The Peace Process

Published first in The Frontier Post

Let's not get carried away by the joint statement issued after the meeting between the two Prime Ministers Yousaf Raza Gilani and Manmohan Singh at Sharm El-Sheikh. India has not conceded anything. This is what Manmohan Singh reminded us all when he was talking to Indian journalists later on. It was apparently another somersault performed by the Indian Prime Minister, when he reiterated that peace talks were on hold until Pakistan took a credible action against the perpetrators of Mumbai attack. However, it is not what the joint statement contained on which he signed. The statement issued had explicitly stated that "action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed".

Such is the chemistry of relationship that is present between the two arch rivals. When it comes to Pakistan and India, it is not only the prime ministers of the countries which define foreign policy towards each other. There are so many other intricately linked factors involved - be it the media or various lobbies which have vested interests. There are warmongers who would lose their jobs if war is not in the equation. There are various hawks whose public approval ratings only increase if they speak out venom and vilify the other country. The leaders on both sides of the border will not want to be seen conceding their stances. Amidst all this it is not surprising if Manmohan Singh did not try to sell the joint statement to a group of Indian journalists. But in not doing so, he has again given the handle of peace process to a third party, which in this case happens to be terrorists.

Just as India should refrain from allowing the issue of terrorism to sabotage the peace process, similarly Pakistan should equally not use the stalemate in Kashmir issue to hinder any chances of progress in other sectors of Composite Dialogue. Yes, Kashmir is the core outstanding issue which needs to be resolved according to the wishes of Kashmiri people. But then again, you have to pass through the crust to reach the core. Making headway in other issues can create a propitious environment to solve the core issue.

It was not long ago, in 2005, when Musharraf and Manmohan had together touted that peace process had become 'irreversible'. Then the world saw how the events unfolding in Taj and Oberoi hotels flouted that myth of 'irreversible' peace process. Indeed, it was 2005 when people to people contacts had reached the maximum; when the bilateral trade figure was soaring up to $2 billion mark; when there were talks about joint anti-terrorism mechanism. So what went wrong? Or will our future relationship continue to be defined by the isolated activities of some rogue elements?

Shireen Mazari writes that the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) had become an end itself. While Pakistan was seeking a conflict resolution, India came to the tables with the policy of conflict management. With absence of any major progress in conflict resolution in the last decade, the peace process was largely celebrated as the absence of tensions and not the presence of harmony. Harmony comes only, when the civil society, businessmen and the media are the stakeholders of peace process, and not the politicians, who sit behind doors to show flexibility, but would fail to sell that in the public.

According to Khurshid Kasuri, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce had appealed to the Indian government during the tension era of 1999-2003 to improve relations with Pakistan, as the economy, which had registered growth of 8% in early nineties, experienced a decline in 1999-2003. This is what can happen on a large scale when the peace process is hailed publicly by the groups who have genuine interest in the progress.

Improved relations between Pakistan and India are not only important for bilateral reasons but also for regional and global cooperation. Healthy bilateral environment can pay dividends in the solution of Afghanistan as India is also in the Obama's contact group for Afghanistan. Then there is a dilemma of a 'dead horse' named SAARC, which can be revitalized if there are no bilateral tensions among the member countries.

Lastly, it is as important for Pakistan as it is for India to see the perpetrators of Mumbai attack getting punished. Terrorism is a regional issue, which deems a threat to the stability of this region. Pakistan is already paying a heavy price to this menace. The last thing Islamabad would want is to jeopardize the rapprochement with India due to its lackadaisical response to the terrorist networks responsible for Mumbai carnage.

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Obama's Afghanistan

Published first in 'The Frontier Post'

Abraham Lincoln said: "What has once happened, will invariably happen again, when the same circumstances which combined to produce it, shall again combine in the same way." Obama may like to recall this, especially when he has launched a new offensive in Afghanistan. The situation is precariously similar to what was when Lyndon Johnson was at the helm of affairs. He inherited the Vietnam War from his predecessor. He went for the increase in the number of US troops. The number rose from 16,000 in 1964 to 553,000 by 1969. But it failed to do the job and Richard Nixon had to pull out after buying some time for face saving. New Zealand and Australia decided to pull out earlier in 1971 and were followed by US in 1973.

This time the battlefield is Afghanistan. Obama has inherited a war in a landscape that is notorious for brutal civil wars throughout history. Genghis Khan failed to prevail here even with his naked barbarity. The Great Britain retreated in 19th century. So did the Russians when they were 'Vietnamized' in a war of attrition. However, Obama thinks he can win it.

The Operation Khanjar, which is the first big offensive of President Obama, must be seen in this background. This time the plan is to enter into Helmand, the stronghold of Taliban, and to hold and build the area for the upcoming Afghan elections. Obama has already increased his troops by 21,000 which have brought the total number of US boots in the ground to 68,000. Simply put, this number is not enough to win Afghanistan militarily. Perhaps, Obama would like to pay heed to the advice of Fikryat Tabeyev, the former Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan from 1979 to 1986, who is of the view that no escalation in troops can bring a lasting peace in Afghanistan.

The coalition countries already know this and hence we saw the reluctance of committing more troops in the last NATO summit. Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, has already termed the war 'unwinnable' and has refused to pledge more troops. So what other choices does Obama have to pull his country out of this quagmire?

To answer this, let's go back to the beginning for a while. The US only came in Afghanistan to capture Osama Bin Laden and to disrupt al-Qaeda network. There were no other grandiose goals like nation-building or promoting democracy of moderate elements. Milton Bearden, the former CIA station chief in Pakistan during 1986-89, wrote in 2001 prior to the US invasion: "Washington may be tempted to try to oust Taliban regime, but doing so could rekindle Afghan's brutal civil war. The United States must proceed with caution - or end up on the ash heap of Afghan history." But the Yankees lost the sight of this, turned their faces towards Baghdad, and had put too much in their plates which they could not eat.

The US must understand that no amount of elections can bring a representative and a consensus based government in Kabul unless all the ethnicities including the alienated Pashtuns take part in it. Then, Washington must have an exit strategy, for the lasting peace will be given a serious chance only once the foreign troops are off the soil of Afghanistan. Henry Kissinger proposed one such strategy while writing in the International Herald Tribune. He propagated a formal neutrality of Afghanistan that would be guaranteed by all of its neighbours and the big powers, while, the government in Kabul will give assurances of not exporting terrorism. Treaty of London of 1839 is one accord that comes in one's mind which contained a similar agreement of neutrality of Belgium.

Afghanistan has always been the battleground of war of proxies between different nations. The inclusion of India in Obama's contact group for Afghanistan should not be seen with suspicion. For if India is on the table along with the neighbours of Afghanistan, the prospects of reaching a comprehensive agreement of neutrality of Afghanistan are much brighter, provided if the concerns of Pakistan are also addressed. But for this to take place, Obama must connect all the dots in the region - be they in Tehran or in Srinagar.

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To divide, or not to divide

First published in 'The Frontier Post'

It only took a press conference of Durrani, the former information minister, when he announced to lobby for a separate Bahawalpur province, to set in motion an argument on having more provinces. Should we have more provinces? Should we divide Punjab? Is this the right time to even float this idea? The questions started pouring in. PML-N snubbed back terming it a conspiracy of PPP to weaken the hold of Nawaz Sharif in Punjab. Although a few dispersive elements within these two major parties have announced their support for a separate Seraiki province, no conclusive debate has taken place within the party ranks or in the assembly.

Division of provinces or states is mostly carried out on administrative basis throughout the world, which also ensures decentralization of power; however there are other linguistic models as well like the one followed in India or the Soviet model. The opponents of linguistic model claim that giving Seraikis a separate province only on linguistic basis can have a domino effect which will see Moahjir coming up with a similar demand and so will the Pakhtuns of Balochistan.

The arguments for an administrative division might hold water considering the sense of deprivation that is prevalent in the Southern Punjab belt. The National Assembly was informed recently that out of the Rs 20 billion loan obtained from the World Bank by the Ministry of Communication to construct mega roads in the country, not a single project was launched in the southern Punjab. Lack of infrastructure and dearth of basic facilities in Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan have given rise to the fears of growing militancy in these areas. The Asian Development bank reports that Dera Ghazi Khan is the least developed division of Pakistan as more than 50 per cent of its population lives below the poverty line.

The question remains: Will dividing the Punjab into more provinces solve our problems? The fact remains that this proposed division is a means and not an end itself. By just building another governor house and allocating more resources for another cabinet this Frankenstein of deprivation will not go away. Balochistan is a vivid example in this regard. Ejaz-ul-Haq and Pervez Elahi have contested elections from Bahawalpur in the past. Durrani, during his tenure, failed to raise voice for his area even when he was a part of the establishment. There are many rich Makhdooms of the area who have been part of the government but it has not brought prosperity to their respective areas. If the feeling of deprivation is really the problem then the Balochistan issue must be addressed first to show that centre is flexible enough to satisfy its units. Otherwise, a Seraiki province will only add to this ongoing wrangling.

Right now when the country is at war in its West, the voices of linguistically dividing people in the East is nothing short of a chicanery. The division of resources to another group of elite at another location is not the solution, unless there is a decentralized mechanism in place to divert the development down to the impoverished common passes. What is stopping Shahbaz Sharif's good governance to show its effect in the Southern belt? The government is apparently too much caught up even to call an all-party conference on the Balochistan issue. Punjab, as a big brother, must lead from the front in this crisis. The role of Punjab should be to integrate the deprived masses from the Southern Belt in its development model. Then it must strive to build a consensus with other provinces on issues like Water distribution and the NFC awards, even if it demands some sacrifice. If Pakistan is to progress as a successful federation then Punjab will have to be the key.

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From Pakistan to Zardaristan

The group photo of the national cricket team taken with the President Asif Ali Zardari and the Prime Minsiter Yousaf Raza Gillani had one glaring eccentricity. It seemed as if the national cricket team was visiting the 'Bhutto house' as in the background the only pictures hung on the wall were of Bhuttos. Jinnah or Iqbal were nowhere to be seen. 'The News' reported that 'the portraits of Founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah have been removed from the Prime Minister House and Presidential House.' If this is really the case then there can be nothing more despicable in this current wave of 'personality of cult'. - rather 'dynasty cult' is a term more appropriate for it.

This incident must not be taken in isolation, for this is only another bead in the long chain of elevating the dynasty of Bhuttos to a divine level. The signs are everywhere. This 'dynasty cult' aims to make the dynasty and state seems synonymous. The President is elected - or rather his name is agreed upon - as he belongs to the dynasty. He knows how to play the sympathy card, as his family members have often fell victims to injustice or terrorism. He constantly leads the gullible masses to believe that the sacrifices his dynasty has made for this country are countless, and they can only be remunerated if his dynasty stays in power. He travels with pictures of his lost ones, grieving on every occasion on any national or international platform as if the whole nation is lingering on with his unbearable losses. He addresses the United Nations General Assembly as if he is talking on the behalf of his dynasty. And to top it all he says that he is only answerable to the successors of his dynasty.

It all started with changing the names of the infrastructure of the country - airports, roads, even a district. (Check the maps again. NawabShah district does not exist anymore, for there is now a Shaheed Benazir Bhutto district). Then came the so-called 'special edition' coins which had pictures of Benazir instead of Quaid-e-Azam. Residents of Islamabad know how many roads have been adorned with the flags of People's Party nowadays. Then comes the colossal size billboards and banners. All of this with the taxpayers' money and that is why the dynasty has to remain in power.

By building this cult they are trying to force an ideology onto the natives of this land, who happen to be highly divided when it comes to the reputation of the dynasty. But the majority does not hold the President in a good name. Imposing such a cult in a society leads to alienation and isolation of the rest. Jinnah may be the only real figure in this turmoil history of our nation when we had a real consensus. The cricket team in the group photo won for Pakistan, but the picture tells a different story. It speaks about a land named Zardaristan and my Quaid is not in it.

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The Pak-India Rapprochement

Our President Asif Ali Zardari met the Indian premier Manmohan Singh in Yekaterinburg on the sidelines of SCO summit, but only to hear more lectures about ‘not doing enough’. The meeting became highly unpleasant when Manmohan Singh in the presence of reporters told Zardari bluntly during the handshakes that ‘my mandate is limited in telling you that Pakistan should not allow its soil to be used for terrorism against India’. Zardari was caught off-guard, and given the (not so) eloquent skills he possesses, he could only pass an uneasy smile until the reporters were hushed out of the room. Maybe he could have rejoined like this: “And my mandate is limited in telling you that India should not allow its resources to be used to create disturbances in Balochistan from Afghanistan.” But these skills of oratory are not the characteristics of Zardari.

Now according to the foreign office sources, Zardari has dropped his plans of attending the NAM summit later on, and instead he will be sending Yousuf Raza Gillani to meet Manmohan in Egypt. Not so good a start for rapprochement, one might wonder.

Many Indians feels that the high water mark of Indo-US friendship during the regime of Bush is being followed by the callous attitude of Obama towards India. Although India is satisfied with the results its lobbying has produced in the recent past, when it was able to erase the ‘K’ word from the script of Obama’s overtures, it still feels skittish about the ‘lack of warmth’ that was present when Bush was in the Oval office. Sumit Ganguly wrote recently in Foreign Affairs magazine: “ India and the United States share important interests on some of today's most pressing strategic issues, including the struggle against Islamist terrorism, the stabilization and de-Talibanization of Afghanistan, the cautious engagement of a rising China, and the pursuit of improved bilateral economic ties.... What is more, India truly cares about the [terrorism] issue -- something that cannot always be said about other supposed U.S. allies in the war on terror, including Pakistan.”

It is no secret that that the Yekaterinburg meeting was pushed by U.S. who is eager to see Pakistan concentrating on its Western border. The question remains – Will Pakistan be able to convey its legitimate interests vis-a-vis India to its ‘listening partners’ sitting in Washington? For the time being, the Indian lobby seems in full swing in Capitol Hill.

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