Afghanistan has frowned on intelligence agencies of various countries contacting Taliban leaders independently, without taking Kabul into confidence. “This approach takes us nowhere. This has been proved in the past as well,” Afghanistan Ambassador Shaida Abdali said here on Saturday.
Mr. Abdali was responding to questions at the Press Club of India about Taliban leader Abdul Salam Zaeef having been granted a visa to India amidst reports that intelligence agencies wanted to understand the situation in Afghanistan and explore India’s role in the unfolding situation.
The envoy also said India and Afghanistan were closely engaged on beefing up their security ties and at the moment were assessing what assistance could be realistically possible. The Ambassador was appreciative of the Afghan Sandhurst Academy for training army officers and indicated that another training institution of this would be a preferred assistance option from India.
On talks with Taliban, he felt it would be better if Afghanistan’s well wishers backed Kabul and stood united in pursuing a common strategy rather than pursuing different channels of communication. “That’s why talks have not succeeded,” Mr. Abdali said.
Peace talks were moving ahead, he assessed, but not at a satisfactory level. The London trilateral involving Afghanistan, Pakistan and the host country was good in terms of decisions but the challenge was to change those good intentions into action. Afghanistan was looking forward to talks between the High Peace Council and the Taliban facilitated by Pakistan government and also pinned hopes on next month’s trilateral between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey.
Describing the transition process as being “on track,” the envoy was concerned about “unrealistic reporting being done by some.” There are 2 crore phone users in Afghanistan in a population of 3 crore and this applies to education as well with 10,000 Afghani students in India alone.
The Pakistan’s role in Afghan security was crucial with Mr. Abdali describing it as the “most important role” in accelerating reconciliation talks and bringing about peace in Afghanistan.
The Ambassador lay store on an economic renaissance in Afghanistan and pointed to the important role that India could play. India has won tenders to the Hajigak iron ore mine and has an ambitious $10-billion investment plan for the project besides a railway line that will cut connect Bamyan to Iran’s Chah-bahar port.
India, Iran and Afghanistan are due to sign a trilateral agreement on trade and transit cooperation and Mr. Abdali drew attention to the upcoming business conclave focussing on Afghanistan to be held here next week followed by the next Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process conference in China to suggest that there were many more business opportunities than mineral extraction. Afghanistan had already done a trial run by sending 15 containers of dry fruits through Chah-bahar port to India.
The butterfly effect
Though they don’t sting or transmit disease, the insects are an integral part of our food chain
It’s easy to anthropomorphise butterflies as the eternally well-dressed
ladies of nature. Just as it is to call the human party hopper (or in
media parlance, a Page 3 regular), a ‘social butterfly.’ But the
butterfly has a role that spans well beyond linguistic gymnastics.
Though it neither stings nor transmits disease, the butterfly is a key
part of our ecology. “They are an important part of our food web and are
good pollinators,” says Dr. Daisy Caroline Mary, Assistant Professor,
Department of Environmental Science at Bishop Heber College in Tiruchi.
The 27-acre college campus in the Puthur area is a hotspot of sorts for
butterflies right now, as the migration season for these ‘flying
flowers’ peaks in October and November.
Low awareness
An insect that mainly flies during the day, the butterfly belongs to the order Lepidoptera. Its plainer cousin, the moth, is included in the same order.
General awareness on butterflies here is low, feels Dr. Daisy, and
suggests that more youngsters from local educational institutions and
rural areas should be briefed on the life cycle and importance of these
insects.
“A study of the diversity of butterflies has not yet been done in
Tiruchi,” she says. “But our campus alone has 78 species of butterflies,
which means there should be more than that number outside.” Scientists
estimate there to be between 12-15,000 species of butterflies in the
world.
In 2010, Dr. Daisy published Butterflies of Bishop Heber College,
a guide to the insects within the campus, illustrated with photographs
taken by her. “The involvement of my husband (Dr. A.Relton, Reader and
Head, Department of Social Work at Bishop Heber College) and son
(R.Carlton) and a team of my young nieces and nephews enabled me to
bring out the pictorial guide,” she says.
Besides this, Dr. Daisy has also published conference papers on the insects.
Winging it
The colourful wings on butterflies are made of very thin layers of a
hardened protein called chitin (human hair and nails are made of this as
well). Thousands of minute scales on the chitin layers serve a variety
of purposes, including fitting out the butterfly with multi-hued wings.
The scales are also used to soak up the solar heat required to keep the cold-blooded butterfly flying.
The ability of butterflies to fly over long distances is well-known. The
most commonly documented of these yearly journeys is that of the
Monarch butterfly, which traverses 4,000-4,800 km from Mexico to
northern United States and southern Canada.
Butterflies are able to navigate using polarised light (close to the
ultraviolet spectrum), which enables them to stay on course even during
cloudy days.
In southern India, mass migrations are usually observed during the monsoons.
Butterfly watching
Many countries have capitalised on the popularity of these insects by
setting up dedicated conservatories as part of their zoos.
In Tamil Nadu, the Forest Department is currently constructing a
butterfly park in Srirangam, in a bid to make it a tourist attraction.
Such initiatives are commendable, as besides providing relief from a
mechanical life, “it would sensitise people about the need to protect
nature,” says Dr. Daisy.
For those who’d prefer to watch butterflies at their own pace, she recommends any garden as a useful starting point.
Besides this, butterfly watchers in Tiruchi could also try spots along
River Cauvery and Pachamalai, preferably in the forenoon and early
evening.
“The larvae of butterflies feed on a variety of plants – each species on a few specific plants,”says Dr. Daisy.
Common host plants are curry leaves, citrus, Calotropis gigantea and so on.
Adults feed on nectar.
Clever defence
Butterflies defend themselves against predators in interesting ways.
They are able to isolate toxic chemicals in plants and use them as their
own weapons to avoid getting eaten up by larger animals. Usually, the
brighter the colours on a butterfly, the more unpalatable it is.
The butterfly is also a skilful make-up artist, and can blend into the
background with colour schemes that mimic the surroundings. It can also
‘freeze up’ to look like a twig and escape detection.
To encourage the butterfly’s survival in an urban landscape, Dr. Daisy
recommends planting host and nectar plants and avoiding chemical
pesticides and fertilisers.
Drone attacks, a convenient explanation
By blaming extremism on only 9/11 and U.S.-led drone attacks, the
Pakistani state and society are seeking to externalise an internal issue
The killing of Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP), in a recent drone attack in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas has once again brought the debate back centre stage —
within Pakistan at the national level, and between the United States and
Pakistan at the bilateral level. While “sovereignty” and “spoiling the
internal dialogue with the TTP” seem to be the primary slogans within
Pakistan, “come what may, we will go after the militants” seems to sum
up the American attitude. But are the drone attacks simply about these
slogans and attitudes? Or, are there more serious and complicated issues
than what is generally discussed at the populist level?
Sharif’s four assertions
During his visit to the U.S. in October, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif put forward four primary theses against the American-led drones
programme, forcefully arguing that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
should cease using them. First, there was the general Pakistani
perception that the drone attacks have increased extremism within
Pakistan, resulting in further militant attacks within the country.
Second, it impinged on Pakistan’s sovereignty, as the drones fired from
across the Durand Line in Afghanistan fly over Pakistan territory and
fire missiles, killing innocent civilians. Even if militants do get
killed, the collateral damage is high. Third, as a result of these two,
there is a growing anti-American sentiment within Pakistan, affecting
Pakistan’s cooperation with the U.S., thereby further impinging on the
American war against terrorism. Finally, continuing attacks undermine
Pakistan’s efforts towards initiating a dialogue with the Taliban. How
true are these perceptions that are widespread within Pakistan?
Undoubtedly, there is an element of truth in these four assertions. And,
ironically, within them lies Pakistani duplicity. First, are the drones
the primary reason for growing extremism within Pakistan? Or for that
matter, 9/11 and the follow-up American invasion into Afghanistan? There
is a blinkered perception in Pakistan about the extent of extremism
pre- and post-9/11 and the drone attacks. Viewed in historical and
sociological perspectives, the growth of extremism within Pakistan, with
its roots in the 1980s, grew exponentially during the 1990s.
Afghanistan and Kashmir became the much-needed ideological excuses for
the military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to pursue their
“strategic depth” and “thousand cuts” vis-à-vis Afghanistan and India respectively.
Radicalism before 9/11
While the political and sociological environment vitiated by the late
Pakistan President Zia-ul-Haq and the failure of governance have already
given birth to extremist groups (of the sectarian and jihadi kind)
— of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM),
Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) varieties — the
abuse of these actors by the military and the ISI created an ugly
internal situation for Pakistan from the 1990s. Extremism and radicalism
were well entrenched at the national and provincial levels well before
drone attacks and even 9/11.
Any historical analysis of sectarian violence in Punjab, Malakand and
the tribal regions will reveal the scope of radical tumult by the late
1990s. Had it not been for this churning within Pakistan, neither would
the Taliban have been born, nor the al-Qaeda found the region an ideal
refuge and base to prepare for 9/11. Linking extremism within Pakistan
only to drones and 9/11 reflects an ostrich-like attitude. It perhaps
provides a convenient explanation, worse, an excuse for both the State
and society to externalise an internal issue. The radical onslaught
today in Pakistan is a direct result of what happened in the 1980-90s,
both internally and externally; irrespective of 9/11, the American
invasion and the drones, Pakistan would have gone through what it is
going through now.
Link with sovereignty
The second major instance of Pakistani duplicity is over linking drones
with sovereignty. There has been a tacit understanding between the
political and military leadership vis-à-vis the U.S. on the use
of drones. Starting from Gen. Musharraf to Gen. Kayani, were they not
kept in the picture on the drone programme? Perhaps the CIA may not have
shared the operational details, but it certainly should have explained
to them the target and focus.
Drones, by nature, are not supersonic and stealth creatures; they fly at
low altitude and are visible. If Pakistan had not agreed to their use,
what stopped Gen. Musharraf and Gen. Kayani from issuing orders to fire
at them? How many times has Pakistan fired at these drones, or its air
force chased these drones away from Pakistani airspace? Is Pakistan
incapable of firing at the drones, thereby allowing its airspace to be
violated?
It is difficult to accept that Pakistan does not have the capacity to
fire at drones using missiles, or chase them using fighter aircraft.
Hypothetically speaking, if India were to use similar drones in Pakistan
Occupied Kashmir, will Islamabad and Rawalpindi keep complaining only
about violation of airspace? Pakistan’s sovereignty argument does not
make any sense.
The sovereignty argument over the use of drones also contradicts
Pakistan’s earlier understanding with the U.S. Before the CIA took the
drone programme into Afghanistan, across the Durand Line, were not
drones being used from the Shamsi base in Balochistan? What was the
understanding between the CIA and Pakistan’s military at that time, when
the latter allowed the former to use the Shamsi airbase by the U.S.?
These are hard questions that Pakistan should ask its political and
military leadership. Unfortunately for the U.S., the anti-American
sentiment has greatly clouded the judgment of Pakistan’s civil society
on this issue. Perhaps Mr. Nawaz Sharif is correct; drone attacks have
increased anti-American sentiments, but the political leadership has
allowed this purposefully to happen — to let the Americans take the full
blame.
On dialogue
Finally, the issue of drones preventing Pakistan from initiating a
dialogue with the Taliban, especially the TTP. True, the killing of Nek
Mohammad, a former Taliban fighter, in 2004 did affect the dialogue then
between the militants and Pakistan; however, after that, there were
multiple dialogues between the military, the ISI and the TTP. Perhaps
the drone attacks and the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud is a good omen
for Pakistan. The TTP may get destabilised and will provide a better
opportunity for Pakistan to negotiate with them — from a position of
strength.
If it may please the Supreme Court
With no effective system in place to check, investigate or punish
instances of sexual harassment by serving or former judges, the apex
court now finds itself in the dock
The tragedy of a legal education is that it prepares you to be a
free-spirited being in a regimented world. If John Grisham novels —
where the protagonist wins “justice” after a gripping courtroom drama —
got you hooked to the law in the first place, chances are law school
will nurture that idealism to tell you how the world should be, not how it is.
Fresh off the block from learning the rigours of constitutional law or
legal ethics in your fourth year, you head for the hallowed Supreme
Court of India, ready to right most wrongs. As an intern, no less. In
the two months that follow, the long arm of the law beats you down with
the big stick of reality. You are informed — usually by a court clerk or
a senior lawyer’s private secretary — that the only way to succeed is
by endearing yourself to your employer.
Coming up short
The possibility of sexual abuse looms large in any fiduciary
relationship, in any industry and at any workplace. What sets apart the
allegation by a former law student and intern that she was harassed by a
retired judge of the Supreme Court from others is that it was made, in
the first place. For all its progressive pronouncements against sexual
harassment at the workplace, the Supreme Court has come up woefully
short in addressing the issue within its fraternity. In 1997, the court
suggested in the Vishaka case that “an appropriate complaint
mechanism [against sexual abuse] be created in the employer’s
organisation for redress of the complaint made by the victim.” Not once
were the Supreme Court’s own service rules amended to reflect the Vishaka guidelines.
It took the court 16 years to institute a remedial process for its
employees: in August 2013, the Gender Sensitisation & Sexual
Harassment of Women at the Supreme Court of India (Prevention,
Prohibition and Redressal) Regulations, 2013 took effect. The
regulations however, are confined to actions or misconduct that occur
within the court’s “precincts.” Naturally, there is no mechanism to hear
complaints of harassment by former Supreme Court judges, who remain
privy to the many powers that a current judge enjoys.
The Gender Sensitisation and Internal Complaints Committee (GSICC)
conceived by the regulations would be comprised almost entirely of
lawyers and judges. Two members, from a total of 13, will be nominated
from outside the closely knit legal community, and that too by the Chief
Justice of India. Even with its serious deficiencies, the Supreme Court
has made little effort to act on the regulations. Three months after
the rules were formulated, the court is yet to institute the GSICC.
No surprise then that the lawyer in question chose to blog about her
ordeal rather than approach the Supreme Court through a formal
complaint. In the absence of an effective remedial mechanism, the Chief
Justice also had no option but to take suo motu cognisance of the
matter. His immediate reaction — to designate three colleagues who
would sit in judgment over their peer — reveals how ill-prepared the
Supreme Court is to address questions of accountability.
Making a distinction
At the heart of this problem is the Supreme Court’s difficulty in
distinguishing its administrative and legal duties. The independence
granted to the higher judiciary by the Constitution has materialised
into administrative autonomy, with few checks and balances. The Supreme
Court Registrar, a Class I employee responsible for taking all major
administrative decisions, reports directly to the Chief Justice. Several
perks, grants and privileges of Class I employees are determined by the
Chief Justice himself, effectively foreclosing any external scrutiny of
non-judicial appointments.
Appointments
Key among such appointments are those of law clerks and judicial
interns. Every Supreme Court judge is allowed two law clerks at any
given time — one appointed by the court registry, and the other chosen
at his personal discretion. Since law clerks and interns are valuable to
the functioning of the court, it is only natural that judges themselves
have the final say in their appointment. Every year, a panel of two
judges conducts interviews with those candidates shortlisted by the
registry. After the interview process, a “rank list” of clerks is
circulated among judges, who may choose from this final pool. Once this
appointment process is over, however, the term of law clerks is subject
entirely to the decision of their masters.
The services of law clerks and interns may be terminated at any time by
the judge whom they work for. Law clerks, fresh from studying principles
of administrative law, are made to sign an undertaking that states: “My
period of assignment can be terminated without any notice.” Even leave
of absence requires prior approval from the judge. Clerks or interns do
not have access to any mechanism to air or redress their grievances.
They do not go through a formal orientation process — consequently, for
the most part of their tenure, they interact with the judge’s
secretaries, the judge himself, and fellow interns. Above all, the
“residential office” system ensures that the lion’s share of an intern’s
work hours is spent within a huge, isolated compound in Lutyens’ Delhi.
If this system does not lend itself to abuse, what does?
No transparency
Flaws in the Supreme Court’s administrative set-up are compounded by a
complete lack of transparency in the exercise of its judicial functions.
The collegium system has ensured that a strong group of senior judges
continues to influence appointments not only in the higher judiciary but
also of former colleagues to independent commissions, arbitral
tribunals and other quasi-judicial bodies. The normal tenure of an
intern or a law clerk ranges from a few months to a year, but this may
be extended by a serving judge of the Supreme Court until his
retirement. It is not uncommon for a Supreme Court judge to retain their
law clerks for post-retirement assignments as well. Since tribunal or
arbitral postings are extremely valuable to a law student interested in
advocacy, these offers are rarely turned down. Above all, a reference
from a Supreme Court judge improves one’s chances of securing admission
in a prestigious graduate programme abroad. Chances that an intern or a
law clerk reports sexual harassment during her term with a sitting judge
of the court are, therefore, slim.
The Supreme Court has resisted any attempt to shine light on the
appointment of former judges to independent tribunals. It is yet to
respond to the Central Information Commissioner’s request, made in 2011,
to disclose the process by which the Chief Justice appoints arbitrators
under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. A streamlined,
transparent process for appointing former judges to tribunals would
lessen the considerable leverage that serving and retired judges have
over their interns, and thus the scope for abuse.
Alleged harassment
With no effective system in place to check or punish instances of sexual
harassment by serving or former judges, the Supreme Court now finds
itself in the dock. Having taken cognisance of the matter, the
three-judge committee could call upon the lawyer to investigate her
allegation. If she refuses to name the judge in question, the court will
be in a bind: it can neither afford to close the matter given the
public debate it has generated, nor can the committee pretend this was a
false claim against an eminent personality. The first would amount to
airbrushing the widely acknowledged practice of sexual harassment in a
male-dominated legal community; the second would mean going easy on
contemptuous remarks against the court.
Whatever course the committee takes, it must not attempt to preserve the
court’s reputation by putting the lawyer in the dock. It takes
extraordinary courage — from someone palpably confused by how ideals
taught in law school could have been so easily betrayed by reality — to
go public with an allegation of this sort. As she has poignantly
written, “If the shared experiences of women cannot be easily understood
through a feminist lens, then clearly there is a cognitive vacuum that
feminism fails to fill.” The Supreme Court must swiftly investigate the
matter, verify the allegation made and dispense what the law should but
rarely does: Justice.
Renewing an India-Pakistan peace process?
A workable strategy would be to act nationally and multilaterally
against terrorism; negotiate bilaterally on Kashmir; and build trade
under the radar
Now that the heat over Pakistani Adviser Sartaj Aziz’s visit to Delhi
has died down, it is time to evaluate whether it improved the prospects
for a renewed India-Pakistan peace process, or set them back. If we go
by the media coverage and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s outcry, there is
no hope. Reading between the lines, however, the signs are ambiguous:
indeed, they display positive attributes as well as negative ones.
High hopes
To briefly recap, India had high hopes when Nawaz Sharif won the
elections in Pakistan. He had stated during the election campaign that
peace with India was one of his top priorities. Unfortunately, despite
imaginative confidence-building measures such as the offer to transmit
electricity from Indian to Pakistani Punjab, Indian hopes receded, as
did the promised normalisation of trade through reciprocating the
most-favoured nation status, partly due to backlash against them in
Pakistan.
The first 10 months of this year witnessed an escalation of hostility
between India and Pakistan. In fact, the escalation began in the run-up
to Pakistani elections, with Hafiz Saeed given a free hand to inflame
sentiments, and the founding of the Difa-e-Pakistan alliance of
extremists. At the same time, we saw a sharp rise in infiltration
attempts across the Line of Control, which has continued and led to
hundreds of ceasefire violations as well as a resurgence of terrorist
attacks on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir, one of them from across
the International Border. Whether supported by the Pakistani military
or not, it was clear that the militant groups were pushing the envelope
to see how far they could go with Pakistan’s new government.
These incidents led Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Mr. Sharif to
agree in New York that the Indian and Pakistani Directors-General of
Military Operations would meet to identify improved mechanisms to
maintain the ceasefire and, by extension, prevent infiltration, which is
a high priority for India.
An immediate media outcry that nothing could come from the DGMO talks
led to their indefinite postponement and ultimately benefited militant
groups, from whom even this weak spotlight was removed.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, and the Adviser, Mr. Aziz,
have now again emphasised the importance of the DGMOs meeting. Let us
hope that this time around it will happen soon and the DGMOs will
actually get a chance to fulfil the important mandate of the meeting,
which is to stop violence across the LoC and the International Border.
The general assumption in India, and to some extent in Pakistan, is that
a serious peace initiative can be made only after Indian elections in
the spring-summer of 2014. Yet it is these intervening months that will
be a make-or-break period for peace-making. In the first year of the
Pakistan People’s Party government, its leaders were willing to take
bold initiatives for peace with India but were deterred by the Mumbai
attacks and stiff military opposition. For the rest of the PPP term,
little happened by way of India-Pakistan peace-making, with a negative
impact on Jammu and Kashmir, as the 2010 youth uprisings and deaths
indicated. The events of this year could be seen as similar attempts by
spoilers to disrupt peace initiatives; the danger is that we risk
another four years of inaction.
Indications are that Pakistan is inching towards restarting the back
channel on Kashmir that was initiated during Mr. Sharif’s second term in
1998. At a recent Pugwash conference in Islamabad, Mr. Aziz reportedly
assured participants that his government would seriously consider the
framework that was developed during the Lambah-Aziz discussions of
2004-06 and then put on the back-burner at President Pervez Musharraf’s
request.
The framework offered maximum autonomy to all parts of the former
princely state. The LoC would gradually become invisible through free
Kashmiri trade and movement. All parts of the former princely state
would be encouraged to undertake joint resource development, and there
would be phased demilitarisation (beginning with non-state actors such
as the militant groups). And India and Pakistan would together monitor
the situation.
The PPP-led government that followed pleaded ignorance of the back
channel and the framework that was developed there, largely because it
had been misnamed “the Musharraf Formula” though it had emerged from an
intra-Kashmiri dialogue. And it remained inactive for most of its
tenure. If Mr. Sharif’s government picks up the discussion from where it
left off, its gains will not have been lost and there could be tangible
progress on the Kashmir front. In this context, Mr. Aziz’s meetings
with the Hurriyat and allied groups on the sidelines of the ASEM summit
in Delhi have come in for considerable media flak, but this could in
fact contribute to restarting the back channel from where it had left
off. True, the Pakistani embassy should have consulted the MEA before
scheduling the meetings (I do not know whether it did or did not). More
importantly, it should not have invited Asiya Andrabi of the
Dukhtaran-e-Millat: she is avowedly against an India-Pakistan peace
process, and has repeatedly spoken out against the Kashmir-focussed
CBMs. Given that her family in Pakistan has also been allegedly involved
in activities supporting terrorism, the invitation could only send
mixed messages within Pakistan and Kashmir.
Role in peace-making
However, groups like the Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat and Yasin Malik’s JKLF
have in the past supported both the India-Pakistan CBMs and the
framework developed in the back channel. If they conveyed their desire
for the framework to be the base document for a renewed Kashmir peace
process, then the meetings with Mr. Aziz will have been useful. The
argument made by the BJP and picked up by the media that these meetings
should not have been allowed, is specious. In fact, the green light for
such meetings was given during Prime Minister Vajpayee’s tenure, as part
of a policy of helping the Hurriyat play a role in peace-making. The
impact was large — the Hurriyat was able to push militant groups for an
end to violence; indeed, militancy gradually lost legitimacy in Kashmir.
But for the Hurriyat to assume a role in the peace process, it should
talk to representatives of the Government of India, which it continues
to hesitate over, perhaps for fear of being shot (as was its last
interlocutor, Fazl Haq Qureshi). And New Delhi needs to have the same
access to dissidents in the Pakistan-held parts of the former princely
state, including Gilgit-Baltistan, as Pakistani leaders have to
dissidents in Jammu and Kashmir.
PPP strategy
Kashmir is only one piece of the puzzle that besets India-Pakistan
relations. Counter-terrorism and trade are two other priorities to
emerge over the 15-year effort at peace-making by Indian and Pakistani
leaders. At the beginning of Mr. Sharif’s third term, it looked as if
the three could be linked and would provide the ballast to sustain
negotiations through the hard times that were inevitable. The PPP
government’s strategy, after its first-year setbacks, was to build trade
as a ballast and then progress to negotiations on what it considered
“doables”, such as Siachen and Sir Creek. Trade did progress
considerably, with new infrastructure being developed at Wagah (better
on the Indian than the Pakistani side).
What the PPP government failed to see was that progress against
terrorism has become the test of good faith in India, whether in the
government or among the public. The stalled Mumbai trials are a constant
reminder that Pakistan is unwilling to act against anti-India
militancy; and the trebling of infiltration attempts this year lends
credence to this belief. For our part, we fail to see that it is
difficult to find judges or public prosecutors for the Mumbai trials,
since a prosecutor was killed and judges regularly seek transfer out of
fear. Pakistan today is in a far worse situation as far as militancy is
concerned than it was 10 or even seven years ago. This does not mean
India tolerates the violence; rather, we need to build our own defences.
A workable strategy would be to take concerted action nationally and
multilaterally against terrorism; negotiate bilaterally on Jammu and
Kashmir; and build trade under the radar, if necessary, as happened
during the PPP period.
But no strategy will succeed unless supported by the military in
Pakistan and the Opposition in India. Lacking access to the former, I
cannot analyse the potential for change; but as far as the latter is
concerned, the BJP’s approach appears to be: wait until we come to power
and then we will allow progress. That is surely morally unacceptable:
no party should hold a peace process hostage until its turn at power.
Indeed, Mr. Vajpayee’s peace initiatives gained traction because the
Congress supported them (it had originally opposed them but decided, at
Dr. Singh’s intervention, to support them in the national interest). The
BJP’s position is also practically untenable: by mid-2014 Pakistan’s
attention will be focussed on the new government in Afghanistan, where
its stakes are much higher, and the space to achieve a feasible and
result-oriented India-Pakistan peace process will be severely curtailed.
Finally, India’s electronic media do not appear to take their own
influence seriously. Endlessly repetitive talk shows of naysayers
pooh-poohing every peace initiative our government takes have created a
deep public scepticism in peace-making. Given how many spoilers there
are who want to prevent peace, public support is essential for any
leadership to persevere. The media could play a critical role in
anchoring the constituency for peace, instead of strengthening the
spoiler lobby. I cannot think of a single talk show in 10 years that has
discussed what a serious India-Pakistan peace process could consist of,
issue by issue and action by action, taking the very real frailties of
our country and Pakistan into account. How refreshing would that be!
