CPI(M)-CPI TEAM TO PAKISTAN

President Musharraf’s Gesture Needs To Be Reciprocated

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

THE CPI(M)-CPI delegation that recently toured Pakistan for seven days also made some contribution to the ongoing Indo-Pak thaw. As I said last week, this too was one of the objectives of the visit.

UNFORTUNATE OBJECTION

BEFORE proceeding any further, let me make one point clear. When a mass meeting, organised by the Joint Left Front (JLF) and Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ), was already under way in the lawns of the Karachi Press Club, an Urdu leaflet was distributed among the audience by a particular Left group, questioning the rationale of our visit to Islamabad. To cut a long story short, the gist of the objection was that our visit to Islamabad and our meeting with President Pervez Musharraf meant a sort of endorsement of the latter’s military regime. This we should have better avoided, the leaflet advised.

This was indeed an unfortunate objection and is something which we, regretfully, cannot subscribe to. The first point to be noted here is that it was the government of Pakistan that had expressed the desire that we should meet President Musharraf, his prime minister and foreign minister. In fact, an invitation to visit Pakistan was extended to us when Pakistan’s foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Qasoori was on a visit to New Delhi some months ago. Yet, if the delegation went to Pakistan, it was at the JLF’s invitation; it was only slightly before the visit that the Pakistan government’s representatives contacted us and asked us to accommodate a visit to Islamabad in our itinerary.

Secondly, political leaders keep meeting one another for hundreds of things and on various occasions, and a mere meeting with Pakistan president cannot be construed as an endorsement of his regime or policies. In fact, we are prepared to meet anybody on the earth, any moment, if that contributes to a betterment of the Indo-Pak ties or to world peace. I am simply unable to understand how one could construe it as endorsing this or that particular regime. 

An equally, if not more, important point is that we do appreciate the concern of the said Left group and the struggles that various Left groups in Pakistan are waging on one or another issue. But as we said last week, we cannot decide the course of action for our Pakistani brethren. In fact, it was wrong to presume that it would have helped them if we had not met the leaders of the government of Pakistan.

Last but not the least, to our thinking, any betterment in Indo-Pak ties will help the progressive and democratic forces in the region in the long run. And who knows it better than our Pakistani comrades? Is it not a fact that rousing anti-India passions was one of the sure-shot methods by which reactionary forces in Pakistan not only decimated the Left but marginalised the liberals also? This was the reason we said last week that “Such betterment, for one thing, would deprive the hawks of an opportunity to incite passions in order to marginalise the progressive, liberal and democratic elements in society.” And this is as true of Pakistan as of India.

In fact, if we did endorse something, it was the need of better Indo-Pak ties and peace in the region --- in the interest of the people of the two countries. And what is the interest of the Left except to serve the interests of the people!

PEOPLE TO PEOPLE CONTACTS: A MUST

BE that as it may, the fact is that the people of India and Pakistan have been, by and large, cut off from one another for over half a decade. And the result? Thanks to communal reactionary forces and their rumour mills working full steam, the people of both countries have developed stereotypes about one another which, if not removed assiduously, would not allow the erection of a solid foundation for Indo-Pak ties. Nor do our people have an idea of the situation in Pakistan; what they get to know is only from media reports, many of which are also stereotyped.

It is in view of this reality that whenever we demanded that both India and Pakistan must start a dialogue process unconditionally, we also demanded that people of the two countries must be given all opportunity to meet and know about one another. This, we said, would involve the people of the two countries in the process of betterment instead of letting it remain confined to the two governments, politicians and bureaucrats. To our understanding, this could be a somewhat lengthy process but it was the only way to erect a lasting edifice of Indo-Pak ties.

And today we say with a degree of satisfaction that our stand has been vindicated: the ever-increasing people to people contacts have already demolished some myths about one another --- and that too in a surprisingly short time. Insofar as the growth of cordial feelings is concerned, these people to people contacts have achieved in the last two years what could not be achieved in the preceding 55 years. 

Surprisingly, a sizeable portion of people in Pakistan is aware of the positive role the Indian Left has played in this process. And this I say not only on the basis of what information our Pakistani comrades gave us. A number of non-Left intellectuals who came to meet us, conveyed to us the same impression.   

IMPRESSION IN PAKISTAN

THIS was what a good chunk of the Pakistani media, except those favouring the fundamentalists, also noted. Here we confine ourselves to two papers only. In its February 27 issue, The News (which is by no means a Left sympathiser) editorially commented that “The latest arrivals from India include a breed of politicians rarely, if at all, found in Pakistan. Harkishan Singh Surjeet and A B Bardhan, general secretaries of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India respectively, symbolise the virtues of life-long commitment to ideological politics and the political power that accrues as a result.”

Noting the role of the Left in Indian politics, the editorial says: “Indian leftists have been vocal advocates of people to people contacts. Given their new-found role in New Delhi’s power politics, they can be a crucial factor in the peace process serving as constant checks on their hawkish comerades (sic!) in Indian politics.”

The comment concludes with an advice to the government of Pakistan. It says Surjeet’s and Bardhan’s “political stature warrants that Pakistani government and civil society, including political parties, engage them in a sustained dialogue. Local leftists should not be the only ones talking to their powerful comrades from across the border.”

The talk of “powerful comrades from across the border” apart, the message conveyed is clear: the civil society and politicians in Pakistan are well aware of the role the Indian Left has played in bettering the Indo-Pak ties.

To take another example, The Dawn is one of the most prestigious and widely read papers in Pakistan, and has been consistently and liberally covering our visit during those seven days. Moreover, even after three days of our return, the paper carried an editorial in March 7 issue, which we accessed via Internet. The editorial begins with this observation: “The visit of two leaders representing, respectively, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has created quite a stir in Pakistan.” Then it goes on to say that the visit has served two important purposes. One of these is that “It has underlined the desirability and usefulness of contacts between the politicians of India and Pakistan. Such contacts, as opposed to interaction among government representatives, permit a freer and more meaningful exchange of ideas. They can thus create both greater understanding and goodwill at the level of civil society.”

Obviously, if the editorial stresses the need of “contacts between the politicians of India and Pakistan…as opposed to interaction among government representatives,” the idea is that “politicians” would help in forging the people to people contacts.  

Individuals like Mrs Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan, Dr Saleema and others had the same impression about the role of Indian Left in bettering the Indo-Pak relations. One recalls that Mrs Tahira has since long been associated with political movements in the country. Her husband, late Shri Mazhar Ali Khan, father of well known London based scholar Tariq Ali, was a prominent political figure of Pakistan and the Viewpoint, which he used to edit, was a renowned journal. He and Mrs Tahira have been to India several times and know the situation here. The same is the case with Dr Saleema, elder daughter of revolutionary Urdu poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, who herself is a renowned painter and the principal of an arts collage for girls. When Dr Saleema and her husband Dr Shueb Hashmi came to meet us in Lahore, those pre-partition days immediately came to my mind when I, then underground, stayed in Faiz’s house in Amritsar for 15 days. Saleema was then a little girl.

MEETING WITH THE PRESIDENT

IT was in this overall context that myself and Bardhan were taken to the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi to meet President Pervez Musharraf. A host of the army’s top brass was also present on the occasion. The hour-long meeting took place in a very cordial atmosphere, slightly after noon on March 1, followed by a lunch hosted by the foreign minister.

As was expected, we talked on numerous issues during the meeting; virtually all issues having a bearing on Indo-Pak ties came up for discussion. And General Musharraf must be given his due --- he was candid enough and did not skirt any issue we raised.

Kashmir and Baglihar, however, were the focus during the talks. In this context, the president’s contention was that he was prepared to accept all the confidence building measures (CBMs) India suggests; he even stressed that he has instructed his ministers to say yes to whatever their Indian counterparts may suggest in the CBMs category. But he also said one has after all to come to a stage where the “conflict issues” are taken up for resolution. In the last analysis, the relations between the two countries depended on a resolution of these very issues, he added.

One thing needs to be realised --- Kashmir has been made an emotional issue for Pakistan citizens. This is not surprising as Kashmir is an issue the army as well as mainstream political parties have sentimentalised over decades; in fact both of them have thrived upon it. It has become a tiger ride for them: you cannot afford to disembark. But this makes it all the more necessary that the issue should first be desentimentalised. It naturally requires patient handling. At the same time, because of the nature of the issue, we felt that what has been hanging fire for 57 years cannot be resolved overnight, and this we said in so many words. We also told the president that we would convey his feelings to the leaders of the government of India, and do whatever we can for its resolution.

As for Baglihar dam, it was clear that the president was knowledgeable; he had after all done a dissertation on it years ago when he was a brigadier in Pakistan army. His complaint was that India was going on with its construction and that whenever this issue came up for discussion, India would present Pakistan with a fait accompli. He also pointed out that water sharing could well become a big bone of contention between the two countries in future. That his concern is genuine is not in doubt. Then, there also remains the fact that hawks in Pakistan are trying to rouse passions on the issue. But the immediate problem is, and we told him so, that Pakistan has already referred the issue to the World Bank that had brokered the Sindh treaty decades back, and that such arbitration may take years to bear fruit. So our suggestion was that India and Pakistan must find out whether something can be done for an “out of court” settlement of the issue --- that is, without involving the World Bank. We also assured him that we would take up the matter with the government of India for the sake of a speedy and mutually beneficial solution.  

Similar sentiments were exchanged when we met the prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, next day, at about 10.30 a m, before proceeding to Karachi.

During the talks with the president, I raised the issue of the Sikh youth who were arrested while crossing over into Pakistan. I told the president that these youth were innocent and had fallen victims to some fraudulent companies who had doled out promises of lucrative jobs and duped them. (Many of these youth had inadvertently stranded into Pakistan from Iran side.) The president’s gesture was touching; he then and there asked an army officer to release all these youth after fulfilling technical formalities like nationality verification. Many of these 200 odd youth have already come back by the time we write these lines.

The president was equally considerate on the issue of fishermen who inadvertently crossed over into Pakistan’s territorial waters and were imprisoned. As soon as we raised the issue, not only he ordered the release of these 800 odd fishermen, he also promised that in future too such fishermen would be released after the verification of their credentials. “What is the use of imprisoning these poor fellows? Just give them a few slaps, warn them and let them go!” This was his advice to his officials. Currently the practice is that, when releasing such fishermen, Pakistan impounds their boats. Now the hope is that such fishermen’s vessels would also be released.

This was an immediate and concrete result of our talks with the president of Pakistan, and the media in the country prominently carried the news.

Overall, President Musharraf’s gesture was that he would not go down in history as “a man who failed,” and that he would like to resolve all the pending issues with India in his as well as “Comrade Surjeet’s lifetime.” This was in itself a valuable commitment. And, we hope, such commitments from the two sides would go a long way in resolving the thorny and not so thorny issues between the two bigs in South Asia: in the interest of the two countries and the whole subcontinent, in the interest of regional and world peace.