Summit letdown but the process must continue

THE Agra Summit - the product of an overdue but heartening Indian government initiative to which the current military ruler of Pakistan responded with alacrity and elan that took virtually everyone by surprise - was, under the best of circumstances, a gamble. Given the post-Kargil, post-military-coup frost that had afflicted the bilateral relationship and the worrying upsurge of violent insurgency in the Kashmir Valley, it seemed the uncertainties were so great that there was no point in preparing for any kind of predictable outcome. Although the summiteers attempted, at moments, to make almost a virtue of non-preparation and the absence of a structured agenda, spontaneity and hearty atmospherics failed to bridge the gulf between India's and Pakistan's conflictual positions on the status and future of Kashmir and closely related issues, in particular cross-border violence and terrorism. The abandoning of the idea of an 'Agra Declaration' as a template for a businesslike and hopeful new bilateral relationship was the substantive letdown at the end of the Summit.

Given the long-term intractability of the Kashmir dispute and the resultant tensions, enmities and bad feelings, the letdown should not normally have proved as damaging as informed observers in the region apprehend it will be in the coming days and months. However, great expectations fuelled by media hype can produce quite serious negative political outcomes if they appear to be dashed to the ground and blame can be credibly assigned to the 'Other'. Secondly, the government as well as the people of India should be vigilant against the real possibility of the Agra letdown feeding the violent insurgency and the extremist organisations in Kashmir by offering a fresh cause, recycled grievances, hate-objects and scapegoats. The situation could become quite nasty in the context of India's self-generated political weaknesses on the ground in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, notably the failure to deliver a worthwhile and substantial autonomy package to its quite alienated people and the consequent weakening of the elected Farooq Abdullah government.

Could the Summit outcome have been very different?

The answer is 'No' if we take an unsentimental look at the close-to-non-negotiable positions of the two sides on the critical issues that have divided them and indeed rendered them adversaries for over half a century. Thus General Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, stepped out of his special aircraft with an Arrival Statement which proclaimed that "for more than half a century, the Kashmir dispute has cast a shadow on relations between Pakistan and India. In my talks with the Indian leaders. I will be looking forward to a meaningful, frank and substantial discussion urging them to join hands in resolving this dispute in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people. This will facilitate resolution of other issues and lead to full normalisation of relations." On every significant occasion during his first visit to the country of his birth in 54 years, Pakistan's military ruler pressed the point that Kashmir was the 'core' or all-or-nothing issue (by whatever name called) between his country and India, that no normalisation was possible unless this issue was expeditiously addressed and resolved, that the only confidence-building measure (CBM) that would work between the two countries was a solution to the Kashmir issue radically different from the one of giving permanence to the Line of Control (LoC). This, of course, flew in the face of Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh's pre-arrival bon mot that Kashmir was "not the core issue [between India and Pakistan], but the core of Indian nationhood."

What was clear from the start was that General Musharraf had come with a clear mind and mission - to make it clear to all of Pakistan that, in contrast to elected heads of government such as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, he was determined to impose Kashmir on the India-Pakistan agenda as the inescapable issue. As a military man holding in his hands the lever of cross-border support to the armed insurgency, he was giving the larger country simply no choice. If India recognised the Musharraf Plan and played along, he felt strong enough to make some concessions, such as taking up other issues "in tandem." As he explained his plan for a "breakthrough" in an informal exchange of views on the very day he arrived: "Step I, I feel, is the initiation of a dialogue. We have taken this step. The second is: we must recognise Kashmir as an issue, as the issue on which we have fought wars and that has been in the way [of peaceful and normal relations between India and Pakistan over more than 50 years]. Let's recognise it frankly and honestly. The third is a structure for solving it, maybe a time frame even. Let's take other issues along." General Musharraf went on to record the assessment that both he and Prime Minister Vajpayee enjoyed enough political "flexibility... room for manoeuvre" to achieve such a "breakthrough".

This stance and negotiating position proved irreconcilable with the Indian government's stance and negotiating position, as outlined in Atal Behari Vajpayee's tardily publicised opening remarks in the Summit. The Prime Minister, holding to the well-trodden official Indian line, opposed the idea of "operating in segments." He called for "a broad-based approach across the spectrum of possibilities in our relationship... a comprehensive view of India-Pakistan relations" that, among other things, insisted that "a framework to address the differences between us on Jammu and Kashmir would have to include the issue of cross-border terrorism in its ambit" and spoke about "other confidence-building measures to further encourage this process."

And yet, despite this predictable gulf between the Indian and Pakistani positions, the Summit outcome could have been different. A comprehensive "Agra Declaration" might not have been possible in the absence of detailed preparation to put in place appropriate practical arrangements, essentially joint working groups, for discussing all major issues of mutual concern and all significant areas of mutual interest. However, a more propitious and forward-looking first sketch of a road map for an improved and warmer bilateral relationship was eminently possible. That could have been achieved by the two sides recording, in a joint statement, their major differences frankly and honestly; ruling out non-peaceful and military solutions; committing themselves to the concretisation of a mechanism to continue the dialogue at various levels, including the top political; and pledging themselves, as a matter of the very highest priority, to find a way out of the nuclear standoff.

The lessons of the frustrating but far from useless Agra Summit need to be learned self-critically by India and put to bold and imaginative use in preparing for the next round. The positive, indeed quite upbeat note struck by Abdul Sattar, Pakistan's experienced Foreign Minister, in his post-Summit statement highlighting the "valuable progress... made at Agra on evolving a structure for a sustained dialogue process" and acknowledging that the Summit by the Taj "remained inconclusive but... did not fail" and provided "a valuable foundation for the two leaders to reach full agreement at their next meeting" offers plenty of reason for hope.