To use a cliché, nature abhors a vacuum. This is especially true of the world of the mind. In the absence of vigorous intellectual activity, nostalgia, wishful thinking and slogans take over. This has happened in our. Thus many of us talk of pre-partition days as if that event was an aberration which can be erased from memory. And we regard as axiomatic the slogan that India’s and Pakistan’s security is indivisible. The Pakistanis have neither shared this wishful thinking nor subscribed to this absurd proposition. In the ‘fifties, President Ayub Khan proposed a joint defence pact but refused to identify the actual or potential enemy. Some of us did this for him. We identified the enemy, the Soviet Union, and urged Mr. Nehru to walk into the trap laid by the Pakistani general.
It would not have been necessary to recall this episode in the chequered history of Indo-Pakistan relations if many of us were not showing signs of suffering from a similar confusion now. But the signs are loud and clear and cannot be ignored.
At the time of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979, India had a caretaker prime minister, who could not, on one reasonably reliable account, distinguish south-east Asia’s map from Africa’s. But while short on knowledge of international affairs, he was not short on prejudice. He was anti-Nehru, and therefore anti-Soviet, or vice versa. Naturally, he lost no time in summoning the Soviet ambassador in New Delhi and reading him a long lecture denouncing the Soviet action. Mr Charan Singh could not have regarded himself as a successor to imperial heritage, but he acted if he did.
Absurd Charge
In January 1980, Mrs. Gandhi was returned to office. Even before she could be sworn in, instructions had to be sent to the Indian representative at the UN in view of the impending debate on Afghanistan in the general assembly. As is well known, the Indian stand as then defined exposed Mrs. Gandhi to the charge of being pro-Soviet. The charge was absurd and sought to blot out the fact that Soviet military intervention, however unjustified in itself, had taken place in the context of certain developments – the US refusal to ratify the SALT-II agreement, its decision to deploy Cruise and Pershing-II missiles in Europe and to set up a rapid deployment force for use in the Gulf, the possibility that Washington might send troops into Iran to rescue US diplomats being held as hostages and try and set up a puppet regime in Teheran once again. But ever since, we have adopted a defensive stance on the issue.
Mrs Gandhi sought to develop with Pakistan a common approach for getting Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. It is possible she was seeking to prevent Pakistan getting involved in the US-led attempt at a military solution of the problem. But implicit in her move could also be the proposition that the security of Pakistan was a matter of concern for India. One cannot be sure as far as Mrs Gandhi is concerned. Generally she is tough-minded on such issues. But there cannot be much doubt that many Indian policy makers and commentators have accepted this assumption as self- proven.
This is a hangover from the past when the whole sub-continent was ruled by the British government which regarded the Hindu Kush, not just the Khyber, to be India’s security frontier and sought to convert Afghanistan into a “friendly” buffer. Ideas travel in all kinds of ways and influence the most unlikely individuals.
Too Tempting
In the event, Mrs. Gandhi’s efforts failed because the Pakistani ruling junta found the US offer of military assistance too tempting and also perhaps the Saudi pressure too difficult to resist, accompanied as it was by promises of generous hand-outs. Saudi Arabia has since lived up to its pledge. It has already agreed to pick up the first bill of $450 million and will no doubt pick up others as the US delivers F-16s and other lethal weapons to Pakistan.
On a cold calculation Pakistan’s security cannot be our concern. As such we need not have taken any position on Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The fact of Afghanistan being close to our borders certainly does not oblige us to work for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from there. After all, we have not felt called upon to take a stand on the US decision to sell military hardware worth $8.5 billion to Saudi Arabia and a host of other American moves in countries close to our borders.
Such a stance on our part will doubtless invite the charge of cynicism, pro-Sovietism and indeed of conspiracy (with Moscow) to break up what remains of Pakistan. But if Pakistan feels free to define its stand on Afghanistan without any reference to us and invite US intervention in the region, there can be no good reason why we should not feel free to stay quiet and neutral.
It can be argued that by this logic we have no right to object either to the US decision to arm Pakistan or Islamabad’s to accept the conditions which Washington may lay down. This is, in fact, the case. The trouble, however, is that the same weapons can be turned against us in the future, as the US-gifted armoury has been in the past. And surely no one can argue that we have no right to be concerned with our own security.
Pakistan’s protestations of friendship for us cannot possibly help resolve this difficulty. We have to take the necessary measures to step up defence preparedness on a cool and objective assessment of the likely military balance in the subcontinent. And we have to argue with the Americans. We are not without leverage in dealing with Washington.
The US is concerned primarily not with Pakistan’s security vis-a-vis the Soviet Union but with the survival of the pro-West and conservative Sheikhs in the oil-rich Gulf. In its grand design it has assigned a certain role to Pakistan. We do not know what this role is. But whatever it is, Pakistan, in order to play it, must not have to worry about its frontier with India. Thus it is in America’s own vital interest that there is no acute conflict between India and Pakistan. We have to find out what it is prepared to do for us to achieve its objectives. From our point of view it is not enough that the Kashmir issue is frozen. It has to be settled once and for all.
It is not necessary for us to answer the question whether President Zia is pushing the no-war pact on us at Washington’s instance or in order to silence criticism of the Reagan administration within the United States. Indeed, we can assume that both factors – the US pressure and the need to disarm American critics of military aid for Pakistan – are operating on him. But he is avoiding the central issue of Kashmir and we are assisting him by talking in terms of principles like bilateralism and non-alignment. This is escapism on our part. Contrary to the assessment of our foreign policy experts, Pakistan can one day accede to our proposals on both points and put us in an embarrassing position.
We concluded the Simla Agreement in 1972 as if in a fit of absent-mindedness and great generosity. We ignored Mr Bhutto’s record of promoting hatred of India in Pakistan and his role in the 1965 war. And we accepted his plea that he needed time to settle the Kashmir issue finally. But behind it all also lay the “calculation” that Pakistan’s stability was important for us and that Mr Bhutto alone could ensure order in that country. Apparently our leadership, political and bureaucratic, did not pose to itself the question why Pakistan’s stability under Mr Bhutto was so important for us as to oblige us to throw away a unique opportunity of settling the Kashmir issue finally.
Kashmir Issue
The same story is being repeated now. This time some of us are willing to throw away the leverage of the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, the dissidence in Baluchistan, the unpopularity of General Zia and the widespread suspicion of America in Pakistan and elsewhere in the region. Why? To what advantage? It is doubtful that the Indian negotiators have so far even asked their Pakistani counterparts to define the territories to which the proposed no-war pact is to apply.
I for one see no good reason why the Pakistanis cannot accept the Indian definition of non-alignment and commit themselves not to concede bases to the US where any number of American personnel can come in under the guise of advisers and trainers. They may find it more difficult to concede that they will never raise the Kashmir issue at the UN or any other international forum. But implicit in our definition of bilateralism as contained in the Simla Agreement is the acceptance that the dispute over Kashmir continues to exist and needs to be settled. Surely we cannot pretend that this is a satisfactory state of affairs.
Finally, President Zia’s efforts to establish an “Islamic” society in Pakistan make it necessary for us to insulate our minority from its influence if we are not to jeopardise our success, impressive by any yardstick, in building a secular social order in our country.
(Concluded)
The Times of India, 11 February 1982