Talk to the other Sharif

We have in Gen Raheel Sharif a new Pakistani Chief of Army Staff to contend with. Army Chief appointments elicit a great degree of interest in India as they have been known to shape sub-continental history, by becoming dictators, nurturing extremists in Pakistani society, masterminding invasions such as Kargil and stoking insurgency in Punjab and Kashmir.

Army chiefs dominate Pakistan’s foreign and security policy, even when elected civilian governments are in power. At least that’s the assumption in the Indian strategic community, which blames the Pakistan Army for recent ceasefire violations, militant incursions and attacks on Indian soldiers along the Line of Control.

The outgoing Gen Parvez Kayani was blamed in recent years for not robustly backing Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif’s efforts to rebuild ties with Delhi.

Indian analysts and Track II figures wanted more friendly rhetoric from Kayani to signal to jihadi clients such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba that the Army’s strategic calculus was changing. They felt that that was necessary for India to get past the ghosts of Kargil and Mumbai.

Conservative commentators maintained that a dialogue process bereft of the Pak Army’s periodic reaffirmation was bound to be tenuous — and no doubt feel vindicated by the current downturn in relations.

Direct contact

Given the Army’s centrality in Pakistan’s foreign policy decision-making it is surprising that the idea of talking directly with GHQ has not been articulated enough in India.

Rather than wasting time figuring out if Raheel Sharif turns out to be as unfriendly as Kayani, it may be best for both sides to agree on a format that allows Pakistani generals to negotiate directly with relevant power centres in Delhi, namely the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of External Affairs.

It’s not clear which side is uncomfortable with this, but there are reasons why it has not been explored so far. There is the awkward match-up between institutions for one, as protocol-conscious diplomats are wary of proposing tramlines that do not strictly lead to counterparts.

Pakistani generals should ordinarily be across the table with Indian army counterparts, but the latter do not have the same clout within the system as MEA diplomats controlling foreign policy decision-making.

There is the also high-minded rationale that dealing directly with the Army undermines Pakistan’s democratically elected institutions.

But that consideration does not stop other powers from engaging Rawalpindi. US Secretary of State John Kerry, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron are among those who interacted directly with Gen Kayani.

India and China too have been flexible when needed. India’s National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon met Li Keqiang during a visit to Beijing in June and there’s little reason why he cannot similarly engage Pakistan’s army chief.

Establishing suitable structures for Indo-Pak normalisation can, in any case, spur Pakistan’s democratic evolution and need not be detrimental to it.

The exclusive civilian-civilian channel, as it stands, tends to slow progress as it lacks the authority (on the Pakistan side) to respond nimbly as positions need to be cleared by GHQ. The two sides, in effect, speak past each other to missing stakeholders in the room at crucial points in bilateral conversation.

Civilian representatives can sometimes be reduced to intermediaries and there are inevitably losses in translation in a three-way process.

trust deficit

Direct contact between South Block and Rawalpindi, on the other hand, offers one major advantage. It would bring a range of Indo-Pak concerns to the frontline of negotiations, including incidents along the LoC, the role of sub-conventional warfare in Pakistani doctrines, instabilities caused by its induction of tactical nuclear weapons, the impact of Hafez Saeed’s rhetoric on Indian public opinion and the security implications of each other’s interests in Afghanistan.

These issues are at the core of the “trust deficit” that both sides refer to — and are best addressed directly with the Pakistan military.

Strategic elites cannot fully account for opposing outlooks if there is insufficient breadth of contact with the other’s collective.

On the other hand, matching a face with a policy or an outlook offers enormous advantages in diplomacy as it embodies interests, draws them into working relationships and potentially opens up unexpected peace-building possibilities.

Forging contact with the Pakistani Army need not be at the expense of Pakistan’s civilian government. It can be an initiative that Nawaz Sharif can grandly claim ownership for — now that he has managed to install a new Army Chief that he is comfortable with, rather than more highly-rated generals.

This is unlikely to happen soon as the terms for civil-military relations in Pakistan will need to be clarified afresh following Sharif’s new, unexpected appointment. India too is in election mode and expected to do little in the months ahead.

But direct dialogue in the future can potentially be at a level that both sides agree on, led either by the Ministry of External Affairs, Prime Minister’s Special Envoy, NSA or even through Ministry of Defence delegations comprising key stakeholders on both sides.

Such a dialogue needs to be publicly acknowledged — rather than be a discreet ISI-RAW affair as some suggest — in order to be accountable and for socialising ideas and policy options within respective systems.

The Pakistani Army may well not be interested in a direct dialogue with Delhi for several reasons. GHQ is in the comfortable position of exercising power without responsibility; it may structurally have no incentive in making things easier for Sharif’s government — perhaps seeing strengthening of civilian institutions as a threat to its own position in Pakistani society and the equities that military elites hold within the country’s economy.

Dealing directly with Delhi can also been seen as potentially unsettling for the cohesion of the Pakistan Army, which has long been reared on anti-India discourses. Delhi must, nonetheless, make the offer to test these assumptions.

Negotiating with the Pakistan Army is, of course, not a panacea in itself. But as India sets its sights on competing with China and aims for South Asian integration it cannot continue to have a dysfunctional relationship with Pakistan that is perpetuated by sub-optimal negotiating structures.

Addressing the problem of mutual incomprehension among actors who count seems the most logical place to start.

(The author is director of projects at the Centre for Policy Research. Views are personal.)

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