No More “Tit for Tat” Now Please!

War with India is the military establishment’s raison d’être which the political system is struggling to reduce if not remove entirely.

-Ayesha Siddiqa

It is time to talk peace again in the sub continent. Shashi Tharoor argues that it is time for victims of Geography to make history while Musharraf claims from his Dubai palace that Kargil was a tit for tat.

Talking peace between India and Pakistan is never easy. The tyranny of geography and baggage of history imposed upon the two has resulted in deep schisms in the collective psyches. Hardliners on both side of the divide see making peace at best a temporary phenomenon. Every time political leaderships in India or Pakistan hoped for a solution, whether on geographical or historical platitudes, wars or disasters have been engineered to push the process way behind the starting line.

Every Indian Government over the years has made attempts to solve this complex maze of relations but the Pakistan Military Jihadi combine has come in the way and have effectively acted to regress the process. The current trajectory of the “epicentre of terror” which has held America to ransom in Afghanistan has  become way too powerful to  accept peace with India lamely. It is the raison d’être of the complex’s being. History was about to be made on various occasions but couldn’t because of the stakes involved for the Pakistan Army and its terror factories.

Before we go deeper towards finding solutions for peace, there is a need to engage all the stake holders and create conditions for all to see a common picture emanating out of the region.

The pertinent question is, “Which is the approach we need while dealing with Pakistan….hard, soft or balanced; or is there some other way?”

The Jihadi – Military  Complex (JMC)

First off, the stakes for Pakistan Army are too high in letting go of its animosity of “tit for tat” against India on every count. Militarily, oft humiliated army at the hands of India. finds it imperative to keep its India centric approach to retain currency and its hold over power in Pakistan. It has seeped into every system of state and non state organs and controls the thoughts and deeds of most. The, surprisingly still in place, democratic government is a facade to let the military rule the country without having to govern it. It has huge business interests, where it controls major businesses and corporations of the Pakistani state. The Jihadis it nurtured over the years have now got a mind of their own and it is tough to surmise who rules whom. The Jihadi factories borne out of misguiding Pakistan’s unemployable youth are another lucrative ideological and business venture that the army does not want to let go. The recent bounty over Hafiz Saeed and the military’s response are indicative of this symbiotic relationship. Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, says there is no simple solution.

“The realization, I hope, will grow not just within the government and the military establishment, but also in Pakistan society as a whole that this is a much more serious and immediate threat to Pakistan’s stability and that it does Pakistan no good to allow the export of such activities (terror) either with or without the knowledge of the government,”

The strategic nuclear deterrence against India is another major reason why the JMC and especially the military is cocking a finger at India repeatedly. Kargil, where it undermined India, while Nawaz Sharief was talking peace was borne out of this capability. With the nuclear button firmly under its control, for which Pakistan spends as much of GDP as it does on education, the military’s psyche is not likely to change in a hurry.

Peace with India would offset all these advantages and most of all result in army losing control over Pakistan’s foreign and security policy.  Pakistan Army has to be the major stake holder and beneficiary of the peace process to make it work. Ayesha Siddiqa comments that, “peace with New Delhi will certainly work as a fillip for the political government in Islamabad against the rabid forces represented at the Difa-e-Pakistan Council.” But will the Difa allow it?

Vikram Sood, a detractor of the trade for peace concept, has this to say:-

“The mood and the rhetoric on the Pakistani street gives little scope for comfort with little evidence that the Pakistani ruling establishment has undergone a permanent change of heart. The strident anti-India and anti-Hindu attitude by organisations like the Difa-e-Pakistan is testimony to the fact that the military-jihadi complex is strong and that this is the line the rulers wish to follow. This is their first option and also the fall back position, depending upon the circumstances.”

The complexity of relations between the Military and the Jihadis is compounded by the unclear understanding of who is controlling whom. The radicalisation of society brought about by this concoction makes the peace process that much more difficult.

That is where answers have to be found if we need to make the process move forward.

The Pakistan Political Establishment

The political establishment in Pakistan is a surrogate front of the JMC and can seldom or never make independent choices in foreign policy. However, it is the tool over whose shoulders the military finds it convenient to fire its foreign policy salvos from. Nonetheless, it officially remains the only channels of diplomacy and can not be ignored.

In our earlier post, Soft Coup Imminent in Pakistan, we had discussed these intricacies at length. For the democratically elected government to move forward on peace independent of the JMC would remain a chimera and should not even be tried. We saw the dire consequences of this in the run up to Kargil, the parliament attack and Mumbai. There is no reason to believe that future history would be any different.

The Pakistan government has produced a negative list of tradable items and has decided to grant MFN status to India despite all the pressures from within. The belief is that economics would somehow help  lessen the loads of the historical baggage a wee bit – especially when Pakistan’s economic situation has come under severe strain after standoff with US over Afghanistan. The Chinese trade imbalance,  affected by the dumping of Chinese goods in Pakistan hint that economic ties with India will prove to be a boon. This could not have happened without blessings of the military business establishments and could be a healthy trend.

But then, we talked similar homilies during Lahore bus diplomacy, Benazir’s overtures to Rajiv Gandhi or the Musharraf Peace Plan. India has faced the worst humiliations when there was a civilian government in power at odds with the military. Despite mounting military pressures and tensions the two sides did not go to war during Brasstacks as General Zia ul Haq was firmly in control. The current situation is ambiguous and both appear to be at odds but the military is in the saddle, apparently, as evident from its dealings with US.

 Kashmir

This is highly complex and difficult stakeholder which apparently both sides wish to put on the back burner while negotiating for peace. The violence levels have come down, the elected government is on the delivery mode and the separatists are gradually being marginalised. But the bane of any India Pakistan settlement would be attempting peace without some movement on Kashmir. This would provide enough ammunition to the detractors of the process to  stall it. Politicians from both sides of the divide have to comprehend the reality of this question and make proposals that are inclusive and track and treat this issue simultaneously. While it may be argued that trade would provide the right atmospherics, the fact that JMC would exploit this to their advantage remains a real and live possibility.

The Afghan Endgame

President Obama upon assuming office made many global overtures to defy existing status quos on China, Iran and Kashmir. But realpolitik made him retract from all these. Today at the end of his presidency with an eye on the endgame in Afghanistan, the American establishment is once again singing the Indo Pak peace tune to stabilise Afghanistan. Maybe it now realises the futility of any strategic partnership with Pakistan except on terror and sees putting an end to the proxy war between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan, important to its cause of a draw down.

As per Voice of America, analysts in Washington say the relationship between Pakistan and India may turn out to be the most important factor in Afghanistan’s future, and that Washington could play a greater role in encouraging the two nuclear-armed rivals to cooperate. It insists that peace and stability lie in the normalization of ties between India and Pakistan. “Afghanistan is important, but Pakistan-India is the key element to this,” as per Moeed Yusuf, of the United States Institute of Peace.

Does it mean that both the countries would allow the soft mediation by US to resolve their differences to facilitate regional stability? Appears tough to imagine.

The Indian Political Establishment

The Indian initiatives are reflective of an eagerness to move beyond the sensitivities of the geographical binds, pressing irritants such as Mumbai and the vexed issue of Kashmir towards normalisation through trade and commerce. There is a constituency building towards peace. But as discussed above, the Indian political establishment has often moved towards peace without considering the complexities of the state called Pakistan. This has caused repeated setbacks and failures. India’s lack of application of hard options, when applicable, has earned it the sobriquet of s “soft state”. This myth would have to be exploded to maintain peace. It is a political decision which India would have to accept as a reality in its pursuit for peace

The coalition dharma and the opposition has as yet not been very critical of the governments moves on trade with Pakistan but the issue of FDI has been linked by the opposition to influx of ill-gotten capital to sponsor terror in India. A real and live possibility. Ignoring such voices would be dangerous.

Vikram Sood argues that Pakistan has used the jihadi and nuclear options as force equalisers. This attitude has not changed nor will it. Pakistan will not be able to accept that trade between India and Pakistan will be weighted heavily in India’s favour. Indian political establishment will have to be willing to take the political risk of the trade for peace strategy falling flat based on these paradigms.

This time around the failure factor may be low, if India is mindful of its experiences of history.

The Way Forward

Moving forward on trade to normalise relations with a country which has taken decades to reciprocate MFN status may be difficult to digest in India. However, considering the multi polar power management philosophies of Pakistan, this move may as well be welcome – though too little too late. The strategy appears right if applied with due caution. At stake really is the strategy execution – the various security concerns arising out of the economic opening up and the intricacies ranging from the visa regime to mode of travel.  However, without going into the detailed economics of the deal, the political mileage to be gained is great.

The future course of the initiatives would be largely decided by who India talks to in Pakistan because of the diffusion of power centres.

A pragmatic approach needs India to talk to the hawks, the military in Pakistan, while engaging the diplomatic channels. As the economic interests of Pakistan military’s ruling and retired elite have been “incentivised” by opening up of the trade, a lot of progress can be made by adopting all channels of communication.

Retaining the initiative to choose from a vast range of options between a soft, hard or balanced approach is thus a political necessity which must serve as insurance for applying “trade for peace” initiative.

It is tough to change Pakistan’s internal dynamics. Accepting Pakistan the way it is but pushing for peace may be the only way forward but it is a way littered with political and military minefields which needs careful and cautious charting. Making hope a policy would be harakiri.

There is no more space for “Tit for Tat”.

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