A NEW MOMENTUM

Published : Apr 22, 2005 00:00 IST

Driven by the popular enthusiasm and political initiatives on either side, the India-Pakistan peace process appears to be on the highroad to success despite obstacles like unresolved disputes and the American intervention with the offer of fighter jets.

JOHN CHERIAN in New Delhi

RELATIONS between India and Pakistan have never been better in decades. The visa regime in either country has been relaxed. There has been a tangible improvement in people-to-people relations despite the lack of progress in resolving the many outstanding issues that have bedevilled bilateral relations. True, the recent decision of the United States to go ahead with the sale of F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan has not gone down well with the Government of India. The Pakistan government's decision to refer the Baglihar dam issue for international arbitration has also come in for criticism from New Delhi. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has also been open in his criticism of India's failure to address the "core" issue of Kashmir. Still, both Islamabad and New Delhi seem determined to carry the peace process forward.

The ongoing India-Pakistan cricket series has given the leaders of both countries the opportunity to meet once again. Indications are that Musharraf will hold substantive discussions with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he visits New Delhi on April 17, ostensibly to watch the last of the one-day internationals. Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, former Prime Minister of Pakistan and the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), was in India in the last week of March on a five-day visit.

He led the first high-level delegation of the PML to India. Hussain, who is reputed to be the second most powerful man in Pakistan politics, had meetings with President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Manmohan Singh and leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and other major Indian political parties. Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, accompanied by her husband Asif Zardari, was also in India on a "private visit" around the same time. Both Benazir and Zardari, while welcoming the normalisation process, said the international community should focus more on restoring genuine democracy in Pakistan.

Many international commentators have noted that despite the Bush administration's new-found urge to spread democracy in the Muslim world, it decided to reward Musharraf and his military-dominated government. One U.S. analyst observed that the U.S. decision to lift the arms embargo on Pakistan and the offer of advanced weaponry to India came at a time when the Bush administration was berating European nations for considering lifting the arms embargo on China.

The Indian Prime Minister told the visiting PML leaders that India was committed to finding a "lasting solution" to all outstanding issues with Pakistan. The Indus Water Treaty, he said, was a good illustration of cooperation between the two countries, and added that India was "duty bound to implement in letter and spirit all bilateral agreements". According to Indian officials, Manmohan Singh told Shujaat Hussain that technical experts from both sides can find a lasting solution to the other outstanding water-related disputes, including Baglihar. "History obliges us to seize all opportunities to pursue peace. We cannot change borders, but in a globalised world, borders do not matter," Manmohan Singh said. He emphasised that the "common enemy" was poverty, ignorance and disease. We should devote all our resources to fighting poverty".

The Prime Minister's statement came just days after Washington gave the go-ahead for the sale of F-16s to Pakistan. The Indian government, while expressing its strong disapproval of the deal, had indicated that it was interested in the U.S. offer of the more advanced F-18s along with missile defence systems. A basic F-18 platform will cost around $60 million. There are other weapons systems in the international market that are less costly and pack comparative firepower. The Indian Air Force (IAF) has officially indicated its interest in the Swedish-made Grippen, the Russian MiG-29M and the Mirage 2000-5, along with the F-16. American officials said U.S. firms would be allowed to sell to India "the next generation of sophisticated multirole combat aircraft as well as develop broader cooperation in military command and control, early detection and missile defence systems".

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that what the Bush administration was "trying to do is to break out of the notion that this is a hyphenated relationship". But the fact that the U.S. has provided Pakistan with state-of-the-art fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons and HAS offered a sophisticated military package to India shows that its policy towards the two South Asian neighbours remains very much "hyphenated".

The CPI(M) has already cautioned the government against the Bush administration's offer to sell arms. Its Polit Bureau said the Bush administration's intention was to draw India into an alliance, similar to the long-standing alliance it has had with Pakistan since the early 1950s. According to the CPI(M) leadership, the sale of advanced weaponry to the two countries suited the U.S. game plan of triggering a new arms race in the subcontinent. With America's military-industrial complex in a crisis and its status as the sole remaining superpower under threat after the Iraq fiasco, the Bush administration is dependent increasingly on arms exports to revive the country's economy.

The Polit Bureau statement said the government should be careful about the latest U.S. offer. India, the statement said, would be much better off buying defence supplies from a number of countries as the U.S. was known to be an unreliable defence partner. Venezuela is a case in point. Once the government in Caracas started taking an independent foreign policy stance, U.S. spare parts for F-16s and other planes dried up. When Venezuela started diversifying its defence purchases from countries such as Russia and Spain, Washington protested and claimed that Venezuela was destabilising the neighbourhood.

The Indian government has chosen to be critical only of the Bush administration's decision to go ahead with the long-delayed delivery of F-16s to Pakistan. A senior government official said the decision would have an adverse impact on the composite dialogue process currently on between the two countries. Manmohan Singh said it was a "matter of concern" for India. When President Bush informed him on phone the decision to sell F-16s to Pakistan, Manmohan Singh responded by conveying his "concerns" as well as his "disappointment". However, within a few days, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee termed the U.S. offer of F-16s and F-18s to India as a "positive development" as it was for the first time that the U.S. was making such an offer to India.

Washington has been lobbying openly for some time to sell its wares. The U.S. Ambassador to India, David Mullford, is aggressively marketing American planes, making it sound like an offer India cannot refuse.

The Bush administration is also offering the Indian government cooperation in its civilian nuclear energy programme. Defence analysts are, however, highly sceptical about the Bush administration's capacity to deliver nuclear power plants to India in the light of the numerous restrictions imposed by Congress and international non-proliferation agencies. Senior Bush administration officials are, however, liberal with their promises to help "India become a major world power in the 21st century" while at the same time helping Pakistan bolster its arsenal. Henry Kissinger, too, had in the mid-1970s said that America could help India achieve "big power" status.

If India is to become a "great power" it has to have an assured supply of oil and gas. Condoleezza Rice made it clear during her recent visit to New Delhi and Islamabad that the Bush administration was against the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. The Bush administration wants economic and trade sanctions against Iran to be tightened further. India had announced, on February 10, its decision to open formal negotiations with Iran and Pakistan on the pipeline. Despite the Bush administration's position on the gas pipeline, the Pakistani side formally stands committed to the project. Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri, said recently that both countries "have recognised the importance of available energy resources in the region".

Pakistani officials had privately conceded months ago that the gas pipeline, though potentially a great confidence-building measure (CBM), would inevitably face objections from Washington. Unocal, the U.S. energy giant, had proposed a gas pipeline connecting Turkmenistan and India, running through Afghanistan and Pakistan. If the situation in Afghanistan is ever stabilised, the U.S. may revive the proposal to sideline Iran and exert a stranglehold on the hydrocarbon sector in the region. According to reports, Washington has told New Delhi that if it goes ahead with the gas pipeline proposal, the Bush administration could invoke the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), which allows the U.S. to institute punitive measures on countries that invest more than $20 million annually in Iran's petroleum sector.

THE Baglihar dam dispute, which has gone to the World Bank for arbitration, is viewed as a setback of sorts to the peace process. Talks to resolve the matter bilaterally have not succeeded so far. New Delhi insists that the dam, built on the Chenab river, is essential to generate electricity for the power-starved but water-resource-rich Jammu and Kashmir. Islamabad claims that the 450-MW hydropower project, which is supposed to be operational this year, violates the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 and would deprive Pakistan of its rightful share of water.

Pakistani officials have said that India's refusal to compromise on the design of the dam "in accordance with specifications laid out in the Indus Water Treaty", casts a shadow on the composite dialogue process. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed has reiterated on several occasions that the Baglihar dam does not interfere with the flow of water and hence does not breach the Indus Waters Treaty. New Delhi has maintained that Islamabad's reference of the dispute to the World Bank "is not justified".

Despite these hiccups, all signs are that the momentum of the composite dialogue is being maintained. The bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad starting on April 7 is a new milestone in the peace process. The Pakistan President and the Indian Prime Minister are expected to carry the dialogue process a step forward when they meet in New Delhi in April. The U.S. had played a key role in getting the leadership of the two countries to restart their stalled dialogue in January last year, but it has now muddied the situation by triggering an arms race in the region and its stated opposition to the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.

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