Dialogue and discordant notes

Pakistan President has been showing signs of dissatisfaction with the pace of this dialogue for sometime. Hitherto, only Foreign Secretaries meeting has taken place in New Delhi. Six other meetings at experts level will soon be held. But the substantive give and take session will begin in early September when the two Foreign Ministers will meet in Delhi -- perhaps final conclusions may be expected subsequently at the summit level. Meantime, politics has moved on. Indians are pressing ahead with their Strategic Partnership with the US and Israel, and are working to modernise their armed forces, upgrading their equipment.

Now these developments ring alarm bells in Pakistan's security establishment. Pakistan thinks that India is strengthening its conventional deterrent to a stage where Pakistan cannot match or counter it. President Musharraf has asserted on several occasions that Pakistan will anyhow maintain a balance of power -- in both conventional armaments and nuclear weapons, including missiles to carry them. Indeed he went further: he would enhance Pakistan's security to a point beyond what was earlier fixed as the minimum required.

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Now both these activities constitute arms race. It is always justified by inimical propaganda against the adversary power. Which is what a cold war is and Pakistan and India have run it for over half a century, though its continuance is an anomaly. Current dialogue was intended to reverse the trend. Or was it? Let's ask the question what kind of relations are aimed at in this dialogue? In terms of January 6, 2004 statement after the meeting between President Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister AB Vajpayee, the purpose is normalisation of relations.

What is not clear is the definition of normalisation: which state of relationship between the two is to be taken as normal; it has taken twists and turns. Do the Indians want Pakistan to be a friend and a partner? They need to clarify for the benefit of at least the Indians. As far as Pakistanis are concerned, there is some evidence that all Pakistan officials wanted way back in January 2004 was to go back to the relationship as it was on December 13, 2001. It is an open question as to which stage of Indo-Pak relationship the two want to go back to.

There was the initial period when there were no visas required for inter-state travel. By early 1950s, visas had been introduced, but travel was free enough until 1965 war. After it, the two bureaucracies armed themselves with tremendous powers, tightening up the visa regimes. It remained so until after the 1971 war. The Shimla Accord began normalisation efforts and talks sporadically continued through any number of high military tensions (1986, 1990, 1995, June 1999, and, above all, January 2002) until December 2001 attack on Indian Parliament. Normalisation objective however remains elusive.

Which kind of relationship is aimed at in this new dialogue? No one is sure. It seemed initially that the new Indian government wanted to accomplish what had not succeeded in 30 years of desultory negotiations under the Shimla agreement. Pakistan appeared to disfavour proceeding under February 1999 Lahore process. Natwar Singh solved the problem by calling Shimla and the Lahore documents as a continuity. India is seeking good relations with free trade, economic cooperation, cultural exchanges, and regional integration. Pakistan appears to remain uncertain about its preferred nature of relationship with India.

A few general remarks are in order. The kind of policies that prevented any normal good neighbourly relationship with India for 32 years after 1971 were predicated on some assumptions: Pakistan needed time to militarily prepare itself to face India again. To reinforce the rejuvenated army, Bhutto started a crash programme for acquiring nuclear capability. India had already embarked on a big military build up programme in the 1960s -- after the 1962 war with China. Pakistan regarded that as a challenge to its own security and expanded and reequipped Pakistan army. Thirteen years after the 1971 defeat, Pakistan could boast of a nuclear capability, and in 1986 it could warn India of a nuclear riposte. That determination to keep up with India militarily gelled with a policy of minimal contacts with India, the closest neighbour.

Well, post 1971 decisions have to be reassessed after Kargil operations. They have not made Pakistan safe. They have made it more insecure. The 2002 crisis has shown that whatever the generals on both sides may say it is now madness to go to war for both India and Pakistan; it carries totally unacceptable risks. Period. True, Pakistan is capable of taking out at least half a dozen Indian towns. In return India can send Pakistan to Stone Age. Who gains what? Thus no go for both. Nuclear dimensions of next war are insistently relevant because one side is so vulnerable in conventional armaments that it cannot but have recourse to nuclear weapons at a fairly early stage. So the bases of pre-2002 stand offish policies have disappeared.

Pakistan's negotiating position is weak. If the 1970s, 80s, and 90s assumptions are adhered to, talks would collapse before long. India cannot accede to Pakistan's wishes after 56 years of cold and hot wars, especially when, for the first time, it showed that the Invincible Shield of nukes is not enough for Pakistan to win a war in 2002. Possession has again proved to be nine points of law as far as Kashmir is concerned. President Musharraf has clearly dropped the condition that India should agree to a Kashmir plebiscite by the UN. Indeed, he went further: he gave India a veto on all solutions of Kashmir problem that did not suit it. In other words, he wants a Kashmir solution that India can live with. Would such a solution promote Pakistan's interests? Not that there is any agreement in the country regarding what are now Pakistan's precise interests in Kashmir. Outside world too seems to have accepted Indian claims on Kashmir.

This may shock many Pakistanis. The earlier stances were based on the logic of 1947 settlement. But after Pakistan went to war twice and later vainly stoked the fires of Islamic insurgency in Kashmir. What were the results? Changing the constitutional status of Kashmir Valley requires defeating India's armed forces first. This is a situation since 1999 when Pakistan was forced to unilaterally vacate the Kargil heights. Since Kashmir issue remains, Pakistan has to find new objectives and new means. Military action is wholly inappropriate now. What will be appropriate is what can Pakistan diplomacy make India do in and about Kashmir Valley.

All new thinking will need Pakistan befriending India by going well beyond simple normalisation. Pakistan needs to normalise for its own economic and cultural benefit. Since all old policy assumptions have proved to be unrealisable, it is about time to think what will work. Indians are unlikely to woo Pakistan; they would rather let it stew in its own juice in relative isolation. It is for Pakistan to chalk out a plan of action that will primarily benefit Pakistan and should not harm Kashmiris. India being the closest neighbour with a thousand and one commonalities -- and problems and a chequered history -- Pakistan can no longer ignore it or live the way it has done until now.

There are a few commonsense guidelines: If a war is out of question, cold war policies become stupid, for they were predicated on going to war if it becomes inevitable. A new kind of relationship with India is called for, distinct from what obtained between 1972 and 2004. Kashmir will have to go on a backburner until new opportunities arise. The new policy orientation cannot but be the opposite of what sustained post-Shimla attitudes. In other words, instead of running a balance of power with India, let there be a new peaceful and peaceable race to promote mutual enrichment.

The goal of negotiations with India should be to create maximum wealth in a bilateral cooperation that will enrich both. This will need friendship and a close working relationship. Reversing the history of 57 years will require hard work. How to start working for friendship suddenly after such spectacular examples of mutual hatred in 2002? But if there is will there is a way. Given the twin conclusions that normalisation concept is too imprecise and it by itself does not connote anything noble, Pakistan has to go beyond it to seek maximum friendship. Now, friendship itself can have many stages. Which kind of friendship does it need and why?

Short answers are: the nature of friendship, when one is moving away from arms race and cold war, has to be one that promotes economic cooperation and cultural exchanges. The aim should be to effect radical reconciliation between the peoples of India and Pakistan, extendable to all South Asians -- the way the French and Germans have done. If India and Pakistan can borrow detailed proposals on CBMs from the US, why can't they borrow from the French-German Treaty of 1963 that succeeded so brilliantly? South Asia needs such an approach. Let Pakistan graduate from futile militarism to peaceable economic and cultural enrichment.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.