Towards Reducing Trust Deficit
Of late, Pakistan has whipped up domestic sentiment against India on
the water issue. It will certainly bring it up in any dialogue with us. Here, it
is important to acknowledge that Mr. Qureshi has publicly admitted that the
water woes of Pakistan are a consequence of its own mismanagement of its
resources and that India is not to blame. If Pakistan has specific complaints,
it should be encouraged to raise them within the framework of the Indus Waters
Treaty. However irrational, Pakistanis are not suicidal; they know that the IWT
is much more generous to them than to India and they would not want to
renegotiate it.
The people of India are not against talking to Pakistan. Indeed,
nearly all political parties support dialogue. What they do not favour is India
going into the talks with its eyes shut. What they do not approve of is
profession of good neighbourliness unaccompanied by matching action, and
repetition of the usual mantras of not allowing Pakistan's territory for
terrorism against India. They are also not convinced that asking for American
intervention is the right or dignified thing to do; it gives an image of an
India that is not self-confident. --
Chinmaya R. Gharekhan
By Chinmaya R. Gharekhan
May 14, 2010
The people of India are not against talking to Pakistan. What they do
not want is India going into the talks with its eyes
closed.
‘Trust' is too loaded a term to be used in inter-state discourse;
‘confidence-building' is a well accepted phrase and is safer to employ. The new
buzzword in India-Pakistan dialogue is ‘trust deficit.' Trust ‘deficit'
presupposes that there is trust, only its quantity or/and quality have
diminished. Was there ever a time when there was ‘trust' between the two
countries?
The circumstances surrounding Pakistan's creation and its aggression
in Kashmir ensured that there could be no ‘trust' between the countries. Indira
Gandhi tried ‘trust' — she trusted Z.A. Bhutto to deliver on his promise of
internationalising the Line of Control, made to her in Shimla — on the basis on
which she agreed to all that she did in Shimla. Did Manmohan Singh trust Pervez
Musharraf? We do not know but Indians cannot forget that the General was
responsible for Kargil which cost us the lives of more than 800 of our best and
bravest. Atal Bihari Vajpayee surely did not trust him after his experience at
Agra.
It came as no surprise that our Prime Minister went all the way in
Thimphu, responding positively to Pakistan's demand for resumption of dialogue
at the political level. He jumped the several steps on Pakistan's ‘road map' and
met his Pakistani counterpart in Bhutan for over an hour. Thus the road map
suggested by Pakistan got reversed; it started at the highest political level
and will be followed up at the ministerial and Secretary levels. He has set
himself the vision of establishing cordial relations and is determined to shame
Pakistan into good neighbourly behaviour.
Sometimes, this approach can work. Going by media reports quoting
unnamed MEA sources, Pakistan seems to have sold the line that Yusuf Raza Gilani
has armed himself with new and enhanced powers under the 18th amendment to
Pakistan's Constitution, making him a worthy interlocutor for the serious
discussion of all weighty issues. This may be overstating things a bit. Perhaps
the ‘official sources' felt the need for this argument to justify to the public
as well as sceptics within the ruling coalition the resumption of dialogue. The
real question is whether Mr. Gilani has the authority to take decisions that the
army, including the ISI, might not approve of or whether he would have to clear
all the issues in dealing with India, Afghanistan, Kashmir, etc. first with the
military. As for the Pakistan Peoples Party, Asif Ali Zardari seems to be in
control, as evidenced by the fact that the government has decided to declare the
Swiss cases against him ‘closed.' Mr. Gilani's claim to be the valid
interlocutor with Dr. Singh must be taken with a fistful of
salt.
It is essential that India does not engage Pakistan in talks without
a clear idea of what it expects of the neighbour in terms of reducing the ‘trust
deficit'; it cannot be simply a case of making a subjective judgment on whether
Pakistan has done anything, or enough, to reduce the deficit. There are
quantifiable criteria which can be spelt out and even publicly announced by our
side.
At the same time, we must be objective in our analysis and approach.
As for prosecuting the perpetrators of 26/11, a judicial process is on in
Pakistan. After the role the judiciary has played in toppling Gen. Musharraf and
considering the role it wants to play in applying the revocation of NRO to Mr.
Zardari, it would not be fair to doubt its independence. By the same token, it
is unfair on the part of those in Pakistan who cast aspersions on our judicial
process — whereby the two Indians co-accused with Kasab were acquitted of all
charges. We must note that the Pakistan government has not joined in these
allegations.
The most important criterion has to do with terrorism. A statement by
the Pakistan Prime Minister that his government will not allow Pakistan's
territory to be used for terrorist acts against India does not, by itself, carry
much meaning. It should be accompanied by specific action. There should be
credible evidence of Pakistan vigorously pursuing the prosecution of the
perpetrators of the Mumbai blasts. We need not keep harping on the slow pace of
the process, so long as we are satisfied with the seriousness of the
prosecution. Pakistan can certainly do more to contain Hafiz Saeed. It takes
recourse to the unconvincing argument that it is unable to produce admissible
evidence against this terrorist, but it can definitely take administrative
action to bring him under control.
A related test is the rate of infiltration across the LoC. Our
government has officially declared that it has gone up, and is a matter of
concern. It should not at all be difficult to determine whether Pakistan has
taken any measure to eliminate, or at least significantly reduce, infiltration.
Similarly, the terrorist training camps — the existence of which in
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and elsewhere is a known fact — should be dismantled.
This is another assessable factor.
Pakistan managed to introduce Balochistan in Sharm-El Sheikh in the
official India-Pakistan dialogue. However, no less a person than its Foreign
Minister said, post-Thimphu, that Dr. Singh had categorically assured his
Pakistani counterpart that India had no intention of destabilising Pakistan. The
fact that Shah Mehmood Qureshi mentioned this to the Pakistani media suggests
that he and his government were satisfied that India was not in any way involved
in Balochistan; it should, therefore, refrain from bringing it up in future
discussions with us or others.
It follows that Pakistan should stop objecting to the presence of our
consulates in Afghanistan. Similarly, it should stop protesting against our
development assistance to Afghanistan which has no hidden anti-Pakistan agenda.
In fact, it can join India in some of the projects. This will help in persuading
General McChrystal not to make gratuitous remarks about our assistance to
Afghanistan — of the kind he made in his written report to President Barack
Obama.
We should expect that Pakistan too will have its yardstick to assess
whether or not India has done enough to reduce the trust ‘deficit'. Kashmir
would be on top of its agenda. We should not shy away from discussing Kashmir.
After all, it is our territory it has occupied illegally for the past six
decades; why should we not discuss with Pakistan the ways and means of getting
the occupied territory vacated? If it brings up the long-dead United Nations
resolutions, as its Foreign Minister recently did raise in its National
Assembly, it will indicate that it is not serious about discussing Kashmir. In
any case, is Pakistan ready to pull out all its forces, regular and irregular,
from PoK, which is a condition precedent to the holding of any referendum? It is
also worth recalling that the U.N. resolutions give only two options to the
Kashmiri people — accession to India or Pakistan. Azadi is not an
option.
We must not feel embarrassed or go on the defensive if Pakistan wants
to talk Kashmir. We must also not revive the Musharraf deposit about his
so-called four-point proposal. We must not leave Pakistan in any doubt that the
only solution, which in any case will need endorsement from the Indian
Parliament, is to convert the LoC into an international border. If Pakistan does
not agree, we will be under no compulsion to offer anything by way of
‘out-of-the-box' proposals. In any case, we must not agree to any
‘confidence-building' measure which would give Pakistan a locus standi, however
indirect, in the affairs of the Valley, in a consultative or any kind of
mechanism. ‘Trust' must have its limits. We can certainly agree on and encourage
more people-to-people contacts, etc.
Of late, Pakistan has whipped up domestic sentiment against India on
the water issue. It will certainly bring it up in any dialogue with us. Here, it
is important to acknowledge that Mr. Qureshi has publicly admitted that the
water woes of Pakistan are a consequence of its own mismanagement of its
resources and that India is not to blame. If Pakistan has specific complaints,
it should be encouraged to raise them within the framework of the Indus Waters
Treaty. However irrational, Pakistanis are not suicidal; they know that the IWT
is much more generous to them than to India and they would not want to
renegotiate it.
The people of India are not against talking to Pakistan. Indeed,
nearly all political parties support dialogue. What they do not favour is India
going into the talks with its eyes shut. What they do not approve of is
profession of good neighbourliness unaccompanied by matching action, and
repetition of the usual mantras of not allowing Pakistan's territory for
terrorism against India. They are also not convinced that asking for American
intervention is the right or dignified thing to do; it gives an image of an
India that is not self-confident. We must have well defined criteria or
benchmarks, some of which have been spelt out above, to judge whether or not
Pakistan has done anything to reduce the ‘trust deficit.' If the civilian
government in Islamabad can deliver on the issues, we would welcome
it.
Source: The Hindu, New Delhi
2:55 AM
Sultan Shahin
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