The Rediff Special /J N Dixit
Patch up or perish
Former Pakistan foreign minister Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, participating
in a seminar on Indo-Pakistan relations at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in New Delhi in 1996, expressed the view that while common sense and logic favours normal friendly relations between India and
Pakistan, there is a deep line of hatred between the two countries,
which has to be overcome before any positive move could be made
in this direction.
Sahibzada's views were not palatable in the emotional
"let us build bridges" ambiance of the seminar. However
what he defined was a substratum of varity which has affected
Indo-Pak relations for the last half century. This antagonism
cannot be wished away. It is based on historical memories of the
partition, the evolution of the controversy on Kashmir and the
role that India played in the break-up of Pakistan in support
of the liberation struggle of Bangladesh.
The people of India and Pakistan will have to eradicate the line of hatred described by Yaqub Khan if the peoples of the sub-continent have
any meaningful vision about their future well-being. That there
are some tentative prospects of such an endeavor being jointly
undertaken by India and Pakistan was reflected in the resumption
of foreign secretary-level talks between March 28 and 31 and
the discussions which I K Gujral and Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub
Khan had in Delhi on April 9 at the end of the Non-Aligned
Foreign Ministers' Conference.
The prime ministers of India and Pakistan will meet in Male on Monday, the first such high-level meeting to take place after P V Narasimha Rao's meeting with Nawaz Sharif in Dhaka in April 1993. Foreign secretaries Salman Haider and Shamshad Ahmad met despite the polemical and contradictory statements made in Delhi and Islamabad just before the talks took place indicates two things. First, that the governments of India and Pakistan perceive a groundswell of public opinion in both countries advocating an end to hostile attitudes and the need for fashioning normal cooperative relations. Second, that
both governments are engaged in a complex tactical exercise to
move on to a positive track of bilateral relations, while trying
to assuage prejudices and suspicions which still affect the
psyche of the people of both countries.
It is time to introspect whether we should remain enmeshed in the bitter and flawed inheritance of the past or whether the people of India and Pakistan should transcend them with a creative vision animated by a desire to resolve the genuine problems that the sub-continent faces. Kashmir, Siachin, concerns about interference, potential hegemonies
are less important than the profound issues of peace, stability
and development which will affect our future.
Some illustrative facts starkly describing our collective and tragic predicament are worth recalling. The UNDP's Human Development Report for 1996 states that South Asia is and will be the poorest part of the world in the foreseeable future. It will also be the most illiterate
region of the world, equally lacking in primary health facilities.
More children go hungry in South Asia than in any other part of
the world. South Asia has the largest number of minor children
involved in labour. The preliminary estimate is that there are
134 million such children who work for 15 hours a day on an average.
South Asia contains 40 per cent of the world's absolute poor,
surviving on just a little less than one dollar a day. South Asia
requires primary schooling for a minimum of 126 million children,
basic health care for nearly 700 million people, safe drinking
water for nearly 800 million people, apart from meeting the nutrition
and family planning requirements of 400-500 hundred million people.
The UNDP's estimates are that this will cost $ 129 billion over the next 15 years. That is $ 8.6 billion per year. This is apart from the need for resource mobilisation for developmental purposes and for modernising the economies of the countries so that we can become effective participants in the new international economic order emerging after the end of the cold war.
What, however, is actually happening is that India spends between
7-10 per cent of its Budget on defence and has to provide for
another $ 25- 27 billion dollars for debt servicing and other external inputs needed for sustaining economic development.
Pakistan spends nearly 25 per cent of its Budget on defence and
another 50 per cent on debt servicing, depending on external assistance
to manage other aspects of its economic survival.
Both common sense and clinical logic should make the governments of the two countries and people seriously question whether this infructuous, non-productive expenditure on defence, fuelling an arms race, is justified. Unless one suffers from jingoistic hallucinations, the inescapable answer is "No".
Geography, history, linguistic, religious and cultural linkages alongwith incontrovertible economic complimentarity between our two countries make the antagonistic relations between India and Pakistan patently irrelevant and unacceptable. Even if one makes allowances for the stipulation that politics is not logical, perhaps is a matter of general perceptions, historical memories and emotions, we must realise that the need is to change these perceptions and emotional orientations which are detrimental to our collective interests. This process may take time, but the endeavour should commence.
A radically innovative approach must be sought to resolve the
Kashmir issue. India and Pakistan sticking to their rigid negotiating
stances and territorial claims based on historical and colonial
arguments is not going to solve the problem. Nor would insistence
on reviving UN resolutions or both sides claiming the entire territory
of the state of Jammu and Kashmir achieve this purpose. A more
objective and clinical perception of the geo-political and geographic
nature of the territories which comprise the state of Jammu and
Kashmir should be the basis for exploring possible solutions.
The state was the creation of Dogra Imperium which consisted of areas and peoples with distinct demographics, religious, ethnic and linguistic characteristics. One only has to perceive the identities of Ladakh, the valley, Jammu, Baltistan, Gilgit and other areas under the
control of Pakistan now to realise these diversities. If one looks
at the history of the state from the late 17th century onwards,
it manifests a significant coincidence that areas now under the
control of Pakistan are those which had closer linkages with Afghanistan,
the Northwest Frontier Province and Pakistani Punjab, whereas
the areas under the Indian control now had linkages with Tibet, with
the power structures in Delhi and with the Hindu and Sikh kingdoms
and principalities.
The Line of Control, as drawn in 1972, in a manner confirms the traditional geo-political identities of the regions which came under Dogra rule. Despite this being so, the unilateral insistence by India that the Line of Control as it is should be acknowledged as the international border would not be acceptable to Pakistan. A practical solution should be the recognition of the traditional geo-political and demographic identities of different segments of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and of meeting of contemporary geo-strategic interests of both India
and Pakistan.
Pakistan should also not argue for Jammu and Kashmir's
affiliation to it on the basis of the two-nation theory or as
a completion of what former Pakistani president Ghulam Ishaq Khan
called "the unfinished tasks of the partition". Pakistan
should take into account Indian geo-strategic interests and the
ramifications of any solution of the Kashmir issue on the polity
and socio-religious and demographic integrity of India.
The most significant contemporary interest of Pakistan would be to have strategic elbow room to safeguard the Karakoram highway and the Kumjerab Pass. India's interest is to acquire similar elbow room
to neutralise the vulnerabilities of Jammu against possible Pakistani
threats. Both India and Pakistan should give territorial concessions
responsive to these respective interests. Both should compromise.
Former prime minister Deve Gowda's statement that the Line of Control with adjustments could bring about a solution of the Kashmir issue can germinate such a solution. India should give some territory
in the northern extreme of the Line of Control of Pakistan which
should reciprocate by ceding territory at the southern
edge of the Line of Control to meet India's concerns.
Negotiations will no doubt be complex and fraught with emotional prejudices, political claims and strategic apprehensions. They would take time, but in my assessment, negotiations with this balanced objective in view should commence as early as possible during the current cycle of dialogue which began in March.
The confrontation at Siachin should be ended while India and Pakistan are engaged in substantive negotiations on the Kashmir issue. A mutually acceptable draft agreement for military disengagement from the Siachin heights has been in existence since November 1992. There is no reason why that agreement should not be implemented. If there are some political and military details to be sorted out because of the
five years that have passed since the finalisation of this agreement,
the task should not be insurmountable.
The other issues related to the Wullar Barrage or Tulbul navigation project, the demarcation of the boundary at Sir Creak, etc can be negotiated, because the technical aspects of these issues have more or less been sorted out. They are hanging fire only because of political reticence on both sides, which should be given up.
Beginnings have already been made to revive people-to-people contacts, liberalise travel facilities and expand bilateral economic relations. There is increasing public support on both sides of the border for such cooperation. The governments of India and Pakistan should respond to these orientations in public opinion, otherwise their claim
to be democratic governments would become spurious. Reduction
in defence expenditure, availability of resources for developmental
purposes and augmentation of foreign exchange resources, which will benefit both countries, are obvious if such a purposeful process of discussions is sustained.
All this of course involves educating public opinion and garnering
their support. The only way to resolve the points of controversy
between India and Pakistan is for the governments of the two countries
to realise and for them to convince the people of India and Pakistan
that the combined interests of nearly 1.2 billion people of the
sub-continent are infinitely more important than the controversies
which have bedevilled our relations for the last 50 years. Maintaning
communications imbued with realism is the only option available
to India and Pakistan. This option should not be given up. Whatever
the pressure or difficulties may be.
RELATED STORY:
Gujral, Sharif meet
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