The Hindu Business Line : As Pakistan reshapes policies… <br>It’s more trouble ahead for ‘paradise on earth’

The litmus test on whether the new Pakistan Government has been given any flexibility by the military establishment in its conduct of relations with India can be gauged from the extent it is ready to remove trade barriers and fulfil its obligations under the South Asian Free Trade Agreement, says G. PARTHASARATHY.

“Welcome to Paradise on Earth”, reads the signboard as one crosses the Banihal Tunnel to enter the vale of Kashmir, as teams of the Border Roads Organisation and soldiers, for ever on the lookout for mines and booby traps, maintain vigil. There are signs of change as one enters Srinagar, now teeming with tourists from across India. Security arrangements are now less obtrusive, with businessmen and owners of shikaras (boats) plying across the Dal Lake doing thriving business, after 15 years of terrorism had rendered the “Paradise on Earth” a virtual hell.

Terrorists now appear to be selective about their targets, concentrating on military installations, Government offices and occasionally on politicians who have not made peace with one or another terrorist outfit. Moreover, urban centres such as Kupwara, Sopore and Baramulla in Northern Kashmir remain hubs of Pakistani terrorist groups.

Despite substantive improvement in the security situation, anti-Indian separatist propaganda has been shrill. When around 80 acres of land were transferred to the Amarnath Shrine Board to construct shelters for pilgrims to the Amarnath shrine, a shrill propaganda barrage was mounted by people like the “moderate” Hurriyat leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, alleging that it was a devious move to change the demographic composition of the State.

Similar sentiments were voiced when the Government decided to build family accommodation for army officers serving in J&K. All this at a time when it is known that the demographic composition of both the Northern Areas and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir have been drastically altered (without a word of protest from the Hurriyat or its many apologists) and over 1,00,000 persons from families who fled into Jammu from neighbouring Sialkot in 1947 are denied citizenship and voting rights in the State.

Despite loud claims of adherence to the secular values of “Kashmiriyat,” the valley-dominated politics of the State remains starkly communal.

Army calls the shots

In Islamabad, a fragile coalition Government has created a situation where the army calls the shots on relations with India and Afghanistan, with the Taliban and Jihadi groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba getting rejuvenated.

On June 16, the Prime Minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, proclaimed Kashmir as the “cornerstone” of his country’s foreign policy, demanded the involvement of “genuine” representatives (read Hurriyat Conference) of the Kashmiri people in the dialogue process and espoused a “just and durable settlement which would be acceptable to the people of Pakistan”.

This rhetoric ignores the fact that for any dialogue to succeed it has to be acceptable not just to public opinion in Pakistan, but also to India. A weak Prime Minister dominated by his army chief whom he has entrusted to safeguard the “ideological frontiers” of Pakistan, is obviously playing to the domestic gallery and has disowned what his Party Chief, Asif Ali Zardari, had said earlier on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

Even as Prime Minister Gilani was expounding his views on Jammu and Kashmir, his army Chief General Kiyani was visiting the Headquarters of the 12 Infantry Division in Murree, during which he is reported to have discussed “operational; administrative and training” matters.

Shades of Kargil?

The only “operational” role of the 12 Infantry Division is backing infiltration across the LoC in the Jammu sector. Those with institutional memory will recall that months before the Kargil intrusion, the then Army Chief, General Musharraf, had paid a similar visit to the Force Commander Northern Areas.

This is not to suggest that a Kargil-type intrusion is on the cards, but to caution that Pakistan is preparing the ground to disrupt the Assembly elections scheduled for October/November 2008 as it attempted in 2002. Between August 2, 2002 (when the State Assembly election schedule was announced) and October 8, 2002 when the electoral process was completed, an estimated 700 persons, including 99 political workers, died in election-related violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

More ominously, there is a concerted Pakistani effort to unite Hurriyat factions under the tutelage of the hardline Jamat-e-Islami led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The recent meeting between Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq and the subsequent visit of Mirwaiz Farooq to Pakistan are pointers in this direction.

The Manmohan Singh Government will have to review its policies on Jammu and Kashmir. The pernicious anti-Indian propaganda in the Kashmir Valley has to be countered. The constant refrain that one hears from the separatists and their mentors in Pakistan is that one lakh Kashmiris have been “martyred”.

The reality is that total civilian casualties killed in terrorist-related violence (predominantly by terrorists) till 2006 is 15,611, while 18,658 terrorists, many of them Pakistanis, have been gunned down in the same period, when 27,735 assault rifles, 1,942 rocket launchers, 36,900 kg of explosives and seven million rounds of ammunition smuggled across the LoC were seized.

Autonomy issue

Secondly, the Prime Minster has bent over backwards to appease separatist sentiments. A more realistic approach is required by making it clear that on issues like autonomy, there has to be a measure of symmetry in the extent of autonomy granted to the State and the level of the autonomy enjoyed by people in the POK and Northern Areas.

There has been a secret “backchannel” dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir in the past few years conducted by a highly accomplished Indian diplomat, Satinder Lambah, and his Pakistani counterpart, Tariq Aziz. This dialogue was evidently based on proposals from Gen Musharraf on “self-governance” and “demilitarisation” and an understanding, on the basis of proposals from Dr Manmohan Singh that while there can be no change in borders, we could make borders “irrelevant” by promoting trade, travel, tourism and investment across the LoC and by establishing mechanisms for cooperation in areas such as health, education, environment and water resources.

Prime Minister Gilani has rejected these proposals, describing them as “half-baked”. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh owes it to the Parliament and people of India to state precisely what transpired in discussions between his Special Envoy Satinder Lambah and Tariq Aziz Secretary of Pakistan’s National Security Council on an issue involving the unity and territorial integrity of India.

Trade barriers

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Makhdoom Mohammed Hussain Qureshi, will be in Delhi shortly. He should be left in no doubt that his Government cannot disown what has transpired thus far. Finally, while liberalising trade and travel across the LoC, New Delhi should stop acting like an apologist for Pakistani actions and adopt the policy of zero tolerance towards cross border terrorism.

Unfortunately, successive governments in India have allowed the security establishment to severely restrict the potential for expanding people-to-people ties with Pakistan. New Delhi has been far too restrictive in promoting movement across the LoC in the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service. India needs to be far more liberal on this score.

The litmus test on whether the new Pakistan Government has been given any flexibility by the military establishment in its conduct of relations with India can, however, be gauged from the extent it is ready to remove trade barriers and fulfil its obligations under the South Asian Free Trade Agreement. Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif have promised expansion of economic ties with India. Will the military establishment permit them to do so?

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)