ELECTION 99
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
ELECTIONS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

A hopeless cause

Several problems continue to plague India's relations with Pakistan; two of them are misconceptions we ourselves have created. The first is a myth: They are just like us. The second is an irrelevance: The people of Pakistan sincerely desire peace with us.

To begin with the first, who is the 'us' that the Pakistanis are supposed to resemble? I am a South Indian and that means I have nothing in common with the language(s) they speak, the food they eat, the dress they wear, or any one of the myriad matters that go into the making of what is loosely defined as 'culture'.

There might be something in the 'Punjabiyat' we heard so much of in the Gujral period, but I neither know nor care. I know Hindi films, dominated as they are by Punjabi Hindus, suggest otherwise, but there is far more to India than this spurious image.

The issues that do link me to people from North India are a shared religion and a shared adherence to democracy (however imperfect). These are values that Pakistan has specifically, and consistently, rejected.

Second, coming to the people of Pakistan, who cares what they think? Popular sentiment is definitely a factor in a democracy, but Pakistan does not fit that definition. The generals who are the last word in that country have never needed to bother about their subjects' feelings. Even if the ordinary Pakistani has nothing but goodwill for India, a highly debatable thesis, it is irrelevant as long as the Pakistani Army feels otherwise. Like it or not, we cannot ignore the brute fact that we must deal with the generals, not the mythical man-on-the-Pakistani-street.

Let us now come from generalities to specifics: Can India do business with General Pervez Musharraf? In fact, is there any point in holding talks with him?

I am sorry, but the dismal answer is 'No!' The sticking point is that India's minimum strategic demands are more than the general can afford to agree to. What is the least that India can hope for? First, that Pakistan should agree to honour the Line of Control, perhaps even accept it as the international border. (This still represents a major climb-down for India, but never mind.) Second, that Pakistan should stop sponsoring terrorist activity in India.

There can never be peace unless these requests are met; there is really no point in talking about improving trade or cultural exchanges if Islamabad continues to back murderers.

The bottom line is that General Musharraf is in no position to do anything to improve relations, even assuming that he wants to do so. Making peace with India is to cut at the root of the Pakistani Army's supremacy in its own country. If India is a friend, what rationale is there for the generals to swallow a quarter or more of the annual budget? Soldiers in Pakistan demand, and receive, special privileges because they claim they are the sole defence against Indian hegemony. Remove that factor, make a friend of India, and what is left of their position?

It is commonly conceded that Sonia Gandhi, like other members of her family before her, puts her family's interests before those of the Congress. Well, the generals in Pakistan find it immensely profitable to keep relations with India on the boil even though their country's economy goes down the gutter.

Forty years ago, President Eisenhower warned his countrymen to beware of a 'military-industrial complex'; but it is Pakistan that should have heeded that message. What would be General Musharraf's fate if he tried to buck the trend and actually make peace with India? He would, I think, consider himself lucky if he managed to end up as Nawaz Sharief's cellmate!

But this is, at best, an idle hypothesis; is there anything that leads us to think Pervez Musharraf wants an amicable relationship? Don't forget he is the man who expressed reservations about the Lahore process and then planned the invasion of Kargil. The men who hijacked the Indian Airlines flight to Kandahar are wandering around Pakistan without harm or hinder. (This in the same country where a prime minister was put on trial for hijacking!) The Musharraf government has expressed its incapacity to rein in terrorists from using Pakistani territory. It continues to tell lies about India at international fora.

Negotiations mean both sides must be prepared for concessions; if both sides simply smile at each other and agree to disagree, it is just a farce. And I for one think we have already wasted enough time on such idiocy.

T V R Shenoy