Why the ice didn’t melt by Dr Maleeha Lodhi

The anodyne joint statement said it all. No progress was made on the Siachen dispute in last week’s talks between the defence officials of Pakistan and India. The only agreement indicated by the statement issued at the conclusion of the talks was for officials to meet again. The June 11-12 defence secretaries’ talks also failed to advance discussion of what should be a non-contentious aspect of Siachen – the environmental degradation being caused by military activity on the glacier.

The thirteenth round of talks on the 28-year old dispute turned out to be a virtual replay of the previous round of May 2011. Both sides restated their well-rehearsed positions. The main obstacle remained India’s insistence that before demilitarisation Pakistan should agree on authentication of present troop positions and demarcation of the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL). The Indian delegation also dismissed Pakistan’s non-paper handed over last year as containing “nothing new”.

This unedifying outcome was foretold well before the talks by statements from top Indian leaders in the weeks and days leading up to the negotiations. Some of these were prompted by public remarks made by Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in April when he visited Gayari sector after the avalanche tragedy that claimed the lives of 139 soldiers and civilians. He called for demilitarisation of the Siachen glacier and “peaceful resolution” of all disputes between Pakistan and India.

This evoked a lively media debate in both countries. But it drew a tepid response from Delhi. India’s junior Defence Minister Pallam Raju avoided comment on the need to resolve the dispute making only a perfunctory statement about the challenge of maintaining troops on the glacier. More significantly Defence Minister AK Antony told the Rajya Sabha that authentication of present (Indian) troop positions was a pre-requisite for any progress in negotiations.

India’s chief of army staff, VK Singh went further. In an interview he cast General Kayani’s call for a peaceful resolution as “nothing new”, ruled out any pullback by the Indian army from Siachen, and gratuitously added “all of Jammu and Kashmir belongs to India”. He also made light of the hope expressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he visited Siachen some years ago to make the glacier “a mountain of peace”. “We should not”, said General Singh, “succumb to these bouts of thinking about peace mountains”.

Meanwhile a flood of articles in the Indian press ahead of the Rawalpindi talks urged Delhi not ‘give away’ India’s hard won military gains on the negotiating table. A common refrain of many in India’s strategic community was that if India did not retain the Saltoro ridge, a ‘Pakistan-China axis’ would bring the Karakorum Pass under its control and jeopardise the security of Ladakh.

Minister Antony declared on the eve of the talks not to “expect (any) dramatic announcement or decision on an issue which is very important for (our) national security.” A day before, a meeting of India’s cabinet committee on security apparently decided – and then leaked to the media – that Delhi would not give up its tactical and strategic advantage in the glacier area.

This was a repeat of what preceded last year’s talks. On the eve of the twelfth round India’s top national security official told Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Delhi not to “expect anything” from the parleys.

In this unpromising backdrop, two days of talks in Rawalpindi went according to the script. Pakistan’s effort to elicit an Indian response to the constructive ideas contained in its 2011 non-paper came to naught. The Indian delegation saw nothing in these proposals to provide a basis to move forward.

In the non-paper, Islamabad had reiterated the principles for a settlement agreed to by the two countries in 1989 – redeployment outside the zone of conflict, a monitoring and verification mechanism to be determined by military experts, and demarcation of the Line of Control beyond NJ 9842 thereafter. In an important demonstration of flexibility Pakistan also offered that when a schedule of withdrawal was drawn up it could consist of lists of both “present” and “future” positions. This would be subject to the stipulation that these would exclusively be for monitoring purposes and not to stake any moral or legal claim at the time of a final settlement of the dispute.

The Indian side rejected this, offered no new ideas, and reiterated its familiar position of authentication and demarcation of present positions on the ground and on the map, with demilitarisation and “future positions” to follow later.

To bridge differences on sequencing the steps needed for demilitarisation and address India’s how-can-we-trust-you argument, the Pakistani delegation suggested that agreed steps could be undertaken simultaneously. But the Indian side refused to budge from its position.

When Pakistani negotiators said a solution to Siachen was important for peace and security in South Asia, this was met by the familiar Indian argument that Delhi had larger concerns beyond South Asia -an obvious reference to China.

The Pakistani delegation’s effort to engage the Indian side in a discussion on environmental degradation due to human activity on the glacier elicited no response. The Indian side declined to accept that any degradation was in progress and instead referred to reports suggesting there had been no negative environmental impact. It was also unwilling to include any reference to this issue in the joint statement or to pursue further discussions on this.

Pakistan’s desire for a speedy solution was conveyed by the proposal to convene another round of talks quickly without waiting for another year to go by. This too got little traction. The Indian emphasis was on first creating an environment of trust and confidence before looking for solutions to disputes, an echo of its characteristic position in previous rounds. In this context the Indian delegation emphasised instituting new CBMs including visits between military institutions and exchange of military bands. The Pakistani side read this as sidestepping the real issue.

With no progress accomplished in the thirteenth round and little prospect of Delhi showing the flexibility needed to overcome the impasse, the dialogue on Siachen has increasingly become more about process than outcome.

Among the broader signals sent by the Indian stance three are noteworthy. One, India wants normalisation of relations between the two countries to proceed only in areas on its priority list – trade, people-to-people contact, economic and cultural ties, and not resolution of long-standing disputes, which top Pakistan’s priorities. Two, little or no progress can be expected in the dialogue on various disputes because – for now – Delhi perceives no need to make compromises. With diminished interest by the international community to nudge Delhi in this direction and the US wooing India in its strategic aim to contain China, Delhi sees no pressure or incentive to show the accommodation needed to settle disputes with Pakistan.

Three, emphasising confidence building measures enables Delhi to postpone or deflect addressing the substance of disputes and even serve as an alibi to avoid finding solutions to disputes. It is interesting to note in this regard that while India ‘trusts’ Pakistan enough to open up and expand trade, that trust evaporates when it comes to addressing outstanding disputes.

The key question this raises is whether Pakistan-India normalisation can be sustainable without solving the disputes that lie at the root of long-standing tensions? Surely a diplomatic dance around the real issues – with a focus on process not progress – can hardly establish the basis for enduring peace.

New approach to the Indus Treaty by Ahmad Rafay Alam

Indo-Pakistani water relations are bound, limited and defined by the Indus Water Treaty of 1960. The treaty divides the resources of the Indus Basin, one of the largest and oldest basins on the planet, and states that India will have control over the waters of the three eastern rivers of the basin (the Ravi, the Sutlej and the Beas) and that Pakistan will have control over the waters of the three western rivers (the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum). The treaty then goes on to set out the rights and obligations of the riparians and, importantly, allows India to avail itself of the waters of the western rivers for domestic consumption, non-consumptive functions, limited agricultural use and for hydroelectric purposes.

So far, the treaty has held strong. However, because of a variety of factors, some voices are accusing India of stealing Pakistan’s water and violating the treaty. I will not dwell upon these voices in this article because they are incorrect and, as I will try to show, they can be made irrelevant. However, some factors providing these voices their motives and reasons must be acknowledged: the mistrust that characterises Indo-Pakistani relations, gross mismanagement of water resources within Pakistan, outdated irrigation practices, poorly planned agricultural zoning, a rising population and resultant water scarcity.

What these voices are doing is choosing to ignore Pakistan’s most pressing political, economic, social and environmental issues, and instead are looking for solace in the age-old chestnut: India is to blame. What else explains the reason given for having more troops deployed on its eastern border than its western, when the trouble so clearly is: to ensure water security?

One of the problems in Indo-Pakistani water relations, as far as Pakistan is concerned, is that, thanks to Sir Cyril Radcliff and the outcome of English colonialism in India, Pakistan is a lower riparian. What the treaty does is set up a riparian hegemony by dividing the resources of the Indus Basin, creating an asymmetrical relationship between the two riparians and cementing India’s position as the riparian hegemon. In other words, the treaty stacks the cards against Pakistan and makes it close to impossible for it to rationalise the disproportionate relative bargaining positions the treaty allocates. This is because, in practice, the more powerful riparian is loath to give up the benefits it has.

There are some who suggest that, for this very reason, the treaty should be scrapped and another negotiated. To these gifted geniuses, I ask this: Very well, then, but what brilliant strategy do you have hidden away that will outmanoeuvre the riparian hegemon and get the lower riparian more than it already has under the treaty? This question is met with silence.

How can Pakistan get itself out of this situation? The answer is simple: Don’t look at the Indus Water Treaty for solutions. The treaty is based on a sort of divide-the-resource-of-the-Indus-Basin theory, which will always result in a zero-sum game for Pakistan. What we need is to look outside the “divide the resource” paradigm and look towards the opportunities afforded by the “sharing the resource” paradigm. What we need to do is see whether it is in the economic, social or political interest of both riparians to cooperate on water, rather than be antagonistic over it. What we need is a trans-boundary water opportunity analysis.

Trans-boundary analysis looks at the positive sum outcomes of sharing the resources of a water basin. The approach is unique, in that it allows the weaker riparian to offer the hegemon some additional benefit.

The idea would be to conduct a full-spectrum trans-boundary water opportunity analysis that will identify the areas where cooperation between India and Pakistan over the waters of the Indus Basin will yield in economic, social or other benefits. For example, if India is building run-of-the-river dams on the western rivers, this need not be a cause of alarm in Pakistan. After all, what keeps Pakistan from purchasing the electricity from India? We are more than willing to pay an extortionately high cost for electricity from diesel-powered rental power projects when everyone knows hydroelectric power is a fraction of the cost.

Selling electricity to Pakistan would also be in the economic interests of India because of the premiums it could charge. Similarly, there could be economic benefit to India if it allowed Pakistan to expand, say, its fisheries along the eastern rivers. The purpose of the trans-boundary water opportunity analysis would be to identify and quantify the all the possible positive sum outcomes of a “sharing the resource” strategy. The wider the scope of such an analysis, the more chances of identifying more and more areas of cooperation.

The analysis would involve other issues as well. One would be the identification of what sort of “green water” resources exist (as in water that falls from the sky, and distinct from “blue water” which is, essentially surface water) and how such resources could be harnessed for the benefit of either India or Pakistan. (The study of “green water” is rare, as most hydrologists tend to ignore something they can’t pipe, and government doesn’t care about stuff it can’t tax.) The inclusion of such things could widen the overall opportunities, at least in Pakistan, of harnessing the water resources of the country.

The economic science of sharing resources is also cutting-edge. Elinor Ostrom was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Sciences this year for her study of shared resources. I had the opportunity of meeting Ms Ostrum last month and to speak to her about Indo-Pakistani water relations. She hadn’t studied the Indus Basin (she has studied others), but told me that, should the two countries ever decide to go down such a path, the only problems they would encounter would be working out the right profit-sharing formulas.

And, finally, in the Pakistani context again, if Pakistan could be seen sitting down with India and doing something large-scale, without the rhetoric of Kashmir or terrorism clouding the way, it would create enormous international goodwill that, surely, Pakistan could leverage to its advantage.

On almost all counts, it is impossible to deny how attractive a proposition a trans-boundary water opportunity analysis is. It’s difficult to judge how the governments of these countries would respond to the call for such an analysis. Perhaps this is not the time for such a call and perhaps it isn’t for the governments of the countries to conduct such an analysis. At this stage, the opportunities of sharing the resource of the Indus Basin are the perfect place for players in Track-II diplomacy to pick up the gauntlet and show their respective governments the way forward.

Handcuffed to history by Aijaz Zaka Syed

I sometimes wonder if Shakespeare had Indian and Pakistani leaders in mind when he wrote those immortal lines in As You Like It: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”

No matter who is in power in Delhi or Islamabad, the script of the carefully choreographed diplomatic spectacle never seems to change. From their famous encounter at Tashkent to the tense handshakes at Simla and Agra, and from Vajpayee’s historic bus trip to Lahore to the bitterness of Kargil, the more the narrative changes, the more it remains the same.

Still, the bitterness and open hostility that hung in the air as S M Krishna and Shah Mehmood Qureshi addressed the press conference in Islamabad took your breath away. They sat side by side, yet avoided looking at each other like estranged husband and wife. Tension in the air was so thick that you could have carved it with a knife. One almost felt sorry for the soft-spoken Krishna. Never a part of India’s powerful foreign policy establishment, the former Karnataka chief minister isn’t perhaps cut out for the zero-sum game that is India-Pakistan diplomacy.

I am not sure if Qureshi, who’s accused Krishna of being out of his depth and forever being on the phone taking orders from Delhi, was reading from the script or speaking his own mind. But he did look and sound abrasive even to a distant observer like me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Pakistani foreign minister is younger and appears rather fascinated with his own voice. Or maybe it’s just the way he speaks. In hindsight though, it appears it was Home Secretary G K Pillai’s claim about the ISI connection to Mumbai attacks even as Krishna and Qureshi were heading into talks.

Whatever the explanation, the new chill and unpleasantness in an already edgy relationship are unfortunate. And, yes, we are back to square one, where we had been after the 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai landmarks – or the attack on Indian parliament — blamed on Pakistan-based groups.

As usual, the latest round of dialogue, if it can be called that, began amid great euphoria and goodwill only to end up in bitter acrimony with accusations and counteraccusations flying thick and fast.

It’s not clear why and how things went so horribly wrong. But as in the past, they seemingly unravelled when the Indian side confronted Islamabad on action against militant groups like the one led by Hafiz Saeed, allegedly linked to the Mumbai attacks. And Pakistan seems to have played along pointing out it’s all linked to the “core issue” of Kashmir and that the militants cannot be reined in as long as the K question remains hanging fire. An argument not easy to counter. It’s a vicious cycle, indeed.

While Islamabad remains preoccupied with Kashmir and begins and ends every discussion with the K word, Delhi is prepared to discuss everything but the K conundrum. Understandably, India is concerned about the terror threat from across the border and the issue remains on top of its agenda in its engagement with the neighbour.

And the other side accuses it of not seeing the big picture and ignoring the underlying, associated causes of the problem. So it’s like an endless merry-go-round. They go round and round in circles, trying to catch their own tail, fighting shadows and demons of an unforgiving history.

The most obvious victims of the India-Pakistan conflict and blow-hot-blow-cold war have been the Kashmiri people, forever stuck in a limbo or time warp created by the conspiracy of geography and history. They are paying for the sin of being born in the beautiful prison that is the post-Partition Kashmir. But it’s not just the Kashmiris who’re paying for a crime they didn’t commit. We all are.

The people of India and Pakistan, in fact the whole of South Asia, have been paying for the myopia and moral timidity of their leaders. In his novel, Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie uses the clever and apt term “handcuffed to history” to describe the predicament of the South Asian twins. India and Pakistan are indeed prisoners of their past.

What is more, instead of trying to break free from these shackles, we’re doing our best to strengthen and fortify them with our selfish, petty politics. The two countries spend trillions of precious dollars every year on arming themselves to the teeth with fancy weapons that are never going to be used – thank God for that — while their people crave for basics such as food, water, housing, electricity, education and health care.

According to a recent survey by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, more people are mired in poverty in eight Indian states than found in the 26 poorest African countries.

While we pat ourselves on the back for multiplying the number of millionaires by 50 per cent over the past few years, a whopping 421 million of the world’s poorest of the poor live in India today, more than the sub-Saharan Africa.

The picture on the other side of the border is equally depressing. While Pakistan’s cities and villages get to see power only for a few blessed hours, inflation is touching sky-high levels. The humble roti becomes scarcer by the day. Education still remains a luxury and the privilege of the elite. And when it comes to other basics that are essential for life, the situation in Pakistan is little different from India. And to think the neighbours are members of the elite nuclear club!

Will things ever change for the subcontinent? They can, if our leaders change. This week, responding to my recent piece on Kashmir, a friend Sashank Sharma wrote back saying a solution would evade us as long as India and Pakistan do not stop looking at their problems from an India-Pakistan prism. And it doesn’t apply just to the Kashmir knot. We see everything from behind the blinkers that we put on our eyes when we parted ways some 63 years ago.

It doesn’t have to be like this. With our rich natural and human resources, we can be a great deal different – and better. Look at Europe today. It’s impossible to imagine it as a continent that witnessed two of the deadliest wars in mankind’s history only six decades ago.

A total of nearly hundred million people perished in the two world wars. Germany fought bitter and devastating wars with the entire Europe, including France, Britain, Poland, Russia (Soviet Union) and the US of course. And before that virtually every European nation fought each other.

Yet France and Germany are the thickest of friends today. So are Russia and Germany. They put behind their divisive shared past to build a new, brighter and better future for their people. They vowed, ‘never again’, and have stuck to their promise. Travelling freely across the borderless, peaceful and prosperous continent today is a sobering experience. If Europe can do it, so can we. Especially when we have so much more in common than EU nations ever did. After all, we were one country and one people not long ago. It’s time to bury the past and look to the future.

Hate overtakes tolerance by Kuldip Nayar

THE escalating violence in India frightens me. Still more frightening is the shape it is taking. It has turned communal, regional and ideological in various places. Whatever its direction, it indicates a trend where the rule of law is lessening and force is gaining recognition.

I had imagined that political parties would not stoke fires and would, in fact, find a way to douse them. Instead, I find some of them organising their cadres and arming them to jump into the fray. For the first time, Hindu terrorists are also active.

The Maoists, however misdirected, are at least saying that they do not believe in the ballot box. Their trail is marked by blood in at least half the 200 districts they dominate. There is no stopping the Maoists who have targeted civilians, apart from the security forces. How do they serve their cause which is supposed to be the welfare and emancipation of the people?

The stone-pelting incidents, believed to be instigated by the Hurriyat, against security forces in Indian Kashmir are taking place every now and then. This has been the scene for the last one year.

The excesses committed by the security forces there are reprehensible and there should be an inquiry by a judicial commission to find out why they indulge in violence. The promise of zero tolerance doesn’t mean anything when children are killed in action taken against agitators. I do not expect anything from the extremist elements because they are out to destroy the polity and disfigure democracy. It is for New Delhi to ensure that no force runs amok and there is proper punishment for those found guilty.

The latest addition to the list of brutality is ‘honour killing’. In recent months, one has heard about scores of such killings taking place in northern India, particularly in Haryana, where the khap panchayats have openly backed these killings. Several young boys and girls getting married have been the victims. In some cases, the couples were driven to the edge and committed suicide.

The neighbouring state of Punjab too has joined the law violators. A strange example is that of a non-resident Indian killing his stepdaughter because he did not approve of her marriage to a low-caste Sikh in Brussels. Television networks have rightly brought such brutalities to light.

But one unfortunate fallout is that people are beginning to equate violence and ‘honour killings’ with a tainted system. Their confidence in it is turning into cynicism. They are finding the law and order machinery an instrument of tyranny in the hands of rulers and their cohorts who stage-manage false encounters to eliminate the opponents and trump up cases to harass the critics.

Whether it is a single-party government or a coalition, the methods employed are no different. The worst culprits are civil servants. The ethical considerations which once guided their action have dimmed. The desire for self-preservation has become the sole motivation for their behaviour.

In the process, the people have been disillusioned. They have come to believe that justice is only a relative term. They have lost the awareness of what is right and do not realise what is wrong. They find the dividing line between right and wrong, and moral and immoral, sinking in the sands of opportunism and oppression. They are at a loss as to how to act. No wonder they fall prey to what is promised by a demagogue or the person with the gun.

Political parties should realise that any appeal to violence in India is particularly dangerous because of its inherent disruptive character. We have too many fissiparous tendencies in the country to take such risks. Violence, even otherwise, leads to conflict and disruption. It is absurd to imagine that the result of a conflict would be the victory of socially progressive forces. I find the Left sometimes thinking along these lines.

In India, diversity, which to date had been the nation’s forte, is turning into separate entities. Consensus, which is the cornerstone of democracy, has become so difficult that even the basics cannot get the approval of parliament. Yet there is inherent unity at which foreigners marvel.

I recall that when I was India’s high commissioner to the UK, the Soviet Union was tottering. Mrs Margaret Thatcher, the then British prime minister, told me about the advice she had tendered to Moscow: learn from the example of India which has stayed together for hundreds of years despite people professing different religions, following different castes and speaking different languages.

Mrs Thatcher asked me what I attributed it to. It took me some time to explain to her that we in India did not divide things into black and white. We believed there was a grey area which we had been expanding for decades to strength our pluralism. Twenty years later, I feel what I told Mrs Thatcher is changing to the detriment of India.

Unfortunately, the spirit of tolerance or the sense of accommodation, which provided the glue for India’s integration is fading. Parties which are attempting to deny or defeat the ethos of secularism are harming the country’s unity and its catholicity. They have their own agenda and want to pursue it even at the expense of the nation’s unity. Methods do not matter to them.

I believe in the basic dictum that the wrong means will not lead to the right results. This is no longer an ethical doctrine, but a practical proposition. India can disintegrate like the Soviet Union if the nation does not awaken to the dangers of conflict. The Maoists and all political parties should eschew not only violence but also the language of violence which instils division and hatred. The situation is too uncertain for the country to remain complacent.

The peace chimera by Cyril Almeida

The hawks on both sides have won, again. At some point the minutiae becomes irrelevant. Did Pillai sink the talks between Krishna and Qureshi by blaming the ISI for the Mumbai attacks a day before the foreign ministers were to meet? Did Krishna’s inflexibility during the talks and the joint press conference with Qureshi torpedo any chance of a breakthrough, however small?

Did Qureshi’s impolitic outburst while Krishna was still in Pakistan deep six the peace process for the foreseeable future? Forget about it. Leave the parsing of the details and the blame game to the Foreign Office types. Here’s the problem: the hawks on neither side are convinced about the benefit of talking to each other right now.

Start with the Indians. (No, not because they’re more to blame, but you have to start somewhere. I’m going by the alphabetical approach.) India is divided when it comes to Pakistan. One camp believes the Mumbai attacks were orchestrated and executed by the Pakistan Army through its militant proxies. This leads them to a one, central conclusion: relations with Pakistan cannot improve until Pakistan does something meaningful about a) going after the specific people involved in the Mumbai attacks and b) beginning to roll back the ‘India-centric’ jihadis cultivated here.

The other camp argues that while Mumbai may or may not be the doing of the Pakistan Army, not talking to Pakistan is self-defeating for India. It’s not so much that everyone in this camp believes there are ‘genuine’ disputes between the two states, but that it is in India’s own interest to lower tensions between the countries.

The logic is tied to this camp’s idea of India: a growing economic power with extra-regional ambitions. While Pakistan can’t drive India off its inevitable path to greatness, Mumbai-type attacks can delay that process and make it more complicated. Hence, this camp wants to move past the focus on Mumbai: tension with Pakistan distracts India from what should be its real focus — economic and global power status.

Where there is a consensus in India it is on one thing: that Manmohan Singh genuinely wants to move the dialogue process forward with Pakistan. (Leave aside speculation about his reasons for doing so: bringing stability to Indian-held Kashmir or achieving peace with Pakistan? The two are not necessarily the same thing.)

But the Indian prime minister appears to be presiding over a divided cabinet. Hawks like Chidambaram, perhaps with prime ministerial ambitions of their own, want to keep the Indian foot on Pakistan’s neck; more moderate figures, perhaps like Krishna, are eyeing the overall dividends of lowering tension with Pakistan.

For now, the hawks appear to have won. Under American pressure, the Indians seem to have tweaked their Pakistan policy the bare minimum: change of tone, the appearance of talks, but no real change in substance — it’s still all Mumbai, Mumbai, Mumbai.

Turn now to Pakistan. That the political government has surrendered the foreign policy/national security domain to the army is clear, whatever the meek protestations of Qureshi & co. So we’ll leave them out of this. The problem here is that the army’s line on India has hardened in recent times, an increasing hawkishness that can be interpreted several ways.

The more charitable explanation is that the army is merely calibrating Pakistan’s policy towards India on the basis of Indian intransigence towards Pakistan. From this perspective, the Indian single-point agenda of Mumbai is just subterfuge for not talking about ‘core’ issues, like Kashmir and water, and overlooks the destabilising investments India is making in its conventional war machinery.

The moderate hawkish line is that while India is not willing to talk to Pakistan for whatever reasons internal to it, Pakistan should focus on improving its internal security situation and stabilising the economy: the Indian neighbour isn’t going anywhere, when they are ready to talk, we’ll talk; but we aren’t going to beg them to talk, we’ll just focus on putting our own house in order in the meantime.

In fairness, if that were the real reason for the stiff line the army appears to be taking towards India, it would be justified.

But there is a less charitable explanation that cannot be ignored: that the army may be up to its old tricks again and isn’t really interested in peace. There is, observers say, some ‘proof’ of this.

It took Pakistan weeks to admit what everyone knew, that Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani. Why? Here was a possibility to come forward and show Pakistan’s clean hands. Instead the army clung to its standard approach: never give the enemy an inch.

Worse, why has movement on the Mumbai front been so slow? Sure, it took India more than a year to convict Kasab even though the proof was overwhelming and direct. Still, it is hard to shake the feeling that Pakistan has done less than the bare minimum to bring any kind of closure on the Mumbai attacks.

Enter the fiendish complexity. When articulated it can come across as terribly naïve and simplistic: that the Pakistan Army is institutionally averse to peace with India because it would undermine its power inside Pakistan.

Yet, some of Pakistan’s most articulate, intelligent and informed members of its foreign policy elite with decades of experience under their belts often make precisely this argument, in private and with some grimness.

The army’s response is fierce and predictable. Nonsense, the generals say, India is Enemy No 1 for a reason. And then they go on to list those reasons, many of which are genuine. It has nothing to do with internal power dynamics, according to the army.

Think of it this way, though. If you were to ask Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity of Fox News if anyone tells them what to say, they will say no. And they are probably right. They say what they say because often they genuinely mean it. They genuinely believe in the values of the right, whatever those may be, in America.

Who better to further the propaganda of the right than those who actually believe in it? O’Reilly, Beck and Hannity have the platform they have because the bosses at Fox News realise there is no one better to hawk an ideology than a true believer.As with all analogies, it is imperfect: a similar dynamic may be at work among the Pakistan Army officers. So fiercely schooled are they in the feinbild of India as the enemy that they can’t see what others can.

It is not about us dominating Pakistan, army officers swear, it’s about us defending Pakistan. To be fair, most of them are so focused on the latter, they don’t see its connection with the former.

But what most in the army can’t see and what some choose not to see still has real effects. And right now that could be the real reason the hawks have won.

Correcting a false start by Praful Bidwai

Both India and Pakistan damaged their international image during their foreign ministers’ meeting last week–the first ministerial since the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks–by demonstrating mutual antipathy and refusing to begin a productive dialogue. This has disappointed many of their citizens who had hoped for better relations. Ordinary people suffer the most when bilateral relations sour and mistrust prevails.

Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was far more blunt and abrasive than India’s S M Krishna. Qureshi undiplomatically said the Indian minister hadn’t come to Islamabad with a full mandate and had to consult New Delhi periodically on the phone.

Yet, this wasn’t the cause of the talks’ failure, but the effect. The talks failed because India and Pakistan couldn’t agree on the bilateral agenda and a timetable for discussing issues of mutual concern. This failure is large even by the standards of the volatile, fractious and often tense India-Pakistan relationship.

Regrettably, Indian home secretary G K Pillai set the stage for the breakdown in an interaction with Indian Express journalists. He maladroitly alleged that Indian interrogators had obtained irrefutable evidence from David Coleman Headley, a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative detained in the US, that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency had plotted the Mumbai attacks.

The interrogation happened in June. Home Minister P Chidambaram was briefed on it and raised the issue with his counterpart Rahman Malik during his visit to Pakistan three weeks ago. Chidambaram returned assured that Malik “understood the situation and agreed that we should address [it] with the seriousness it deserves.” The issue was also discussed between the two nations’ foreign secretaries.

Pillai’s remarks couldn’t have been more ill-timed. Krishna also didn’t help matters by announcing in Islamabad: “I am here to see what action Pakistan has taken so far” on Headley’s confessions. It’s ludicrous to take the confessions of a terrorist collaborator, who is looking to be an approver, as clinching evidence.

Underlying such remarks was India’s preoccupation with getting Pakistan to crack down on terrorist groups like LeT. True, no Indian government can ignore the scars and trauma of the Mumbai attacks. This concern is understandable, but not to the point of virtually excluding all other issues and risking the talks’ failure. That’s exactly what happened.

India didn’t accommodate Pakistan’s concerns, including a structured dialogue leading to progress towards a Kashmir settlement, non-interference in Balochistan, improved cooperation within the Indus Water Treaty framework, and a settlement on Siachen.

All India offered to discuss–besides action against jihadi terrorists–is cross-border confidence-building measures, improved trade relations, and people-to-people contacts. These issues are unarguably pertinent. But it was unrealistic to expect Pakistan to shelve its own legitimate concerns.

Nor did India agree with Pakistan’s proposed schedule for secretary- and minister-level meetings. India was apparently apprehensive that Pakistan would use the timelines to resume the “composite dialogue”–as if Mumbai hadn’t happened.

In the end, the timelines clashed. Pakistan wanted all outstanding issues addressed in a time-bound manner. India felt the terror issue must first be comprehensively addressed “to inject a degree of normality into the situation,” as Indian officials put it. There was no agreement.

There were some sharp exchanges between Indian and Pakistani leaders. But these were badly exaggerated and distorted by the media. An Indian paper alleged that Qureshi had called Pillai a “clone” of LeT leader Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. In reality, Qureshi only said that Pillai’s remarks had come up during the talks and Krishna agreed that they were unhelpful.

But the media declared an irretrievable breakdown–another “Agra.” However, both sides have put a relatively positive spin on the outcome. Krishna even said he had confined himself to his mandate and “I am quite satisfied.”

Both India and Pakistan must draw some lessons from this episode. The greater lesson for India isn’t that it’s futile to try to engage with Pakistan–as many hawks argue–but that engagement should be wholehearted and cover all outstanding issues.

Secondly, rigidity on the terrorism question is counterproductive. India must recognise that a civilian Pakistani government that’s considered weak and pliant vis-a-vis India will be vulnerable to extremists.

This would be especially unfortunate just when Pakistan’s public is outraged at the Punjab Taliban’s attack on the Data Darbar shrine. This shrine is an integral part of the Sufi and Barelvi traditions and Punjab’s cultural identity. The Taliban’s harsh Salafi Islam is hostile to Sufism and shrine-worship and rejects all folk-Islamic traditions.

India must not overreact to Qureshi’s abrasive behaviour and put form and optics before substance. India has a huge stake in improved relations with Pakistan and in pressing its concerns with Islamabad patiently. Results from the dialogue process cannot come instantly. But if there’s no dialogue, negative outcomes are virtually guaranteed.

The lessons for Pakistan are no less important. Islamabad cannot credibly claim to be a responsible state which acts against jihadi terrorists if it persists with its two-faced strategy–of hunting with the Americans while running with (and shielding) the extremists.

The jihadis have used the support offered by Pakistan’s covert agencies to create independent power centres, which now threaten the public. As the jihadis increasingly become uncontrollable, Pakistan will pay for their depredations with innocent blood. It’s in Pakistan’s interest to put terrorism on the bilateral agenda with India–albeit without being seen to be caving in.

Second, the only way in which Pakistan’s civilian government can consolidate itself, and build on its recent gains in getting the 18th Amendment passed, is to loosen the military’s hold on power by reining in secret agencies like the ISI. So Qureshi is probably making a mistake in pushing an agenda that could endear him to the army and help his political career.

Qureshi is an ambitious politician, who would like to replace his much-less-articulate fellow-Multani, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. Qureshi comes from a far more powerful and more wealthy family than Gilani. But it would be disastrous for him to try and fulfil his ambitions with the army’s acquiescence or help. That course, as many Pakistani politicians have discovered in the past, is self-defeating.

Third, no matter how hard Pakistan tries, it cannot deny India a legitimate role in Afghanistan while using that country to gain “strategic depth” vis-a-vis India. India has had historically important trade and cultural links with Afghanistan.

India also enjoys a huge amount of goodwill in Afghanistan because of its well-targeted $1.75 billion aid programme which is far better tailored to Afghan needs than Western assistance programmes, which are typically routed through tiers of outsourcing agencies and middlemen.

It makes eminent sense for both Pakistan and India to get into a non-adversarial relationship in Afghanistan instead of stalking each other there. They should explore such cooperation.

There is no alternative to a dialogue that consolidates and puts real content into the notion of peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial relations. These alone can free the two peoples from the burden of rivalry and allow them to realise the objective of equitable progress with human dignity and rights for all.

In the coming weeks, Indian and Pakistani leaders must engage in introspection and find productive ways of mutually engaging one another.

Cricket Semi Final Loss Mystery – India Vs. Pakistan

First of all my introduction is important, I am a Pakistani and a Canadian national for the last more than 30 years, my profession is analysis and troubleshooting, especially business and general life dealings. Since the incidence of world trade center disaster my interest in worldly affairs raised and I started focusing in this direction. I am sure my ability will interest and benefit our nation. Please also note that I wish to stay anonymous till the time is ripe.

I wish to comment on our nation’s perception of analysis, we as a nation do not comprehend the techniques of analyzing and thus fall in weird complications. I want the media to develop a practice to present every activity close to reality. I believe the media is in the process of developing and thus need serious improvement.

Before I start, I just want to mention here that our nation is trapped in very serious complications, we do not know what is right and what is wrong. Why I am saying this? I will make you all agree.

Think about it, for the last many years we are badly stuck in this terrorism dilemma, thousands of Muslims are killed by our enemies around the world, particularly in Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq,Afghanistan etc, and now in Pakistan. Our country is painted red in blood, the whole nation is in the middle of war, devastating situation made us mentally incapable of making any right decision. Our front liners of the nation do not know what they are trying to prove and are just trying to salvage their own interests.

The whole nation, including media, the Government, intellectuals, all the agencies, businesses, organizations, corporations, Government and private, Lawyers, Doctors and each and every professional, are completely in chaos. Most of the talk shows are worthless to watch and every intellectual is talking senseless, this I will be proved a little later.

The fresh example of my message is recent world cup semi final between India and Pakistan.

With all the above mentioned devastating effects, our nation never united together as we did in the world cup semi final. The whole nation was totally subdued to Allah asking HIM the victory on a mere game, which has no value compared to loss of valuable lives. Isn’t it wise to unite for the damage we are suffering, rather than valueless world cup, I believe if we had realized the suffering and made some efforts, we would have won the world cup. I also believe Allah will not pay attention on sports victory as it does not mean anything to HIM.

Now let me come to the main reason of my message. To my analysis this game raises many questions and I wish you all to answer. I request you to put these question to cricket experts mainly Shahid Afridi, I am sure he wont be able to answer, and that due to known reasons. I firmly believe that Pakistan team is far better than Indian team, and in my opinion the maximum runs they could have made, is 200, but unfortunately Pakistan had to give them this match and the reasons are unknown and can only be analyzed, Allah knows the truth. The questions are listed below:

1.      Why  Shahid Afridi constantly used Umar Gul, although he was intentionally bowling in favor for the batsman? (8 over 69 runs no wicket)

2.      Why there was no enthusiasm in the team? Especially in fielding (drop catches)

3.      Why Shahid Afridi did not perform to his ability? (10 over 45 runs no wicket)

4.      Why they did not go for the power play? (power play could have saved the captain too)

5.      Why Misbah did start playing his game at the losing stage? Although he could have accelerated little earlier.

6.      Why at one stage Misbah was playing with great difficulty, and at another stage he was playing very confidently and smoothly?

7.      Why the team did not perform as it did in other competitions?

8.      Did the team play according to its ability and skill?

9.      Etc.

I will answer these questions according to my analysis and request you all to consider what I have concluded. In my opinion this game was intentionally given to India. Allah has blessed enormous ability to our nation and I believe that when Allah blesses one a particular ability and it is not utilized then failure is inevitable.

The real core of Pakistan loss is hidden behind the peace talk visit to India.  As we all know the politicians of India are desperate to show some success to their nation, they even tried to make some arrangement with Pakistan to play a false game with Pak Army after the Bombay incidence, but wisely Pakistan did not agree. Now this was an opportunity for Indian politicians and thus requested Pakistan to help them by loosing this match, which will upgrade their value in the eyes of the nation. Since Pakistan and India are having peace talks at the same time, they made a deal, by giving some and taking some, I am sure they have taken the match victory but what they have given in exchange, may be the time will tell itself, as the nature of false perish and the truth prevail, this is law of nature.

May be my theory is unreal, but I request you all please explain me the reason of loosing, keeping the poor performance and the questions listed above in mind.  Being a sensible person I will never believe that the game was fair and India is a better team.

In view of the above I wish to mention that there are many issues I wish to express, and I am sure they are much closer to reality than our conventional style of media analysis practice.

India and the South China Sea By Momin Iftikhar

“The sea is full of unseen treasures, but safety lies in the security of the shores.”

 (An Indian saying)

Through ages the South China Sea (SCS), lapping over the southern Chinese coast and dotted with more than 200 small islands of rock and reef, has been fabled as a hazardous passage by seafarers and explorers. The rather recent discovery of large reserves of oil and gas hidden beneath its waves has added to the lure of adventure in its perilous waters by energy-starved nations. No wonder that competing territorial claims over the SCS territory are numerous and with the littoral States – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and China – staking claims over various islands, the scope for raking trouble in the sensitive area is infinite.

Developments in the past few months indicate that an international intrigue is underway to challenge China’s sovereignty over the SCS islands and the willing decoy to draw in the Chinese dragon happens to be none other than India.

The SCS is far away from India and its oil exploratory expertise is nascent, yet New Delhi plans to collaborate with Vietnam for jointly undertaking oil exploration in disputed areas, is loaded with mischief. In October this year, India’s State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) announced its three-year deal with PetroVietnam for oil exploration in the areas that are disputed between China and Vietnam. Already there are American and Australian companies exploring in partnership with Vietnam, but restricting themselves to the country’s continental shelf and coastal areas having well defined territorial boundaries.

Currently, oil and natural gas exploration is in progress on the eastern shores of Vietnam, east of Malaysia, north of Indonesia and Brunei, west of the Philippines and south of China, yet no East Asian country, till now, has resorted to offshore oil drilling in the “blue waters” of the strategically important sea. In such sensitive environments, India’s unwelcomed gate crashing to sink its oil drills in the heart of the disputed zone constitutes a serious challenge to China’s writ in its own backyard.

Such reckless venture to seek a foothold in China’s underbelly, obviously, drew fire and brimstone from its Foreign Office and media. “China enjoys indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and our position is based on full historical and jurisprudential evidence,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei.

Referring to India’s totally uncalled for oil exploration on behalf of Vietnam, he amply underpinned the message for it to back off; “any country engaged in oil and gas exploration activities in this jurisdiction without the approval of the Chinese government constitutes an infringement upon China’s sovereignty and national interest and such activities are, therefore, illegal and invalid. Countries outside the region should respect efforts by the regional countries to solve this dispute through bilateral negotiations.”

Likewise, Beijing’s message to New Delhi through its media was packed with manifest anger. The China Energy News, a subsidiary of the People’s Daily, known to reflect the Communist policy views, made it clear that Indian intervention in the SCS was unacceptable. “India’s energy strategy is slipping into an extremely dangerous whirlpool. On the question of cooperation with Vietnam, the bottom line for Indian companies is that they must not enter into the disputed waters of the SCS. Indian oil company policymakers should consider the interests of their own country, turn around at the soonest opportunity and leave the South China Sea,” it said.

Addressing the Indian policymakers it warned: “Challenging the core interests of a large rising county for unknown oil at the bottom of the sea will not only lead to a crushing defeat for the Indian company, but will most seriously harm India’s whole energy security and interrupt its economic development.”

The Indian attempt to cross the line for foreign interference in the SCS disputes was no thoughtless isolated action; it was rather smartly dovetailed in the overall scheme of things to provide a preamble and precursor for the US-led chorus at the ASEAN and East Asia Summit (EAS), held in Indonesia in the third week of November, to turn the issue of China’s sovereignty over the SCS into an international maritime problem. President Barack Obama’s presence, at the sixth East Asia Summit held on November 19-20, 2011, indicated the importance Washington attached to the forum for rallying the south eastern regional countries on a confrontational mode with Beijing by setting the stage for foreign interference in a domain that China rightly treats as its backyard and natural sphere of influence.

The Indian endeavours to make a prominent niche in the East Asian affairs to disturb regional harmony by planning to send its oil drillers in the disputed areas has left the Chinese government deeply unhappy. China used the EAS to reiterate its concern over India’s enthusiasm to fish in the troubled water of SCS disputes. The country’s premier, Wen Jiabao, met with the Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on the sidelines of EAS and made it clear that “outside forces” and “foreign [read Indian] companies” should be clear about the SCS disputes. Beijing does not want third party interference in the resolution of bilateral disputes in the region – least of all India, who remains an outsider and wants to pursue an agenda that seeks to embarrass and impede China in its rise as an upcoming global power.

The Indian uncalled for interference in the SCS to accentuate the brewing trouble in close cooperation with the US and Australia is bad news for its neighbours. Similar ambitions in Afghanistan to make the country a venue for a proxy war with Pakistan has already translated into untold miseries for the Afghan people and has led to extreme instability in FATA area, Balochistan and even in Pakistani hinterland.

Also, the Indian tendency to use the platform of regional forums to pursue its regional and extra-regional ambitions is beginning to gnaw at the usefulness of these bodies. It is worth noting that while India has used its presence in the ASEAN and EAS to push China into a corner by instigating the members to raise bilateral disputes as multilateral issues, it has steadfastly refused to address bilateral issues at the SAARC forum; Kashmir being one of them.