SINGH-MUSHARRAF MEET

 Indo-Pak Take Some Strides Ahead

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

WITH the Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf meeting the Indian prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh at New York on Friday, September 24, the hopes for further improvement in Indo-Pak relations have further brightened. This augurs well for the welfare and prosperity for the people of the two countries, as we had said last week in so many words. The only condition for it is that the momentum generated so far is not lost.

It must be said to General Musharraf’s credit that he met Dr Singh with an open mind, as he had promised. The meeting between the two leaders was scheduled to be of 15 minutes duration, but it lasted for 58 minutes, which in itself is an indication that the two sides are anxious about strengthening the ongoing process of confidence building. Earlier, contrary to the earlier occasions, Musharraf did not raise the issue of Kashmir while addressing the UN General Assembly session, thus honouring the principle that bilateral issues must not be raised on multilateral forums. This, in itself, was an indication of the steady progress that has taken place in Indo-Pak relations. Though, as we said earlier, much more remains to be done on various issues, it is evident that the basis for taking up and eventually solving the pending issues one by one has been laid.

IMMEDIATE DIVIDENDS

THE meeting between the Pakistan president and Indian prime minister finally yielded a joint statement which, according to both sides, amounts to “a great breakthrough.” The statement underlined the need of resolving all disputes, including that of Kashmir, in a peaceful manner, acceptable to both countries.

In the immediate perspective, the said meeting has already yielded some dividend. The issue of passports for those travelling by the proposed Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus has been more or less decided. The agreement is that India would stamp the passports of those going from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad while Pakistan would do the same in case of those coming from Muzaffarabad to Srinagar. Thus the need for visa has been dispensed with and the fear expressed by Pakistan that --- no act must amount to a de facto recognition of the line of control (LoC) as international border --- has been taken care of. With the removal of such technical hitches dogging the proposed Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, one may hope that there would be a rapid progress in running the other proposed bus and rail services between the two countries. This hope is based on the ground that the other sectors of Indo-Pak border are not beset with the LoC kind of problem.

In the meantime, the News, a Pakistani paper, reported that a deal on the Siachen glacier is now in the making. The report quoted certain undisclosed but “reliable” sources as saying that if India agreed to pull back its forces from this highest battlefield of the world, Pakistan would be prepared to give an assurance that it would not try to capture it. It has also been reported that the proposal was put forward by Musharraf and evoked a positive response from the Indian prime minister. One will recall that the two countries had already reached a similar agreement in the mid-1980s but it could not be put into practice because of some last-minute misgivings. The News report has since then been corroborated by Indian defence minister Pranab Mukherjee who said, September 28, that on the Siachen issue military level talks between India and Pakistan are soon to start.

Be that as it may, the fact is that if the proposal is sincerely implemented, it would mark a big turn in Indo-Pak relations, the value whereof cannot be minimised. As we all know, Siachen has not only been one of the festering sores in our mutual relations, but has also been costing the two countries a lot of money that could have been productively utilised elsewhere. Moreover, any disengagement in Siachen will go a long way in reducing tension along the LoC, which is one of our biggest needs today. Hence the information that modalities for this disengagement would be worked out soon “through proper channels” should be a cause of rejoice for the people of both India and Pakistan, of the subcontinent and the world. 

NUCLEAR ARMS ISSUE

YET another important issue is that of Indian and Pakistani nukes, and so far this has been out of the purview of any worthwhile discussion. However, in an interview to the NBC News and CNN, General Musharraf reportedly said he did not rule out the possibility of India and Pakistan jointly announcing a decision to dismantle their nuclear arsenals. However, he was of the view that “this has to be initiated by India.” He further added that “it has to be bilateral. It has to be between India and Pakistan.” 

General Musharraf is reported to be favourably inclined on this issue. When asked whether he would like to see the elimination of nuclear weapons in his lifetime, he is reported to have said, “Yes, indeed. I think the whole world (would like it). I would be in favour of the whole world reducing the nuclear arsenal. We would like to, yes. I would like it certainly.”

This is certainly in line with the spirit permeating the Singh-Musharraf joint statement. It talks of reduction in tension as the first step to be undertaken. This was what the general also reiterated: “Therefore, reduction in forces. Therefore, reduction in strategic assets.” It is therefore natural that India and Pakistan take meaningful steps to denuclearise, though such steps can be meaningful only if the two countries decide to steer clear of the imperialist doctrine of a “nuclear umbrella.” 

PECULIAR HISTORY

THE issue has a peculiar history behind it. In the 1980s, under the late General Ziaul-Haque, Pakistan did propose that India and Pakistan should have a mutual no-nuclearisation pact, which India categorically rejected. And it was a justified rejection. India’s position at that time was that to have any meaning, nuclear disarmament must be global and not regional. That was a time when India did have the nuclear technology but was committed to peaceful uses of nuclear power. In fact, General Zia’s proposal of a no-nuclearisation pact had had the tacit backing of US imperialists who were anxious to ensure that India was divested of its nuclear potential. India had already refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) on the ground that it was iniquitous and was stridently demanding that all the nuclear weapons states dismantle their nuclear arsenals before asking others to commit to the NPT. In such a situation, General Zia’s proposed no-nuclearisation pact would have rendered India defenceless even without signing the NPT, while Pakistan was confident of protection under the Americans’ “nuclear umbrella.” 

But it was precisely the principled Indian stand of general disarmament which the Vajpayee regime sacrificed at the altar of its communal agenda. Soon after coming to power in March 1998, the regime bared its jingoistic fangs by going nuclear, and home minister L K Advani even boasted that Pakistan would now not dare to do anything regarding Kashmir because India now was a nuclear power. That it was a piece not only of political chicanery but also of extreme short-sightedness became clear in about two weeks when, contrary to the BJP’s expectations, Pakistan too went nuclear. Thus the Vajpayee regime was guilty of pushing the subcontinent onto the path of a veritable race for nuclear arms.

This posed a new challenge to world peace and gave a severe jolt to the cause of disarmament. If the Indian mass was earlier in favour of disarmament, the Vajpayee regime gave up challenging the iniquitous NPT and rather sought a place in the nuclear elite’s club. This amounted to conspiring with the US to perpetuate the same earlier inequality insofar as nuclear weapons were concerned.

However, now that both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, the first thing is to assure the whole world that no nuclear conflagration would be allowed to take place, much less start, in this part of the world. Hence the need for both the countries to display maturity and give up all talk of deterrence and the like. The last six years are a witness to the sordid fact that deterrence has been no deterrence but has only aggravated the anxiety of the world peoples about the fate of humanity on the earth. Then, pending a satisfactory resolution of the NPT, disarmament and other such issues, the imperative for both the countries is that they address each other’s concerns on the nukes issue, progressively get rid of nuclear weapons and together fight for general and global disarmament.    

Insofar as the general’s contention that “this has to be initiated by India” is concerned, there is no harm if India initiates the process. It is not only India’s duty as the biggest country of the subcontinent; it will even add to India’s prestige in the world and give a momentum to the fight for total and general disarmament. Committed to the cause of disarmament, therefore, the present UPA regime must think about how the subcontinent may be denuclearised and pressure mounted on other nuclear weapons states that they too must eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

NEED TO MOVE HAND IN HAND

TO put it on record, all these developments on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus issue, the Siachen issue and the nuclear weapons issue took place within only three days of the meeting between Dr Singh and General Musharraf. This in itself is an indication that, given the sincerity of purpose, India and Pakistan may well solve their mutual differences in an amicable manner, without asking any third party to intervene. And this is precisely what the Shimla accord of August 1972 enjoined upon the two countries.

This is indeed the spirit with which the two countries have to move forward and create a right kind of climate in the subcontinent that could give a push to all-round development of the two countries and of the whole subcontinent. As we said last week, that is also required to face the travails of the emerging world order in which the less developed or developing countries would be facing the giants like the European Union and NAFTA in fields like economy, trade, science and technology. It goes without saying that the need of Indo-Pak cooperation was never so great as it is today --- precisely for the reason that for these two countries, or for the whole third world for that matter, the world situation has never been so delicate as it is today.