Mohammad Shehzad

Cross-border terrorism seems to have become an obsession with India. No Indian, official or unofficial, wastes a second to use a public forum to malign Pakistan by accusing it of sponsoring ‘terrorism’. The six-member delegation of Indian parliamentarians led by journalist Kuldip Nayyar, that recently visited Pakistan, was no exception. Relations between India and Pakistan can’t improve as long as Pakistan continues to sponsor terrorism.

This was the gist of Nayyar’s at a gathering arranged by Pak-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy. He was categorical in telling Pakistanis that Pakistani establishment — including army, ISI and the jhadis — were not sincere in forging peace with India. “I was inside the parliament on December 13 [2001] when it was echoing with the sound of bullets. We feared [for] our lives. Incidents like December 13 should not take place in [the] future.” He said he feared more such attacks could be mounted to derail the peace process before any summit meeting.

At a lunch which PPP MNA and former newspaper editor Sherry Rehman had hosted for the delegation, she (Rehman) told Nayyar and other delegates that they should ask their government to demilitarise Kashmir and look into the “cause-and-effect” relationship in Kashmir. Rehman also said that she wanted New Delhi to allow human rights organisations, independent observers, journalists, etc. to go to Kashmir.

"Why can’t the Indians accept independent monitors along the line of control?” Rehman raised the question while speaking to TFT. She espouses a trilateral solution to the Kashmir problem since ‘Kashmiris were the major stakeholders’. She was also frustrated by the absence in the Indian delegation of any woman MPs and the refusal by two BJP parliamentarians to join the delegation. “Woman parliamentarians were not allowed by their husbands to visit Pakistan,” Nayyar said but he did realise that Rehman had scored the point.

"This is funny. My husband did not stop me. And this is happening in the world’s largest democracy,” she told TFT. “What a silly argument it is! Then why did they [husbands] allow them [women MPs] to contest elections?” questioned a woman NGO activist. Nayyar simply avoided the question by not responding.

An Islamabad-based analyst TFT spoke with said: “Nayyar belongs to Congress, which is struggling to find political space having lost its throne to the BJP. So he wants to come across as more strident on the issue of so-called ‘cross-border terrorism’. But the issue cannot be settled without addressing the context. India will have to acknowledge that.”

Looking at the delegation’s visit from his perspective, The Hindu’s Pakistan correspondent, Muralidhar Reddy, said: “Since the surprise peace initiative by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee there is frenzied activity on several tracks on Indo-Pak front. Of course it has not meant anything substantive on ground but at least people from different walks of life have either already crossed the forbidden borders or are planning to do so.”

On the surface it does seem like an exercise in futility, but that feeling misses the whole point. The present peace initiative comes after India and Pakistan stayed alert for full 10 months to wage a war, limited or otherwise. Relations were downgraded and communication channels severed. Under the circumstances, both sides first need to recover ground. At least they have begun to do so.

"Disappointment sets in only when people begin to expect a breakthrough. Empirical evidence shows there is little possibility of any dramatic breakthroughs between India and Pakistan. What both sides need to do is to keep the communication channels open and continue to move ahead even if in small steps,” says one observer.

A diplomat in Islamabad had much the same to say to TFT. “None of this [visits] will solve the issues by itself. But there is merit in encouraging such exchanges because they serve to improve the atmospherics and keep the channels of communication open.”

The Indian delegation’s attitude in some ways was in marked contrast to what the Pakistani parliamentarians had to say while in India. In fact, one Pakistani MNA suggested that India and Pakistan should jointly patrol the Line of Control. “While he might be forgiven his lack of understanding of the issues and even the legal implications of the suggestion, at least he tried to strike the right chord with his audience. He showed that Pakistanis are more pluralistic in their approach than most Indians,” says an analyst.


Copyright ©2002 Mohammad Shehzad and The Friday Times. About the author