FROM THE TELEGRAPH OF 3 MAY 2005
|
MUHABBAT-I-MUSHARRAF
|
|
Musharraf
is the man who slipped a fast one in Kargil, who refused to salute Vajpayee
in Lahore, who turned Agra into a tamasha. And now he comes and starts
talking of having a new heart, pays compliments to Manmohan Singh, goes
calling on Vajpayee. Has he really changed? Or is he just pretending?
At
the time of Partition, Pakistan suffered three reverses. One was the loss of
Kashmir. Pakistan sent a ragtag army to conquer it. K.P.S. Menon flew to
Srinagar with an Instrument of Accession, Maharaja Hari Singh signed it toute
suite, the Indian army threw out the intruders and occupied most of Kashmir.
Another was the loss of Junagadh. After the Nawab acceded to Pakistan,
Kanaiyalal Munshi collected a few dhotiwallas, some rusty swords and ladders
and climbed over the walls of Junagadh. So that he should come to no harm,
the Indian army followed. The Nawab took a boat to Karachi with his dogs. The
third was Hyderabad. On 15 August, 1947, the British ceded sovereignty, and
gave the Princes independence. The Nawab thought that was for real, and
declared independence. Indian newspapers reported that Razakars, his
irregular troops, were attacking and oppressing his Hindu subjects. The
Indian army was sent in to restore order, and put a quick end to the Nawab's
independence.
So
Pakistan started with a generous stock of umbrage. The first chance to take
revenge came in 1965. India was in an economic crisis and on the verge of
famine. Nehru had died, and little Shastri had taken over. Troops of both
countries skirmished in April 1965 in the Rann of Kutch. The Indian troops
withdrew, and Pakistan claimed victory. In August, Pakistan slipped in troops
into Kashmir; India attacked near Lahore in retaliation. In January 1966, the
moustachioed President Mohammad Ayub Khan met Shastri in Tashkent and signed
an agreement. Both sides ceased fire, returned occupied territory and freed
prisoners. It was an honourable peace that could be passed off as victory by
both sides, and they did.
Then
in 1971, India attacked East Pakistan, severed it and took 90,000 Pakistani
troops prisoner. Ayub Khan abdicated, and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto became prime
minister. This time there was no meeting on neutral territory; Bhutto had to
go to Simla hat in hand and plead with the victorious Indira Gandhi. He told
his teenage daughter, Benazir, ""Do not smile; remember our
soldiers who died and are imprisoned. And do not look grim, otherwise the
Press will say the talks are doomed." "Yet, it was difficult to
look unhappy as our Indian hosts smilingly and happily met us. The warmth of
their reception was infectious, even if Indian Premier Gandhi was more
aloof," wrote Benazir recently.
The
defeat could not be passed off as victory, so it was passed off as Bhutto's
treason. Lieutenant General Javed Naser, ex-chief of Inter-Services
Intelligence, writing in October 2004, charged that Bhutto agreed to two
different conditions in the Simla agreement. It said that Indian and
Pakistani armies would be withdrawn to their side of the international
border. But "In Jammu and Kashmir, the line of control resulting from
the ceasefire of December 17, 1971, shall be respected by both sides without
prejudice to the recognised position of either side." In other words,
both sides could keep the gains they had made in Kashmir. Amongst them
apparently were the heights on the way to Kargil occupied by the Indian army.
Bhutto understood the implications according to Naser, but accepted the terms
to humiliate the Pakistani army. Having occupied the Kargil heights, the
Indian army built a road to Ladakh along the Shyok river, and went on to
occupy Siachen in 1984.
Then
follow two versions. Naser's is that in 1989, General Aslam Beg, Chief of
General Staff (CGS), presented a plan to President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and PM
Benazir Bhutto: the heights of Kafir Pahar, Damgul, Tortuk Challunka on the
way to Kargil should be occupied. That would cut off Siachen and force the
Indians to vacate it. Benazir rejected the plan because it would lead to a
war. General Beg felt that India could not afford a war since it had sent
three divisions to Sri Lanka, but he was not prepared to stage a coup.
According to Lt Gen Sikandar Khan Baloch, however, this plan as well as the
one to train and slip in terrorists into Kashmir were made by President
Zia-ul-Haq. By 1998, the terrorist operation in Kashmir was in full swing;
the supply of terrorists trained by Pakistan had increased to a point where
their tour of service across the border was as short as 18 months. The Indian
army was stretched. No party had a majority in the Indian Parliament, which
was headed towards another election. In May, Pakistan staged its nuclear
ceremony; after that India could not risk a general war. So, according to
Javed Naser, General Musharraf, whom Nawaz Sharif had made CGS, implemented
the 1989 plan and infiltrated soldiers in fortified positions along the
Kargil heights in March 1999. Sharif was told that the heights had been
occupied by Kashmiri terrorists.
Their
presence was a complete surprise to the Indian army. The Vajpayee government
decided to keep the conflict local and not to cross the LoC. That limited the
scope for using air power. The Indian army could not slip behind the Kargil
heights because it would have been exposed to Pakistani shelling. That left
the task largely to infantrymen climbing steep hills against fire from dug-in
positions. So India took huge casualties. Revenge at last.
Except
that the Pakistanis could not withdraw their troops from the heights under
Indian fire. So Sharif had to go to Washington and plead with Clinton, who
put pressure on Vajpayee to let the Pakistani troops withdraw. Which he did.
Kargil too turned out like the Bangladesh war: Pakistan had to plead for a
favour and retreat publicly. Why did Musharraf, the architect of Kargil,
start talks with Vajpayee? Because he saw a chink. In Lahore, Vajpayee did
not impress with his statesmanship or his astuteness. On Kargil, he showed
himself to be a novice incapable of learning an elementary military lesson: that it was suicidal to send infantry to take fortified hill positions. So
Musharraf thought he would try his hand at talking to Vajpayee - maybe trap
him in talks as he had done in war. Unfortunately, unable to win a mandate to
negotiate, Vajpayee confronted Musharraf in Agra with the entire bellicose
top brass of the BJP. Musharraf saw that he would get nowhere, so he gave a
pyrotechnic TV show before Indian editors and flew back.
Why,
now, has he changed? Why is he so nice about Manmohan Singh? Maybe because
it is impossible to do otherwise. Manmohan Singh may be easy to disdain or
underestimate; but he is a difficult man to dislike. He is warm, courteous
and attentive. He neither trades insults nor hurls pseudo-history at
Musharraf. He does not talk the costive language of foreign affairs. And he
is always looking for some forward step.
But
Musharraf is nice also because no other strategy shows promise at the moment.
He has not given up on hostility; if another opportunity offers itself, he
will try it out. For lack of anything else, why not try charm? And being the
earnest, energetic, indefatigable man that he is, he will apply charm full
strength: for the general, diplomacy is war by another means. But he will not
do anything that would increase the cost of hostility or benefits of a rapprochement
to Pakistan - open up trade and investment, for example.
|
