India
must now respond to
Pakistan's bid for peace
over Kashmir
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
Comments to JonatPower@aol.com
December 15, 2005
LONDON - This is not just currently
the world's most dangerous geological faultline, it is
the world's single most dangerous geopolitical fault line
- and there is now a clear connection between the
two.
Standing here in this devastated
town and looking at the foot ranges of the Himalayas
where October's earthquake tore off a kilometre-long
front of mountainside makes one shiver in awe at the
earth's almighty power of destruction. A nuclear war
would destroy in a different way - whole cities of the
subcontinent would be incinerated.
What is the connection between
these two events? Geographically there certainly is. I'm
standing near the epicentre of the earthquake in
Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, the one-third slice of
Kashmir that Pakistan wrested from India after the first
of their three deadly wars. Nearby the two countries have
a de facto border, the so-called Line of Control. The
Indian part is also largely but not entirely Muslim and
many of its inhabitants would prefer to be under
Pakistani rule or under their own. Another war could all
too easily turn into a nuclear conflict.
But the earthquake has pushed along
another connection. Having lost nearly everything, people
of all sorts of ranks and persuasions are more convinced
than they have ever been that this is the time for making
a peace deal with India. Nearly everyone seems to release
that only peace with India will allow both sides of
Kashmir the chance to recover from years of war and this
final blow from the earth itself.
I talked to one old man who had
spent three days under a collapsed building before rescue
arrived. "Peace is going to happen, compromise is
necessary", he said. I talked to a former government
minister who had lost half his family but was composed
enough to say, "If I want something I should be ready to
give something."
Even among the jihadists - like
Shahebud Din Madui, the president of the ultra militant
group, Markazi Jamiat Ahli Hadis - there is a sense of
change: "Many jihadists want to give the peace process a
chance. But we also think we shouldn't put down our guns
because then India won't be so willing to
negotiate."
Nearly everyone supports the peace
moves made by Pakistan's president, Perez Musharaff. For
the last three years, responding to an initiative made by
India's then prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee,
Musharaff appears to have transformed his personality.
Gone is the reckless army commander who in 1999 nearly
provoked nuclear war as his troops and mujadeen led a
joint operation against Indian troops at Kargil inside
Indian Kashmir.
In its place is a compromise-minded
diplomat. Although India arguably has made the greatest
single concession by accepting that it cannot maintain
its claim to be the sole ruler of all of Kashmir, it is
Pakistan that has set the pace on sensitive concessions,
such as being prepared to put on one side the promise
made by India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru,
to let the issue be settled by a referendum and to accept
that most of Kashmir will remain directly under Indian
sovereignty.
Moreover, Musharaff has finally cut
the umbilical cord between jihadists and the military,
although he won't have the credibility to persuade them
to give up the jihad until the immense Indian army
presence begins to wind down.
India perhaps feels too
comfortable. If it sits back Pakistan may make more
concessions. By agreeing to open crossing gates on the
Line of Control, which could blossom into the porous
border that the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh,
has long championed, it could take some of the sting out
of Kashmiri frustrations. Also India remains wary of
conceding too much on Kashmir unless its restless and
rebellious northeastern states become even more bent on
secession. (But Indonesia, having allowed East Timor to
break off, was worried this would embolden Aceh. It
hasn't.)
No one doubts Singh's personal
commitment. "Short of secession, short of re-drawing
boundaries, the Indian establishment can live with
anything," he forcefully told me in an interview the day
after he became prime minister. And as the Pakistani
prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, told me, "Manmohan has a
lot of credibility in India and he could
deliver".
But it means Singh pushing his
bureaucracy and intelligence services which are resisting
strongly. This is the time to push, whilst the military
strong man Musharaff can deliver Pakistan. (In a year's
time planned elections might weaken his clout.)
The stakes are worth every sinew of
action - the avoidance of a nuclear war and the chance of
receiving the large amounts of foreign investment that
China now receives, which will secure both countries'
rapid economic advance and undercut the militants who are
capable of damaging both regimes.
Copyright © 2005 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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