to a cause that is extremely relevant to humankind and the entire nation was proud of his momentous achievement. He congratulated Malala too, saying her life is a journey of immense grit and courage.

In the exchange of fire at 15 points along the international border and the Line of Control (LoC), about 30 civilian casualties were reported. Officials of the two sides feigned ignorance about each other’s motive. An Indian newspaper quoted the chief of the Border Security Force as saying, “We have inflicted heavy damage on them, but they keep firing. I do not understand why.” BBC quoted Major General Javed Khan of Pakistan as saying, “I just want to know the reason from the other side. We are not finding the answer.”

Political pundits offered familiar explanations. Pakistani experts related the border incidents to the elections in the states of Maharashtra and Haryana. They pointed out that Modi and his defence minister have been talking of change in times and imposing unaffordable costs. Indian analysts attributed the incidents to the Pakistan army’s effort to reassert its authority vis-à-vis the civilian government.

Since India called off the secretary-level talks in protest against the Pakistan envoy’s confabulation with Kashmiri secessionists, Islamabad has been trying hard to break out of the bilateral framework in which it had been confined by the Shimla Pact. It sees the border incidents as an opportunity to bring back into the picture the UN whose role was extinguished by India after the 1972 war.

There is scope to speculate that Modi and Sharif have a chance to win a Nobel for themselves through a patch-up, as Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (1973), Anwat Al Sadat and Menachem Begin (1978) and Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres (1994) did. However, they are caught in a high-stake game in which others are also involved. -- Gulf Today, October 14, 2014.

Between rhetoric and reality

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The India-Pakistan peace process, which got a boost when Nawaz Sharif joined other South Asian heads of government at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in last May, has suffered another setback.

The Foreign Secretary-level talks, scheduled for Monday, were cancelled by India in a peevish response to Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit’s meeting with Kashmiri dissidents.

At the weekend, the two sides were counting the dead and the injured after troops exchanged fire across the border and the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir.

Ups and downs have been a regular feature of India-Pakistan relations since they emerged as free nations 67 years ago. The latest developments have not, therefore, caused any great concern on either side. However, there are some worrying elements.

Pakistan’s envoys had met Kashmiri dissidents even when the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power last time without provoking Indian protests. Many, therefore, believe that the Modi administration scuttled the talks for other reasons, and there is intense speculation on what they are.

Former diplomat MK Bhadrakumar has suggested that Modi has no roadmap for proceeding towards the goal of good neighbourly relations and ducked the bilateral meeting to avoid the danger of exposing his cultivated image of being a visionary. He has also raised the question whether Modi ducked on his own or at the instance of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the fountainhead of the BJP’s Hindutva politics.

Ajai Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management has ridiculed the cancellation of the meeting, saying the government has acted as though it is ready to tolerate Pakistan shooting Indian soldiers but will not forgive its envoy having tea with secessionists.

More than 50 cases of ceasefire violation have occurred so far this year, a dozen of them in the last fortnight. When encounters take place, each side accuses the other of resorting to unprovoked firing, and patriotic citizens readily accept their government’s version of events.

The current spurt in exchange of fire by forces on the border is attributed to Pakistani forces providing cover for militants to cross over to India. Such infiltrations usually take place ahead of the winter months when cross-border movement is not easy. An Indian corps commander recently said that 150 to 200 militants were waiting to cross over.

In last week’s incidents 22 Indian border outposts and 13 villages came under shelling. Both sides reported two civilian casualties on their side of the border. The Indian side said four militants were also killed. Following the incidents, authorities in Jammu moved the residents of a few villages to safer locations.

The cancellation of talks and the ceasefire violations have come at a time when militancy is at a low level and the Kashmir valley is comparatively peaceful.

According to conventional wisdom tension on the border helps the Pakistan army by strengthening its position vis-à-vis the civilian government in place in that country.

It may now be of help, on this side of the border, to the BJP, whose leadership has reportedly formulated an audacious plan to seize power in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir in the Assembly elections due later this year.

The state’s constitution provides for a 100-member Assembly. However, the effective strength of the house is only 87 since the remaining seats are earmarked for the areas now under Pakistan’s control.

Of the 87 constituencies where elections are to be held, 46 are in Kashmir, which has an overwhelming Muslim majority, 37 in the Hindu-majority Jammu region and four in Buddhist-majority Ladakh.

So far the largest number of seats the BJP has won in the Assembly is only 11, all from the Jammu region. However, it believes the highly fragmented polity of the Kashmir valley offers it an opportunity to make a bold bid for power. In the event of a sharp communal division, its leadership feels, it can hope to bag most of the seats of Jammu and one or two from Ladakh, making it the largest single party in the house even if it gets no seat from the Kashmir valley.

Separatist leaders usually call for boycott of elections, and in recent years they have been able to evoke a good response in the valley. If this happens again, the BJP leadership reckons, it may be able to pick up a few seats from the valley too with the votes of the Hindu minority.

Such calculations may well impede Modi’s ability to make an early and smooth transition from the rhetoric of the election campaign, in which Pakistan serves as a good foil, to the ground reality that demands good relations in the best interests of both the nations.-- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 26, 2014.

Modi reinvents himself

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised foes and friends alike by turning his swearing-in ceremony into an occasion to celebrate democracy and promote goodwill among South Asian nations.

For the first time, India invited the heads of governments of its partners in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to the swearing-in of a prime minister and all of them responded positively. As it happens, all Saarc countries now have elected leaders although some of them have seen violent changes of government in the past.

The Indian media has given Modi the entire credit for creating history, but Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif is also entitled to a share. He had invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend his swearing-in last year. Singh did not go. While congratulating Modi on his election victory, Sharif extended an invitation to him to visit Pakistan. Modi decided to invite Sharif and the other Saarc leaders to his inaugural.

Media reports have suggested that the Pakistan Army did not favour Sharif’s India visit. His brother and Punjab Chief Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, met Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif and impressed upon him that the visit would be beneficial.

Several civil society groups urged Nawaz Sharif to accept the invitation but Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, vehemently opposed it and held a big protest rally in Islamabad. India has identified Saeed as the mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. The UN has declared JuD a terrorist front and the US has put a price of $10 million on Saeed’s head.

On Friday, the Indian consulate at Herat in Afghanistan had come under terrorist attack. It did not prevent President Hamid Karzai from joining the Saarc get-together in New Delhi. According to Pakistani reports, the Herat attack strengthened Sharif’s resolve to visit India.

During the election campaign, Modi had repeatedly castigated the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for being soft towards Pakistan. Supporters who expected him to take a hawkish line on Pakistan could not easily reconcile themselves to the swift transition from street-fighter to statesman.

Uddhav Thackeray, leader of the Shiv Sena, which is the BJP’s largest partner in the National Democratic Alliance, could not fully reconcile himself with Modi’s new avatar. He said he expected Modi to press the nuclear button if Pakistan did not change.

The Shiv Sena has resorted to violent agitations in the past in protest against Pakistani cricket team’s visits to India.

Dharmawati, wife of Hemraj, an Indian soldier who was beheaded by Pakistani soldiers near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir last January, said at Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, that she would be on fast while Sharif remained in India.

A financial newspaper suggested that the motive behind Modi’s gesture to Pakistan was not desire for peace but desire to do a good turn to the Adani Group, which financed his election campaign. It said the Adanis want to export to Pakistan the bulk of the power from the 10,000 megawatt thermal station they are setting up in the Kutch district of Gujarat.

The invitation to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa angered the government and people of Tamil Nadu, where there is considerable sympathy for the island’s Tamil minority. Leaders of the BJP’s allies in the state went to New Delhi and pleaded for withdrawal of the invitation. Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa stayed away from the swearing-in ceremony and political parties of the state staged protests to coincide with it.

Rajapaksa, in an attempt to mollify the Indian Tamils, asked CV Vigneswaran, chief minister of Sri Lanka’s Tamil-speaking Northern Province, to join him on the India trip. Not wanting to annoy his Indian supporters, Vigneswaran refused. However, Jaffna’s Tamil Mayor, Yogeshwari Pathkunarajah, joined Rajapaksa’s delegation.

Modi took the opposition to Nawaz Sharif and Mahinda Rajapaksa in his stride. His gesture brought immediate gains from Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the form of release of fishermen jailed in these countries for alleged intrusion into their territorial waters.

Some social network users are not impressed with Modi 2.0. They see the Goa police’s case against a young man for an anti-Modi Facebook post and the Karnataka police’s case against five Muslim students for circulating an anti-Modi SMS as early indications of what life in the Modi era will be like. Modi has no direct connection with the cases, both of which are based on private complaints, the first by a pro-BJP businessman and the second by an activist of unclear political affiliation.. .

It is, of course, too early to draw conclusions about Narendra Modi’s prime ministership. He hasn’t been in office for 24 hours yet. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, May 27, 2014.

Threat to peace process

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With guns booming across the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir for more than a week, the India-Pakistan peace progress has been thrown into jeopardy. In the present context, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Nawaz Sharif will find it difficult to take any meaningful measures to normalise bilateral relations.

Nawaz Sharif had spoken of his desire to improve relations with India during the election campaign and reiterated it immediately after the victory of his Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). Last month, Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz discussed confidence-building measures with India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on the sidelines of the Asean summit at Brunei.

Later Sharif sent his special envoy, Shahryar Khan, to New Delhi with a letter to Manmohan Singh. Following this, the two governments made tentative plans for a meeting of the prime ministers when they are in New York for the United Nations General Assembly session next month.

The LoC developments have set these initiatives at naught. Public opinion, incensed by the killing of five Indian soldiers while on patrol duty in the Poonch sector on the night of August 5, has forced New Delhi to slow down the peace process.

Ceasefire violations in the region are not unusual, especially at this time of the year, when terrorist infiltration into Kashmir from across the line of control is at its peak. India has accused the Pakistan army of providing the infiltrators fire cover. Pakistan claims India is guilty of more truce violations than it.

The Indian army blamed the Poonch killings on Pakistani troops. However, in an apparent attempt to soft-pedal the issue, Defence Minister AK Antony told Parliament that the assailants were terrorists in Pakistani army uniform. Loud protests led by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party forced him to make a fresh statement a day later, laying the blame at the door of the Pakistan army.

Most Indian analysts believe the spurt in truce violations and the gruesome incidents like the Poonch killings and the beheading of an Indian soldier in the same sector a few weeks earlier are part of a deliberate plan by a section of the  Pakistan army to queer the pitch for Nawaz Sharif. They say the army fears improved ties with India will reduce its clout in the Pakistani power structure.

As in Pakistan, hawks and doves are in contention in India too.

Parliamentary elections are due in less than a year, and the BJP, which is making a bid to return to power after a gap of ten years, has picked Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, a hardcore Hindutva exponent, as its prime ministerial candidate. The party sees stoking India-Pakistan tensions as a means of boosting Hindu sentiments against the Congress-led government.

BJP President Rajnath Singh has demanded that the government scale down diplomatic relations with Pakistan and declare that there would be no talks until Islamabad stopped supporting terror activities directed against India.

The way Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh joined the BJP in the anti-Pakistan chorus in Parliament illustrates how electoral compulsions can weaken a political party’s commitment to the secular ideal.

Beyond the realm of electoral politics, there is a body of opinion which believes it is in India’s interest to help bolster the position of the democratically elected government of Nawaz Sharif. Those who subscribe to this view want Manmohan Singh to go ahead with the plan to meet Sharif.

Developments in Afghanistan have a bearing on the current state of India-Pakistan relations. The United States is looking up to India to play a role in stabilising the situation in that country after it pulls out next year.  Extremist forces operating in Afghanistan and elements of the Pakistan army which support them do not favour the idea.

Those who are keen that the peace process must continue uninterrupted point out that direct engagement between the governments of India and Pakistan at the present stage is necessary to negotiate the Afghan imbroglio in such a way as to ensure regional security.

While Indian experts are agreed that a section of the Pakistan army does not share Nawaz Sharif’s enthusiasm for improved relations with India, there is sharp disagreement among them on how India should respond to the situation. Some want the peace progress to be abandoned, some others want it to be delayed and some others want it to go on. Strangely, those who want the process stalled do not seem to realise that they are on the same side as the hawks in Pakistan.--Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 13, 2013.

Election season in South Asia

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

South Asia, home to one-fifth of the world’s population and half of the world’s poor, is experiencing the springtime of democratic elections. However, there is a long way to go to ensure that the exercise is genuine.

The region comprises eight countries. Among them are three of the five most populous countries of the world. Their progress along the democratic path, after many flip-flops, offers hope for the future of the region, which has witnessed much instability in the post-World War II period.

Pakistan, the second largest country of the region after India, and Bhutan, the tiny Himalayan kingdom, held parliamentary elections during the past few weeks. There was smooth and peaceful transfer of power from one party to another in both the countries.

The Pakistan People’s Party, which had won the first elections held after the downfall of Pervez Musharraf, was roundly defeated by the Pakistan Muslim League (N), and its leader, Nawaz Sharif, became the prime minister. The election of the new president is scheduled for next month.

According to Michael Gahler, who headed the European Union’s team of observers, the elections were not free and fair. The Election Commission did not fulfil its responsibilities honestly, he said. Asad Ismi, correspondent of CCPA Monitor, journal of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, described the elections as a political disaster.

Ismi pointed out that the PPP, the Awami National Party of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and the Muttahida Quami Movement of Karachi could not campaign because of the massive violence directed against them by the Pakistani Taliban, resulting in the death of more than 100 people, including several candidates. He added, “The Pakistani Taliban is part of the terrorist network created by the army, which helps it inflict horrendous violence on the country to destablise it, politically and economically, so that no strong counterforce to the army can emerge.” It did not attack Nawaz’s party.

Since his assumption of office, Nawaz Sharif has talked of the need to improve relations with India. However, few expect the army to share his enthusiasm on this score.

A British protectorate during the colonial period, Bhutan began its career as an independent nation when it became a member of the United Nations in 1971. In the first democratic elections held five years ago, Druk Phuensum Tshoogpa (meaning Peace and Prosperity Party) was voted to power. In the recent elections, the opposition People’s Democratic Party seized power, winning 32 of the 47 seats in the national assembly.

The new prime minister, Tshering Togbay, holds a master’s degree from Harvard University. Some observers believe the Indian government, which was not happy with DPT prime minister Jigme Thinley’s attempt to cosy up to China, helped the PDP by withdrawing the subsidies on kerosene and cooking gas supplies to Bhutan as the poll campaign was picking up.

In the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed filed nomination papers last week for the presidential elections to be held in September. He had been elected president in the multiparty elections of 2008. Early last year his vice-president, Mohammed Waheed, ousted him in a coup with help from supporters of former leader Maumoon Abdul Qayoom and elements of the security forces.

Ahead on the poll calendar are Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and India. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was last re-elected in 2010, does not have to face immediate elections but provincial elections are due in that country.

The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) came to power through democratic elections five years ago but was unable to put in position a new Constitution for the country. With the political spectrum too fragmented, the chances of a stable regime emerging appear to be slim.

With the five-year term of the Bangladesh parliament due to end in October, fresh elections have to be held before January next year. The atmosphere in the country is surcharged with a war crimes tribunal, constituted by the Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina, handing down severe punishment to several leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami for their role in wiping out many leading intellectuals of the country on the eve of its liberation from Pakistan. Early this year 18 opposition parties led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party had brought the country to a halt with a 30-day general strike.

Even more problematic is the transition in Afghanistan, from where US troops are due to pull out next year. A few days ago President Hamid Karzai signed a new law for the conduct of presidential and provincial elections.

The South Asian election scene certainly is not picture perfect but then the fact that the countries are able to move towards multiparty elections is a hopeful sign. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 23, 2013.

Way forward in South Asia

 BRP Bhaskar
 Gulf Today

Cautious optimism illumines Indian and Pakistani assessment of the prospects of bilateral relations under Nawaz Sharif who is back at the helm in Islamabad after 16 long years.

In 1999, as prime minister, Sharif had taken a decisive step towards improved relations with India when he signed the Lahore declaration with his Indian counterpart, Atal Behari Vajpayee. Their Lahore meeting was made possible by Vajpayee’s tradition-breaking bus journey to Pakistan.

The peace process they initiated was interrupted by the then chief of the Pakistan army, Pervez Musharraf, who first engineered a bloody conflict on the icy heights of Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir and then ousted Sharif and sent him into exile. As military ruler, Musharraf later met Vajpayee to carry the process forward but the attempt failed.

Even before the election results, which brought him to power for the third time, became known Sharif expressed his desire to make a new beginning, telling visiting Indian mediapersons he would pick up the thread from where he had left it in 1999.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reciprocating the sentiment, warmly greeted Sharif, whose return to office marks transfer of power from one civilian government to another through elections for the first time in Pakistan’s history. However, he let go an opportunity to transform word into deed when he decided not to accept Sharif’s invitation to attend his swearing-in ceremony.

The Indian diplomatic establishment, overlooking the symbolic value of a break with tradition, advised against a prime ministerial visit to Pakistan without first preparing the ground at official level meetings.

The political climate also was not conducive for Manmohan Singh to take a bold initiative. In dealing with Pakistan, he does not have the freedom of action which Vajpayee, as leader of the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, had. Any positive gesture by him is sure to invite charges of appeasement from the BJP, which has been calling for action against Pakistan in the light of the beheading of two Indian soldiers who had strayed across the line of control in Kashmir and the fatal attack on an Indian prisoner in a Lahore jail.

Discussing India-Pakistan relations, Farrukh Khan Pitafi, a young, liberal Pakistani columnist, recently wrote: “We have spent far too much energy in trying to weaken each other. As a result, India has not been able to realise its true potential and the Pakistani state has gone soft.” He reckoned that the time between now and next year’s Indian parliamentary elections provides a window of opportunity to mend relations.

However, it is unrealistic to expect any dramatic developments. Domestic compulsions will not allow Manmohan Singh to take any initiative on the eve of the elections. Sharif, too, has his limitations.

Pakistan’s immediate need is revival of its economy, which is in a terrible state, prompting some observers to talk of it as a failed state. Improved relations with India can offer Sharif a double advantage. It can help reduce military expenditure and boost bilateral trade and facilitate inflow of investment.

However, there are elements in Pakistan which are wary of such developments. The military, which lay low during the past five years but cannot be said to have reconciled itself to the idea of civilian supremacy, will not want expenditure cuts. Army Chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani has reportedly advised Sharif to move gradually and with the utmost caution in trying to improve ties with India.

Pakistani businessmen are apprehensive of steps that may open up the possibilities of Indian economic domination. The last government decided to grant India most favoured nation treatment but was unable to take the necessary follow-up measures.

Sharif owes his electoral victory to the massive support that he and his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, command in Punjab province, which accounts for more than half of the country’s population. But, then, there are limits to his hold on this province, which is also the stronghold of the army and of various extremist groups, some of which enjoy the patronage of a section of the army.

The extremists made their own contribution to the PML-N victory by sparing its men when they trained their guns on campaigners to discourage voting. However, Sharif cannot overlook the fact that the people rejected their call to boycott the poll.

India and Pakistan, which have been bogged down in Kashmir for long, may be able to find a way forward if they can work together on Afghanistan to ensure stability in South Asia after US troops pull out of that country next year. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, May 21, 2013