THE INDIA FACTOR

Dr Syed Rifaat Hussain

Can Pakistan and India move away from their enduring rivalry and make peace? Can the shadow of the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks be removed by sustained diplomatic engagement between the two countries?

This chapter seeks to answer these questions by reviewing the record of diplomatic efforts and identifying the obstacles in the path of progress while underscoring the importance of a peace process whose absence can provide determined spoilers on both sides ample opportunity to push the nuclear-armed adversaries toward deadly confrontation.

Is a Peace Process in Place?

A peace process can be defined as concerted efforts by parties in dispute to seek a resolution of their conflict through dialogue and negotiations. The initiation of a peace process normally follows incidents of armed conflict between the parties in dispute. Usually it takes place with the support of interested third parties. The onset of the peace process, while reducing escalatory pressures for violence, does not guarantee that peace will necessarily follow. In fact, the failure of the peace process to yield positive results may enhance possibilities for the outbreak of violent conflict. The existence of an India-Pakistan peace process is evidenced by several factors. First, both countries have regularly engaged in bilateral talks to resolve differences on a wide range of issues: border demarcation, boundary adjustment, water distribution, trade and commerce issues, protection of minorities, Kashmir, conventional and nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs). Since 1997 all these issues have been discussed as part of the composite dialogue involving eight issues: Peace and Security including CBMs; Jammu and Kashmir; Siachin; Sir Creek; Tulbul, Wullar, Baghlihar and Kishenganga water projects; terrorism and drug trafficking; economic and commercial cooperation; promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields. Second, India- 333Pakistan bilateral talks have yielded a large number of agreements that have a fairly good compliance record by each country (see Table 1).

Three, despite lack of agreement on Kashmir, both countries have since the mid-1990s made conscious efforts to push the peace process forward. Four, since their overt nuclearisation in May 1998, the world community has repeatedly called upon the two nations not only to exercise restraint but also to forego use and the threat of the use of force in settling differences. All the four nuclear crises between India and Pakistan—1986-87 Brasstacks, the 1990 Kashmir crisis, the 1999 Kargil conflict, and the ‘compound crisis’ of summer 2002—were defused with the help of Washington as a third party.

334Table 1: Important Indo-Pak agreements (1948-2009) Number Date and Place IssuesStatusComments 1.27 July 1949 KarachiCeasefire Line in Jammu and KashmirOperationalGive rise to Siachin dispute 2.8 April 1950Minority RightsOperationalCommunal harmony 3.22 January 1957 New DelhiTrade and CommerceContestedSpawned most favoured nation controversy 4.9 September KarachiWater Rights (Indus Water Basin)OperationalPotential for Conflict 5.January 1966 TashkentPeace Making after 1965 WarOvertaken by EventsThird party Mediation 6.2 July 1972 SimlaPeace and Security after 1971 WarContestedFramework for normalisation 7.27 August 1973 New DelhiPrisoners of WarImplementedTrust Building 8.14 April 1978 New DelhiDesign of the Salal Hydro electric planContestedSource of discord 9.31 December 1988 IslamabadCultural CooperationLapsedImportant for people-to-people contacts 10.31 December 1988Prohibition of attack against nuclear installations and facilitiesOperationalVital Nuclear CBM, Trust Building 11.6 April 1991 New DelhiAdvance Notice on military exercises and troop movementOperationalImportant military CBM 12.17 August 1992 New DelhiPrevention of Space violations and Overflight rightsOperationalImportant CBM 33513.23 June 1997 IslamabadJoint Working Groups for Composite DialogueSidelined in 2010 after several interruptionsFramework for dialogue process 14.20 February 1999 LahorePeace and Security (Lahore Declaration, Joint Statement and MoU nuclear CBMs)OperationalCore Principles of Conduct 15.6 January 2004 Islamabad Joint StatementCross-Border Terrorism, Dialogue ProcessOperationalReassurance, Reciprocity 16.20 June 2004 Joint StatementNuclear CBMs. the statement described nuclear capabilities of each other as a ‘factor for stability’ and called for regular meeting ‘among all the nuclear powers to discuss issues of common concern’.OperationalJoint Commitment to work towards strategic stability 17.February 16-18, 2006 IslamabadComposite Dialogue ScheduleOperationalVital for Substantive Dialogue 18.17 September 2006 Havana Joint StatementResumption of Composite Dialogue Process, Cross-Border terrorism and KashmirOperationalVital for ongoing dialogue 19.16 July 2009 Sharm el- Sheikh Joint StatementBoth sides recognised Dialogue as the only way forward and declared terrorism as the common enemy. Action on terrorism should not be bracketed.OperationalProvide impetus for resumption of stalled peace process.

Roadblocks to Peace

There are 4 sources of the enduring enmity between Islamabad and New Delhi.

1. A clash of opposing ideologies in the diametrically opposed Islam and Hinduism.

To S.M. Burke, ‘Centuries of dedication to such diametrically opposed systems as Islam and Hinduism could not but nurture an utterly different outlook on the outside world among their respective followers.’

2. Pakistan’s fear of India’s sheer size and the pair’s strategic and economic asymmetry.

Howard Wriggins:

However unjustified Indian leaders may have thought it, Pakistan’s overriding concern vis-a-vis India’ is the ‘fear of India’s size, the size of its army… and fear compounded out of not infrequent public statements by prominent Indians regarding the tragedy of partition and reiterating the inherent unity of the subcontinent.

3. The legacy of the trauma of partition.

This has carried over in the mindsets of those who took over the administration of the two countries. Leo Rose and Richard Sisson comment: ‘Most of the political and social concepts that dominated the ideology and psychology of the narrow elites that controlled these two movements survived into the independence period and have not disappeared.’

4. The unresolved issue of Kashmir.

Besides being the fundamental cause of the first two wars between India and Pakistan, and a trigger for the May-July 1999 conflict in Kargil, Kashmir is now universally recognised as a nuclear flash point and a serious international security issue.

Between 2004 and 2007, New Delhi and Islamabad used back channel links to develop a shared understanding in the form of a ’non-paper’ for a final resolution of the dispute.

Both sides had reached a broad agreement on 5 elements of the Kashmir settlement:

1. No change in the territorial layout of Kashmir currently divided into Pakistani and Indian areas
2. The creation of a ‘softer border’ across Line of Control (LoC).
3. Greater autonomy and self-governance within both Indian and Pakistani controlled parts of the state.
4. A cross-LoC consultative mechanism.
5. The demilitarisation of Kashmir at a pace determined by the decline in cross border terrorism.’

This understanding failed to materialise due to the fall of the Musharraf regime in 2008.