title: “Back To Square One " ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-29” author: “Brittany Molina”
So much for the Indo-Pakistan peace process. The superheated rhetoric may be so much hot air for now, but it shows how far relations have deteriorated since January 2004, when the leaders of the two nuclear-armed rivals began a dialogue aimed at normalizing relations and eventually solving the nearly 60-year-old dispute over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir. Even the cautious and mild-mannered Singh indirectly pointed a finger at Pakistan the day after the attacks by saying the terrorists could not have staged the Mumbai explosions without support from “elements across the border.” To show he meant business, he postponed a meeting of the two countries’ foreign secretaries that had been scheduled late last month, and he allowed the police to reissue a nearly five-year-old demand that Pakistan arrest and turn over 20 alleged Pakistani extremists who are suspected of involvement in terrorism in India. Pakistan is expected to ignore this latest request as it has the previous one.
But Singh is under the gun to go even further. Influential political commentators and security analysts are urging him not to resume the normalization process unless Pakistan takes some action against jihadist elements inside Pakistan. Musharraf’s constant assurance that he’s doing all he can to crack down on anti-Indian jihadist outfits is simply not enough, the hard-liners assert. “Musharraf must show results before any meaningful peace talks can be restarted,” says C. Raja Mohan, strategic-affairs editor of the Indian Express newspaper. Without Pakistan taking some concrete action, adds Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute of Conflict Management in New Delhi, “all this talk of peace is simply feeding the crocodile.” Seemingly bowing to the pressure, New Delhi has informed Islamabad through diplomatic channels that if Musharraf doesn’t take “effective action” to dismantle jihadist camps in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and end their links with terrorists inside India then the dialogue is in danger, according to India’s Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahmed.
Indian’s hardening stance has put Musharraf in a bind at home, perhaps limiting his ability to deliver what India is demanding. He has denounced the Mumbai bombing as a “despicable act,” offered to cooperate fully with Indian investigators and denied Pakistan was involved in any way. He desperately wants to get the peace process back on track, senior Pakistani officials say. Indian investigators, who have arrested, but not charged, eight Indian Muslims for their alleged links to the bombing, believe the Pakistani-based jihadist group Lashkar-i-Tayyiba was involved in the carnage, leading many Indians to say that Musharraf should move against Lashkar.
But that’s easier said than done. Musharraf banned Lashkar in 2002, but it resurfaced as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, ostensibly a Muslim aid organization. Jamat played a significant role in assisting Pakistani Kashmiris in the wake of last October’s devastating earthquake. At the time Musharraf infuriated many Indians by praising the relief work of Jamat and other jihadist groups. Since Jamat is relatively popular with conservative Muslims, a crackdown could unleash a backlash, Pakistani analysts say. “A violent confrontation could only increase radicalism,” says retired Pakistan Army Lt. Gen. Talat Masood. And the last thing Musharraf wants is a collision with the religious right while he is trying to curry favor with the Islamic religious parties in the run-up to next year’s general elections. “I’m not sure he can or wants to eliminate jihadi groups like Jamat because they have deep roots in society and significant support at the level of the common man,” says Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani political analyst.
Moderate Pakistanis counter that the best way to undercut radicalism is for the dialogue between India and Pakistan to resume quickly and for the talks to make progress despite the terror blasts. “Somehow we must make India understand that a continuation of the peace process will encourage and strengthen moderate forces in Pakistan more than any heavy-handed move against militants,” says General Masood.
Fortunately, the talks are not dead. There is a good chance that the Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries could meet on the sidelines of this week’s meeting in Dhaka of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Such a meeting won’t clear the air of suspicion in India, or remove Pakistan’s impatience with the lack of substantive progress in the talks, especially on the crucial issue of Kashmir that Musharraf and the Pakistani military tend to overemphasize.
The Dhaka meeting may open the way for an official restarting of the normalization dialogue, if only after a decent interval of a month or two to demonstrate India’s profound discontent. “What’s essential is that the two sides continue talking at some level,” says Samina Ahmed, the South Asia director of the International Crisis Group. “If the communication links break down we are back to square one.”
The ultimate risk of a final breakdown in the dialogue is obvious: the threat of armed conflict. “There’s no alternative to the talks,” adds Ahmed. The sooner both New Delhi and Islamabad acknowledge that stark fact, the better.
