By Vikram Sood
Every change of government in New Delhi rekindles hope in the
hearts of many that peace between India and Pakistan is about to break out. It
is necessary to have a reality check on this. Successive Indian prime ministers
have walked down this road, offering concessions to Pakistan, only to be
disappointed.
Today Pakistan may play
the injured innocent and claim that it is a victim of terrorism but the reality
is that Pakistan is a victim of the policies of its leadership. Having invested
so much in this policy of violent interference in its neighbourhood, having
raised the rhetoric so high and despite having boxed above its weight all these
years, the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment is unable to
change the way it thinks much less make a U-turn in its policies towards India.
It is time we accept
that Pakistan will not change its policies towards India and may even become
worse as it Islamises and radicalises showing signs of becoming a Sharia state.
Since Pakistan will not
change its attitude it is time we also thought of different approaches. So far,
gestures have been interpreted to mean appeasement by the Pakistan deep state
and a vindication of their confrontationist policy. Pakistan’s DNA will not
allow a change of policy, only a change of tactics. It will retain its terror
option under a nuclear umbrella that today consists of 200 nuclear weapons all
aimed at India and based on a close military and nuclear relationship with
China.
Our policy towards
Pakistan has been based on three misconceptions. One, the assumption that the
civilian politicians favour a normal relationship with India but it is the army
alone that is the impediment. Facts speak otherwise. It was then prime minister
Zulfiqar Bhutto who said that Pakistan would make the Islamic bomb even if
Pakistanis had to eat grass. It was Zulfiqar who dabbled with assisting the
Islamic Afghans who had taken shelter in Pakistan having been pushed out by the
Mohammad Daud Khan regime from Afghanistan.
It was his daughter,
Benazir, who launched the Kashmir jihad and later propped up the Taliban. It
was Nawaz Sharif who supported both the Taliban and anti-India groups, most of
them fostered in Punjab, his stronghold.
Mumbai 1993 and later
Kargil happened during Sharif’s terms in office. Likewise, the Mumbai attacks
of November 2008 happened during Asif Ali Zardari’s presidency. There would be
no significant change in the threats faced by us from Pakistan regardless of
whether there was a dictator in command or an ostensibly civilian rule.
Two, if we engage
Pakistan in a sustained dialogue and grant some concessions, this will
strengthen the hands of Pakistan’s politicians and weaken the military’s
stranglehold which is disliked by the people of Pakistan. Not quite so.
Pakistanis may not be too fond of their generals as presidents but the military
is seen as the only institution which is keeping the country together. Its
political, economic and military’s role in Pakistan cannot be undermined or
contained by any civilian dispensation.
The third flaw in this
argument is the misplaced belief that we can bring about changes in the manner
in which Pakistanis want to be governed. We do not have the ability to bring
about political changes in Pakistan. It would be dangerous to tread into
pastures where others have ventured and failed. Pakistan’s political process is
an internal matter between its people and leadership.
The time has come for
India to move away from its Pakistan-centric policy orientation. India and
Pakistan hardly trade with each other, Pakistan will not give India transit to
Afghanistan even though it stands to earn money, there are few tourists to each
others’ countries, Pakistan’s hate India machinery is vocal and active, we
never get to see each others’ media except for those who surf on the Internet
and they no longer tolerate Indian journalists on their soil. It will not
surrender its terror option as a force equaliser and India has no cure for
Pakistan’s paranoia.
A foreign policy that
uses hope as an instrument of policy overlooking essential national interests
is bound to fail. The most important requirement for India in the next decade
or at any other time, is rapid economic progress in the widest definition of
the term. This will be the best guarantor for our security in the long run.
Since we cannot progress
in isolation we need to engage other countries. Notable among them would be
China for multiple reasons, Japan and South Korea for economic interests and
Russia and Israel for both security and economic interests. Maybe early
high-profile exchange of visits would set the trend.
Our relationship with
China and Pakistan means we are a landlocked country to our north and west. We
need to take the maritime route to Iran and through Iran to Afghanistan and to
Southeast Asia.
Above all, the
government needs to engage all our other immediate neighbours — Bhutan,
Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives in a sustained
meaningful dialogue and provide economic assistance to these countries, in our
own national interest and regain space that we might have lost in recent years.
Meanwhile, given our
relationship with Pakistan, we need to keep our security apparatus in a state
of alert with state-of-the-art equipment. All bilateral issues with Pakistan —
political, military, economic — will simply have to go on the back-burner till Pakistan
decides it wants to live as a good neighbour.
In our ordinary lives
too it is not compulsory to have cordial relations with our neighbours; a
nodding acquaintance and staying out each other’s way is perfectly normal. So
with nations.
(Vikram
Sood is an Advisor to Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a former head of
RAW)
Courtesy: Rediff.com,
May 15, 2014
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