The Hindu Business Line : Pakistanis turning away from jehad in Kashmir?

EACH TIME one goes to Pakistan one hears different shades of opinion on the Kashmir issue, though the underlying import, conveyed however politely and diplomatically, is the same: That India has played it dirty. It promised a plebiscite and then went back on it. It is repressing Kashmiri Muslims, and the armed forces are violating their human rights. Nothing different from, and sometimes even a paler version, of what one hears in the Valley from our own people. One has also found that depending on the mood of the nation, particularly the economic situation, Pakistanis either fiercely criticise India on the Kashmir issue, or display an exhaustion at a matter that has been used for 55 years by their leadership to keep the anti-India sentiment burning.

But during the latest visit, one found most educated Pakistanis willing to meet India more than half the way in resolving this contentious issue and marching ahead on a path of peace with India. A path, that would better enable them to retain, or give a stronger voice, to the anti-American emotion that is so palpable all over the country.

An overwhelming number of Pakistanis, including the educated classes who understand and even justify the Pakistani President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, playing along with the diktat of Washington, are coming out to openly record their anger and anguish at the way the West, particularly the US, appears bent on humiliating Pakistan at every opportunity.

The latest provocation being the activities of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's Bomb-man. Many people can see that he has clearly misused his position, but a country used to its leadership brushing under the carpet all kinds of hanky panky activities and mega corruption issues is just not able to take the kind of humiliation and punishment meted out to a national icon like Dr Khan. His expose, his incarceration and his house arrest are all being blamed on the Americans having their way once again.

In this background, the emerging consensus is that the US is able to dictate to the Pakistani leadership because the country is not strong; not economically, nor on democracy or on good neighbourly relations with the only country that matters in South Asia. Of course, its relations with China have been good, and this has helped, though not always. The Islamic world, which was unable to do anything to stop the war against Iraq because of the divisions within, can also do little for a troubled country like Pakistan.

A cartoon strip doing the e-mail rounds in Pakistan a few months ago explains the plight of the Islamic world well.

The first panel shows Muslims from around the world doing sajda (paying obeisance) to Kabah in Mecca, Islam's holiest site; and the next shows leaders from the Islamic world, with arms outstretched, bowing down to Capitol Hill!

Returning to Pakistan: Slowly, but surely, the thinking is emerging that if Pakistan can bury the hatchet with India by somehow solving the Kashmir issue, and clearing the way for the emergence of a strong South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation, it will be able to get economic benefits through many of the advantages and capabilities it inherently has in the textiles and some other sectors. India's massive market, its IT capabilities and its mammoth industrial and infrastructure base, and health and education sectors, etc, would be beneficial to Pakistan, is the reasoning.

Voicing this sentiment, Mr Muhammed Hussain Mehanti, a chartered accountant, elected to the Pakistan National Assembly on Jamat-e-Islami ticket from Sindh — he is one of the 67 MNAs of the Muttahida Majlise Amal that is supporting the Jamali government — told Business Line: "The problem with the Muslim community is that it has never come together to challenge the West, which after the Cold War, has created the bogey of militancy or extremism. This is their nomenclature and they started attacking Islam by saying Muslims are terrorists. It made Afghanistan and Iraq targets and brought pressure on countries like Libya, Pakistan and Iran in the hope that Muslims world over will become subservient to the West, particularly the US."

But he adds that India and Pakistan, as well as rest of Asia, "which have the oldest cultures and largest population" should not come under the pressure of the Western forces. Both India and Pakistan need to think of their poor masses.

"Let us not get caught in America's designs. India, in order to make the US happy, should not work against Pakistan and vice-versa. This is not correct. We should not become toys in the hands of the US. We are two poor countries with many problems. So we should concentrate on solving our problems instead of walking a path dictated to us by the Americans," he says.

Mr Mehanti feels that America has "linked India with Israel so that they could work against Muslims... which is not good for India. India should not get into an arms race. Both, the US and Israel want us to get into an arms race so that their weapon manufacturing facilities can thrive. We should not fall into that trap."

On Kashmir, he feels that the people of Kashmir should be "given the freedom to decide their fate." This is the "hope" of most Pakistanis, who have however seen the writing on the wall and are urging India to come away from its stated position and show more flexibility on Kashmir.

Islamabad based retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood, who is very active on the Track II diplomacy front and is a member of Indo-Pak think tanks — he is now in Delhi for a conference — said in an interview that India should realise that Kashmiris in the Valley and some districts of Jammu are indeed alienated. To address this issue and resolve Kashmir, both the sides have to show flexibility in their approach. "Pakistan says we are willing to forego the UN resolution provided India shows reciprocal flexibility. And India is saying we are prepared to engage in a sustained and substantive dialogue... that's how I translate Prime Minister Vajpayee's `jamkey baat karengey'."

Gen Masood is hopeful that with both the sides having moved "from peace initiatives and CBMs into a peace process," a viable solution is indeed possible.

Asked to comment on the "aspiration" on both sides of Kashmir being for azadi, he said: "Yes, the third option could be of a separate entity within the two countries where Kashmiris can assert their identities within their own countries with a very high level of autonomy, except for defence and foreign affairs." After 10-15 years of such an arrangement another step can be taken towards a final solution. "I think what both sides want to do is gain time... so that the mindset can change. And there will have to be a lot of media management and building up of public opinion to do that."

Mr Wasim Mirza, Managing Director of the Karachi-based Swiss Specialty Chemicals, agrees that time is required to change the "mindset on both the sides."

Asked if Paksitanis had finally realised that using jehad or violence to resolve any issue is futile, he says: "It is not only we but the entire world has realised that violence — call it jehad or whatever — is wrong. A lot of thought process and discussion is going on among the Muslim intelligentsia and the educated classes on the meaning of the word jehad in the true Islamic spirit. And it is not killing innocent persons.

"If you look at the history of the Islamic world vis-à-vis jehad, women, children and the old were always spared. But here it is the other way around; you do not actually hit the target itself but you go through the target by killing innocent people and that turns the logic of jehad on its head and it is very difficult for educated classes of Islam to understand or justify a jehad that kills the innocent. I am not touching on the moral aspect, but the killing of innocents is not allowed by Islam in my interpretation."

But with this, adds Mr Mirza: "some cold realities" have to be considered. "Funding the jehadis is not so easy as it used to be. In the global scenario, moving money is not so easy. Also, there is a sentiment among the people that this is not the way to do it. If you want to wage jehad, lace yourself with knowledge and education and make yourself stronger. That is the biggest jehad you can wage at least for the next generation."

He agrees that on Kashmir, the solution will take time. "I've always said that it is a mindset of 55 years and it will take at least five or six years if we keep at it through scientifically adopted ways to mould public opinion.

I'm not talking about the intellectuals. They already know, but it is the masses on both sides... a frightening number of them, who have been manipulated by the politicians who have drummed into their heads a certain viewpoint. So somehow we have to change that.

"I see that at least in Pakistan the process of education has started, at the grassroots level on the futility of it all... that we need to get on and not have our people suffering all the time."

But the Line of Control being made an international boundary is a strict no-no for Pakistanis. As Gen Masood puts it: "If that were the solution, what was the problem all these years? Why so many wars?"

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in