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Musharraf
must not do a Sharif
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.
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