Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
Come to think of it, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, may have his own domestic compulsions, for him to be seen a volte face of sorts, turning his back on the element of hope that accompanied his ascension to power in his country. He had indeed led many in India, from the Indian media in particular, to believe that he would walk the extra mile to bring stability to Indo-Pak relations. Why, you did have many from among the Pakistan civil society as well who had hoped to see bilateral relations taking a turn for the better.
To give him the benefit of the doubt it could be that he wasn’t initially very sure of an electoral win, a worthless assumption it would have been. His principal rivals of the People’s Party, from whom he finally took over, were in the fray sans a Bhutto or a Bhutto scion and hence no-hopers from the beginning.
Sharif having staked his claim to the Prime Minister’s office and making it with ease, I cannot believe he didn’t know that the odds were heavily loaded against the PPP. He was indeed aware of the problems besetting his country. India was the least threatening of these. Nor was he a stranger to the internal turmoil in his country : an economy in tatters, a demoralised population confronted by sectarian militant outfits and a sulking military establishment unsure of its future role and very keen, therefore, to assert its importance as a most potent force which had ruled the country for more than half its years of existence.
Add to these, the Afghan problem, his homegrown Tehreek-e-Taliban of Pakistan holding sway over Pakhtunkhwah province, and the incredible clout of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the Jammat-ud-Dawa whom he (Nawaz) had gifted a 35-acre plot in Muridke, just outside his beloved Lahore, in an earlier incarnation as Prime Minister, and whose parent organisation, the JUD, is financed even today by the Punjab Government headed by his brother.
He couldn’t have been unaware of the havoc which the Taliban and the Lashkar militants were playing on the civilian population of the country. Nor could he have been unaware, not by a long shot, of the thwarted ambitions of the Army which, with Kayani on his second term as the Army Chief, had become the butt of ridicule post Pakhtunkhwah developments.
The Army is expected to have a new Chief when Gen. Kayani lays down office next month. As a parting shot the General and the ISI, meantime chose to call the shots by hotting up things in Jammu and Kashmir, subjecting the Line of Control and the international border in parts of the State non-stop violations.
The number of cease-fire violations along the LOC and the international border has shown a dangerous upswing. Of course, the question is that these transgressions could not take place without the Prime Minister’s nod. Sharif would evidently claim ignorance as he had when the then Army Chief Musharraf nearly took over Kargil and Sharif rushed to Washington to reassure President Clinton that the operation would be halted which it was.
I am retailing these known facts to buttress the argument that Nawaz Sharif is not an innocent by-stander as the Pak Army has its merry run along the LOC and the IB, attacking civilian and military targets in Jammu and Kashmir. So much so that the State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had to demand retaliation by New Delhi. Omar, incidentally, mentioned the assurance which Sharif had given to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at their New York meeting just weeks ago, about the DGMOs of the two countries meeting in joint meetings to put an end to violations of the LOC and the IB at; no such meeting has taken place so far, as I write, and one can only attribute this to Pak Army’s reluctance to be part of such meetings between the DGMOs. An assertion of its own role in such matters, one presumes.
Against this backdrop it becomes clear that Nawaz Sharif chose to bring the Kashmir issue to the front burner, harking back to the UN resolutions rather than rely on bilateral agreements such as the one hammered out by Indira Gandhi and Z.A. Bhutto at Shimla over four decades ago, Obviously an attempt by him to secure his flanks should the ISI try to marginalise the civilian rulers.
Sharif who has retained the Defence and Foreign Affairs portfolios, in addition to 27 other ministries, to establish his supremacy, I presume. He is to name the successor to Gen. Kayani next month to assert his position as the country’s chief executive.
Army apart, Sharif hasn’t found a solution to the challenge posed to the Pakistani State by the Pakistani Taliban and other militant outfits; he hasn’t quite succeeded in persuading the Americans to call off their Drone attacks on parts of Pakhtunkhwah (NWEP) targeting Taliban centres, regardless of whether they are Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. Sharif had to admit that President Obama had put some hard questions to him on the issue of terrorism, the Jammat-ud-Dawa and inevitably Hafez Saeed, the JDU and Lashkar Chief, who carries a 10 million dollar prize on his head.
The President asked Nawaz Sharif some blunt questions on this issue during their talks in Washington earlier this week. Nor were the Americans much interested in his pleas for US intervention in resolving the Kashmir dispute. They reiterated their faith in the bilateral route.
I am not directly rejoicing at the American rebuff to the Pakistani leader over Kashmir- it was warranted given the fact that the bilateral route, if pursued honestly, would be quicker and lasting. Unfortunately New Delhi too like the Pakistanis is hamstrung by a hidebound bureaucracy and a political leadership unwilling to take risks. That’s why we see the decade-long cease-fire with Pakistan beginning to unravel.
The Indian Defence Minister, A.K. Antony, one of the most uninspiring leaders the Ministry has probably known, proudly proclaims that he has given a free hand to the Army to respond to provocations by Pakistani forces along the LOC or the IB in Jammu region. Mr. Antony seems to have decided that the Army is free to act on its own and that civilian control over it is perhaps a myth. He could have borrowed a little from Jagjivan Ram’s book or for that matter even from the Vajpayee government. They tightly controlled the Army.
Use of force, including the terms of military engagement with an adversary, are political decisions not to be taken by military brass. The Government’s abdication, of responsibility as seems to be the case with the Antony admission, is possibly driven by Congress leadership’s fear of looking weak in the electoral season. On the face of it the Antony position negates the effort Dr. Manmohan Singh has invested in seeking a good neighbourly relationship with Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif looks to be a victim of his Army’s overblown ambitions and his unwillingness to take on terrorism. Dr. Singh, on the other hand, has only himself to blame if he is accused of abdication of responsibility. And, Nawaz Sharif, I am afraid, hasn’t learnt his lessons. He has every reason to remember what Armies can do, if given a free rein. Having known one military dictator (Gen. Zia), whose protégé Sharif was, and thrown out of office by another (Gen. Musharaff) one would have expected the democratically elected Nawaz Sharif to assert the supremacy of civilian authority. ISI willing he may finally do so on his return home from a not so successful American journey. He obviously didn’t make the trip to Washington just to collect a few billion dollars.
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