Tuesday, April 26, 2011

BACK CHANNEL WITH PAKISTAN ARMY: A GAMBIT WORTH TRYING

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    The denial by both the Prime Minister's Office in India and by the military spokesman in Pakistan of the story in The Times of an 'unofficial back channel' that had opened with the de facto ruler of Pakistan, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, isn't entirely unexpected. If indeed there was such a back channel then it is best kept under the wraps, not so much because it would make public what was being discussed or even negotiated – the details of the 'official' back channel negotiations during the Musharraf era are still secret even though the main protagonists claim to have nearly reached a deal – but more because it would be premature to admit the existence of such a back-channel until it had become a regular feature instead of a one-off contact. On the other hand, if there was no such back-channel contact, then the denials are perfectly in order and would end needless speculation on the nature of contact established between the Indian and Pakistani establishments.

    Quite aside the fact that the denials would have come as a dampener for those who believe that there is a dire need for putting in place a channel of communication and dialogue between the establishments of the two countries, the very nature of the contact claimed by The Times – 'unofficial' – raises serious doubts over the efficacy of the so-called back-channel. It is of course entirely possible that some sort of contact, albeit 'unofficial' and perhaps even unauthorised, was made. After all, there are enough busybodies on both sides of the Radcliffe line who use their access to top policy making circles on either side to assume the role of self-appointed messengers. While generally the messages these people carry are either ignored or suffered in silence by the powers that be, there have been rare occasions when these messengers have helped in breaking the ice. Whether or not this is true in the current case is not entirely clear.

Even so, there is still a strong case for some sort of contact – in the preliminary stage perhaps only a military-to-military exchange between the NDC in India and NDU in Pakistan – being made with Pakistan's military establishment and exploring this track to see if a more sustained engagement is possible with the real rulers of Pakistan as opposed to the civilian show-boys that India has been so comfortable in dealing with.

The aversion in India to dealing directly with Pakistan's military establishment is entirely understandable but is also unreal given the power dynamics of Pakistani politics. Pakistan is, in a sense, a schizophrenic society. At one level, there is deep distrust and suspicion of the establishment and a tendency to attribute not only the most bizarre conspiracy theories to it but also hold it capable of, if not responsible for, the most horrible crimes. But at another level, there is an innate, almost blind, trust and faith in ability and capacity of the military establishment to protect the country and put things right. Most Pakistanis are quick to follow the lead of the army on issues of national security, especially when it comes to relations with India. As a result, when the army allows it, people gladly reach out to India (the 2004-2008 period bears witness to this) and when the army shuns it, the very same people pull back on all contact with India.

This remarkable ability and agility of the military establishment in Pakistan to manipulate public opinion must to be taken into account by the Indian establishment before it takes any initiative on mending ties with Pakistan. The bottom line is that while India can have as many 'uninterrupted and uninterruptible' dialogues with the civilians in Pakistan as it wants, unless it manages at least a modus Vivendi with the all-powerful Pakistan army, none of these dialogues will lead to anything at all. Without getting the Pakistan army on board, any dialogue with Pakistan will either be a dialogue of the deaf or one with the meek and powerless, who one daresay are unlikely to inherit Pakistan.

There are essentially two ways that India can approach Pakistan. The first is to engage Pakistani politicians and civil society, promote people-to-people exchanges, trade and what have you, in the hope of creating a constituency of peace that will force the hand of the military establishment to normalise relations with India. But quite frankly, for this strategy to work, India will have to wait till the cows come home. An alternative strategy is to continue with the above strategy but simultaneously open a sustained channel of communication and engagement – to start with, an 'official and empowered' back-channel – with Pakistan's military establishment.

Needless to say, given the power structure realities of the establishments of the two countries, the back channel contact will have to be handled with great care. In a democratic country like India, a back channel naturally tends to evoke suspicion. One way to counter this is to set up a multi-track back-channel – between intelligence agencies to discuss issues like terrorism etc., between the militaries where they discuss purely military matters, and a track in which both top civilian and military officials discuss security and doctrinal issues

If this 'composite' (given the diplomatic and political sensitivities of the Indian government, perhaps the word 'comprehensive' is more appropriate) back-channel shows promise, and in the course of discussing professional matters, creates an opening for discussing the strategic dimensions of the bilateral relationship, the two sides could consider bringing it on the front channel. In other words, they could make the transition to a 'strategic dialogue' in which a working group comprising designated civilian and military officials led by either the National Security Advisor or the External Affairs Minister discuss matters of higher state policy and the future trajectory of bilateral relations.

But even if the back-channel contact remains a desultory track, there is still something to be said for continuing to engage an adversary but without the hype and hoopla that normally accompanies any India-Pakistan engagement. If anything, the one thing that the two countries need to avoid is hyping up the expectations of a breakthrough by indulging in high profile jamborees – Mohali comes to mind. Quiet, serious and sustained diplomacy is perhaps the only way forward, even if this takes a long time and denies the politicians the legacy that they so desperately crave to leave behind.

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    <975 Words>                    25th April, 2011

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Friday, April 01, 2011

CRICKET DIPLOMACY OR MANMOHAN'S MALADY

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    On the evening of March 23, the day Pakistan celebrates its National Day and just a couple of days before the Indian Prime Minister decided to invite his Pakistani counterpart to watch the Indo-Pak cricket World Cup semi-final match in Mohali, Indian security agencies got specific information about an imminent attack on the Indian Ambassador and the Indian mission in Kabul. Needless to say, the fingerprints of the ISI were found all over the attack plan. Not only did the Indian intelligence have names of Pakistani officers who planned the attacks, they had all the information of how the attacks would be carried out. Without wasting any time on diplomatic niceties, the Pakistanis were immediately warned of 'severe consequences' if the attack was carried out. Caught with their pants down, the Pakistanis were forced to call off the attack.

Quite aside the fact that after two successful terror attacks on Indian establishments in Kabul – the suicide bombing on the Indian embassy in 2008 and the fidayeen attack on a transit accommodation of Indian officials in 2010 – this was the third or fourth time that a terror attack on Indian interests in Afghanistan had been pre-empted, the big question is whether the Indian Prime Minister has not been informed of these Pakistani plots against India, or whether he is so obsessed with entering into some sort of a peace deal with Pakistan that he is willing to ignore these murderous plots against Indian citizens. Increasingly, it appears that Dr Singh won't let anything, not even another 26/11, come in the way of his quest for peace with Pakistan.

Despite all the hype and hoopla and the mindless excitement, even hysteria, being whipped up over the semi-final match, and notwithstanding all the needless romanticization of how 'cricket is the winner' or that 'cricket is a bridge between the two countries' or even that 'cricket is a religion in the two countries' (Pakistanis saying this are liable to be murdered as apostates), the ugly reality of Indo-Pak relations is something that Indians would do well not to lose sight off. But first, a word about that old cliché of not mixing politics with sport: isn't the invitation to the Pakistani President and Prime Minister a classic case of mixing politics with cricket? Indeed, the very phrase 'cricket diplomacy' reeks of politics, and ends up relegating cricket into a sideshow. It is, however, quite another matter that the current round of 'cricket diplomacy' can hardly be called good politics.

For one, the two gentlemen invited by Dr Singh – President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani – don't really add up to very much in Pakistan, even less so when it comes to dealing with India. If the purpose of the invitation was something more than just creating a 'tamasha' (perhaps in the hope of deflecting attention from the massive corruption scandals dogging the government), it might have made more sense to have called the real power behind the throne – the Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. Alternatively, Dr Singh could have played a little politics with the Pakistanis by inviting the entire spectrum of Pakistan's political leadership and holding a virtual all-party meeting of the Pakistani politicians on Indian soil with the aim of evolving a political consensus among them on peace with India, something that would have strengthened the hands of the Zardari/Gilani combine if they ever decided to move forward on relations with India.

No doubt, Gilani's presence in Mohali made for great optics and kept TV news channels busy analysing the 'body language' of the leaders of the two countries. But apart from enriching marketers on both sides of the Radcliffe line, the visit was never going to achieve anything substantial. A major reason for this was the timing. With the two countries having restarted the Composite Dialogue, there is no ice that needs to be broken by inviting the Pakistani Prime Minister for a cricket match. Nor is there any great crisis between the two countries that is sought to be defused through 'cricket diplomacy'. As for the invitation generating great goodwill on both sides of the border, this appears unlikely simply because the country that lost went into a sulk and the one that won gloated, both without any grace. Except for a brief period in the middle of the last decade when cricket matches between the two countries were played in the spirit of sport, the norm has been to treat the cricket ground more as a battlefield than a sports field. And at a time, when the two sides are just picking up the pieces of their tattered dialogue, the last thing they need is the hangover induced by a cricket encounter that has been unfortunately and rather unnecessarily politicised.

There was an argument made that if Pakistani spectators are allowed to see the match in Mohali, it will work as a shot in the arm for promoting people-to-people contacts between the two countries and give a huge fillip to the peace process between them. The problem is that the visa procedures as they stand didn't permit many Pakistanis to enter India, unless of course, the Indian security agencies had decided to open the borders for Pakistani spectators. In the flush of excitement over the invitation to Gilani, it is possible that the government threw caution to the winds and let a large number of Pakistani spectators enter India without any sort of vetting. If so then this they would have done at grave peril to the security of India. In his statement to the NIA, the infamous David Headley has admitted that he and the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks, Sajid Mir, used cricket tourism in 2005 as a ploy to survey and select their targets in India, including the PMs residence and the National Defence College. What is more, some 26 people who came for watching cricket matches in India in 2005 never returned to Pakistan. Five of these people were subsequently arrested and all of them were found to be sleeper agents indulging in espionage.

This is not to say that all Pakistanis are engaged in inimical actions against India. Far from it, there are many, many people of goodwill in Pakistan who don't harbour any inimical feelings towards India, people one is proud to call friends. The problem is that these nice guys don't really count for much and most of them are fast becoming an endangered species in their own country. In any case, the business of national security has to deal with nasty, and not nice, guys and therefore cannot afford to adopt a cavalier attitude for the sake of a cricket match, even if it is a World Cup semi-final between India and Pakistan.

While under normal circumstances, it is a good thing if leaders of countries can just hop across for watching a sporting encounter, in the accident prone and extremely fragile India-Pakistan relationship, such flying visits can prove to be counterproductive. They create completely unrealistic expectations which are invariably dashed on the altar of ground realities and critical national interests. What India and Pakistan need is quiet diplomacy instead of loud, garrulous, Punjabi-style 'jhappis and pappis' which inevitably lead to a severe hangover after reality bites.

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    <1217 Words>                    1st April, 2011

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