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Pakistan’s democracy and the peace process

The Sarabjit Singh story may yet have a happy ending, thanks to the one-month reprieve granted by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to the death row prisoner by putting off his hanging from April 1 to April 30, by which time a new government will have taken charge in Islamabad. But the mini crisis that erupted over this issue, and over the Kashmir Singh and Khalid Mehmood episodes — the latest is the death of an Indian fisherman in a Karachi prison — has flagged the dangers that lurk beneath the surface of the apparently friendly relations between India and Pakistan, especially as the incoming elected government in Pakistan navigates its way between the President, the Army chief and the “establishment.”

New Delhi has indirectly appealed to the new government to save Sarabjit’s life, and it is quite possible that keen to make a constructive start, the incoming PPP-led coalition will be inclined to reconsider his case. But the episode has also served to underline that if India wants the incoming coalition in Pakistan to make positive moves in bilateral relations, it too must contribute towards strengthening the hands of the new democratic dispensation in Islamabad.

This is all the more important because in the Pakistani perception, India continues to remain hopeful of President Musharraf emerging on top once again. Through 2007, as the Pakistani street simmered with anti-Musharraf protests, the political class was firmly of the opinion that India was pinning its hopes on Gen. Musharraf, who New Delhi saw as a “flexible” negotiating partner — one from whom it could extract maximum concessions without giving anything in return — riding out the storm. That perception was reinforced after National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan openly came out in support of the general, lavishing praise on him and confidently predicting that India hoped to be doing business with him in early 2008.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tried to set the record straight with his statement in Parliament congratulating the people of Pakistan for their democratic choice, and heaping praise on Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif for their contributions to India-Pakistan peace. But critics in Pakistan said it was nothing but grudging acknowledgement from New Delhi of the changed scenario in Islamabad.

For all this, the India-Pakistan peace process was perhaps the only feature of Gen. Musharraf’s rule to escape the brush with which Pakistanis tarred everything else that had the slightest association with him. So closely had Gen. Musharraf become identified with the peace process, and India with him, that this too could have gone the way of the rest. There was enough criticism about his “concessions” to India on the Kashmir issue getting “nothing” in return. He was accused of charting an independent course with India on Kashmir without taking political parties on board or the people into confidence about his intentions.

But the people did not dump the peace process for the simple reason that making peace with India is now seen not only as an imperative, but more natural than hostility or outright enmity. This is why India-Pakistan relations were hardly an issue in the February 18 elections. Where they did come up, it was not to tar the peace process as another of Gen. Musharraf’s flawed projects but to claim credit for setting the ball rolling. In his speeches, Nawaz Sharif flagged the Lahore summit that brought Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee across Wagah border in a bus as the turning point in relations with India. Benazir Bhutto, before her assassination, talked about her own efforts to improve the atmosphere between the two countries. Mr. Sharif must feel vindicated that Dr. Singh’s statement in Parliament acknowledges his contribution so generously.

In their manifestos, both Mr. Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (N) and the Pakistan People’s Party commit themselves to improving relations with India. In the “charter of democracy” that Benazir and Mr. Sharif signed to forge an alliance against President Musharraf way back in 2006, the two parties pledged to resolve Kashmir in accordance with the United Nations Security Council Resolutions that President Musharraf had described as irrelevant. But in their interviews, neither Mr. Sharif nor PPP leader Asif Zardari has harped on the U.N. resolutions.

Instead, Mr. Sharif has stuck to the formula of a peaceful resolution of all outstanding issues with India, including Kashmir. And Mr. Zardari’s statements that both countries should “agree to disagree” on Kashmir, and focus instead on building trade interdependence, go much beyond what President Musharraf ever said. After an angry reaction from sections of Kashmiris, the PPP hurried to clarify that the party was committed to the resolution of the issue on the basis of “respect and honour.” The PPP leader himself explained that he was trying to “bring to the front door” what was going on through “back door” diplomacy. But of more significance was the absence of protests in Pakistan. Most democratically minded Pakistanis appear to agree with Mr. Zardari that Kashmir should not be allowed to hijack relations between the two countries anymore.

But for this pragmatism to translate into action on the ground, India must move swiftly to strengthen the newly elected government with a solid gesture in bilateral relations. Even for Pakistanis opposed to Gen. Musharraf, and for those who said India must not do business with a “dictator,” New Delhi’s perceived non-responses to his “flexibility” rankled deeply. It was in this context that Dr. Singh’s promise in Parliament to meet Pakistan “halfway” baffled Pakistanis.

Pakistani political opinion holds that President Musharraf crossed the halfway point long ago, and it was India that failed to take off from the starting blocks. For Pakistanis, the peace process had slowed to glacial speeds long before the political uncertainty in their country began. They believe that India, assured that the ceasefire on the Line of Control was locked in, dropped the ball on the peace process long before last year, as it focussed its energies on the civil nuclear deal with the United States. Through 2006 and early 2007, Pakistan awaited a long-promised visit by Dr. Singh to breathe the much needed political life into the “composite dialogue” process. But that did not happen, reinforcing the view that India was not reciprocating Gen. Musharraf adequately.

An early visit by Dr. Singh — after a new government takes charge in Islamabad — would help to dispel that impression as well as help the new dispensation show constituencies that matter at home that it can deliver. Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon is reported to be planning a visit to Islamabad in April to review the fourth round of the composite dialogue. While the Secretary-level talks will no doubt move into a fifth round, Pakistanis believe progress on what they see as “soft issues” such as Siachen and Sir Creek, and solid confidence-boosting measures on the main issue of Kashmir, would help their new government keep at bay elements that are traditionally opposed to both an elected government and the peace process.

Gen. Musharraf had nothing to fear from the “establishment” — the entrenched civilian-military bureaucracy that is dead set against change — because it was he who controlled it. Now there are concerns that the establishment, which found itself unemployed in the elections for the first time and had no role to play in government formation, may want to strike back at the new government, and what better way than through the peace process with India. Already some are saying that it is too much of a coincidence that the prisoner issue has erupted in such a virulent way just as the new coalition is about to take charge, turning up the pressure on it even before it has taken office. This is why it is seen as important that India reciprocates a possible pardon for Sarabjit by the incoming government with a similarly grand gesture.

Conventional wisdom in India’s strategic community has it that it is better to do business in Pakistan with the military than with politicians, as an elected leader is constantly looking back over his shoulder at the military. In that sense Gen. Musharraf was seen as the ideal single-window clearance in his double role as President and Army chief. The changes in Pakistan mean that New Delhi must navigate the “troika” of Prime Minister, President and Army chief. Days after Mr. Zardari’s comments on Kashmir, an ambiguous statement by Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani that a “national consensus” exists on the Kashmir issue and that the Pakistan Army was committed to the cause “in line with the aspirations of the people” has served to underline the importance of this “troika,” against the backdrop of tense relations between the President and the government. With the way the election result has turned out, partners of the new government such as the PML(N) are additional power centres and need to be taken into account.

It will certainly be harder work and more passion-inflaming negative episodes of the kind witnessed over the last three weeks cannot be ruled out. But Pakistani commentators believe that with more sections of the polity in their country on board the peace process than previously, the misgivings about secret diplomacy and “sell-out” may give way to new ideas for a faster rapprochement.

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