Farzana Versey January 8, 2006

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Every two-bit commentator is saying this about the head of the government of a nation. The tragedy is that most Indians will find in this superior stance some self-esteem when they should in fact be shrivelling with embarrassment.

Why can we not trust Pervez Musharraf?

There has been the most knee-jerk reaction to his recent television statement. He himself called it a “bombshell”. He said New Delhi should withdraw its armed forces from three Kashmir cities -- Srinagar, Kupwara, and Baramullah – and the two countries would jointly ensure that there was no terrorism in the Valley.

The riposte? It raises the question as to how Pakistan can ensure peace if it is not involved in terrorism.

Fine. How can George Bush ensure peace in Iraq? What were we doing in Sri Lanka? Pakistan can ensure peace because even the local Kashmiri militant organisations in India insist on tripartite talks. Pakistan can ensure peace because it has been dealing with what it calls Azad Kashmir and we call Pak-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Why the heck are we talking about peace initiatives – in what context? To sell them handicrafts? Why do we want people-to-people contact? Or cricket? Or films?

Let us stop this charade. If we cannot trust President Musharraf, then let us be honest and upfront and tell him, “Look sir, you are a liar, a cheat, a dictator. We are a peace-loving nation; non-violence is our anthem. There is no common ground. We’ll take a raincheck when every citizen in our country is healthy, happy and prosperous. When no bullet is fired, no innocent dies, no one is wrongfully arrested.”

“But,” Musharraf may well ask, “How can I arrest people in your country?”

Of course, he cannot. But as he said in the much-touted interview, he gets blamed for everything. At one point he even said, “Enough is enough” and when given one-sentence verdicts from editorials he asked his inquisitor, “Do you want to believe me or them?” Smugly, the anchor said, “For the purpose of this interview, I will believe you.”

That is the point when President Musharraf should have put an end to the conversation.

Why would he encourage terrorism?

We want him to. We have to justify our defence expenditure. Successive governments are known to make a killing in arms deals while pretending to protect the country. If the country is so protected that the amount spent on one goddamn glacier is more than that spent on health-care, then why are the alleged 140 terrorist outfits operating inside the country? How did they get here? What kind of an army do we have?

Do terrorists seek the permission of the government before they start operations?

If we have evidence, why do we not declare war on Pakistan? Fewer people get killed in the wars than those that have died during the years of insurgency.

India is asking for an assurance that Pakistan should stop supporting cross-border terrorism. A few points need to be examined here…

He says: demilitarisation is essential for an end to terrorism.
We say: there can be no movement forward until terrorism is stopped.

- If he does do so, then how do we deal with local militants? Will the killings stop? Will the strength of the armed forces then be reduced? What excuse will we give to the people of Jammu and Kashmir?

Incidentally, Musharraf has gone on record to say that he has banned many such organisations and those that have come up under different guises are in the ‘watch list’. He also stated that although he cannot give a certificate, he would ensure that if any such incident occurred he would himself bring the organisation/person to book.

He has made these comments on a public forum before the cameras. If anything, he is in trouble. It is not as though suddenly the terrorists will organise and unionise themselves and imagine that the Indian government will be sleeping.

- Why is Kashmir our only problem where cross-border terrorism is concerned? What about other states?

- Do we have a mechanism in place to prevent state-sponsored terrorism? Why are the people responsible for it still in positions of power?

According to one report, “Former national security adviser Brajesh Mishra…went to the extent of saying that the talks were in ‘jeopardy’ unless terrorism was controlled, and an assurance extracted from Islamabad. This is indicative of the pressure on the UPA government from within.”

Inside out?

The great error of nearly all studies of war... has been to consider war as an episode in foreign policies, when it is an act of interior politics. - Simone Weil

Try and see it in a balanced perspective. With the exception of Kashmir, there has never been official sympathy expressed for any insurgent group in India by Pakistan.

The uprising in Baluchistan goes back to the 70s; we felt no concern at the time. Suddenly, we wake up and start questioning the authority of the Pakistani military to use guns and helicopters against the innocents.

“Why should there be inhibition on our side to say something on what is happening in our neighbourhood? A serious situation has been developing in Baluchistan and when a reaction was sought, the MEA spokesman gave it,” a senior Indian government official said.

When did we last look in the mirror?

How many such movements have we had? Right from Telugu pride which got legitimised in a party (Telugu Desam) to Telengana, to the Tamil Nadu political parties that flaunt Dravidian antecedents, to the regional political parties in Maharashtra (wasn’t there a move to make Mumbai a separate state?) to the North East…

Somebody even termed Manipur as “India’s Intifada” claiming that with the provisions of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958 (AFSPA) “all security forces are given unrestricted and unaccounted power to carry out their operations, once an area is declared 'disturbed'. The Act allows even a non-commissioned officer the right to shoot to kill based on mere suspicion and to ‘maintain the public order’.”

What did we achieve by dragging the Baluchi issue to the fore? The Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said, "India is supporting the miscreants in Balochistan."

President Musharraf in the TV interview endorsed it, even admitting that it “annoyed” him and was a “direct interference in our internal affairs”; he talked about “several opportunities” where Pakistan too could have intervened.

If the message we wished to send out was about our neighbour “waving red flags at us virtually on daily basis”, then it has fallen flat. Baluchistan is no Kashmir. Feudal revolt is not the same as a consistent struggle over the years that is not restricted to pockets, but a whole state; Kashmir is about self-determination.

If we say we are a democracy, then ask the people.

Is Musharraf being a hard-nosed dictator?

If it means clarity of vision, then it is a good idea. His peace proposal does not require any constitutional amendment. This is thinking on the feet, rather than being trapped beneath the debris of bureaucracy.

He was asked whether the internal turmoil would come in the way of the peace process. This was a ridiculous query to which he had an apt response, “18 insurgency movements going on in India – does it stop the peace process? …I am not bogged down.”

He also minced no words about cricket as a confidence-building measure. He did say that he would invite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend any of the matches in the series being played in Pakistan, but added, “Now, if he comes here and we do nothing about the peace process, I am afraid we are just wasting our time."

If there were people within his force who were jihadis he would throw them out, he said. This is not an army of a banana republic, he stated.

Where a dialogue is concerned we need not worry about how Pakistan implements its civil and criminal laws. Our concern should be détente, not ‘dadagiri’.

Of course, we like to show off that we are a democracy. Recently a columnist even wrote about how Gujarat and Narendra Modi were "aberrations" in our thriving egalitarian society. The Sudanese leader Hasan Turabi was quoted for his statement that if democracy was brought to the Arab lands then terrorism would disappear.

Must we assume then that the ‘movements’ in J&K, the Northeast etc., indicate that we have ceased to be a democracy?

Joseph Nye has demarcated between a “soft power” which has the ability of the state to get “other countries to want what it wants”. Hard power is based on economic and military strength.

The confusion is entirely India’s for it is caught between the two extremes. Pakistan, on the other hand, is pretty accustomed to the routine. It has to cope with what Huntington called the revival of non-western cultures, a military regime that is always strong and a democracy that has not done much for peace.

I would put my money on trusting Pervez Musharraf.

Peace is constructed, not fought for. - Brent Davis