The Rediff Special /J N Dixit

Patch up or perish

Former Pakistan foreign minister Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, participating in a seminar on Indo-Pakistan relations at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in New Delhi in 1996, expressed the view that while common sense and logic favours normal friendly relations between India and Pakistan, there is a deep line of hatred between the two countries, which has to be overcome before any positive move could be made in this direction.

Sahibzada's views were not palatable in the emotional "let us build bridges" ambiance of the seminar. However what he defined was a substratum of varity which has affected Indo-Pak relations for the last half century. This antagonism cannot be wished away. It is based on historical memories of the partition, the evolution of the controversy on Kashmir and the role that India played in the break-up of Pakistan in support of the liberation struggle of Bangladesh.

The people of India and Pakistan will have to eradicate the line of hatred described by Yaqub Khan if the peoples of the sub-continent have any meaningful vision about their future well-being. That there are some tentative prospects of such an endeavor being jointly undertaken by India and Pakistan was reflected in the resumption of foreign secretary-level talks between March 28 and 31 and the discussions which I K Gujral and Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan had in Delhi on April 9 at the end of the Non-Aligned Foreign Ministers' Conference.

The prime ministers of India and Pakistan will meet in Male on Monday, the first such high-level meeting to take place after P V Narasimha Rao's meeting with Nawaz Sharif in Dhaka in April 1993. Foreign secretaries Salman Haider and Shamshad Ahmad met despite the polemical and contradictory statements made in Delhi and Islamabad just before the talks took place indicates two things. First, that the governments of India and Pakistan perceive a groundswell of public opinion in both countries advocating an end to hostile attitudes and the need for fashioning normal cooperative relations. Second, that both governments are engaged in a complex tactical exercise to move on to a positive track of bilateral relations, while trying to assuage prejudices and suspicions which still affect the psyche of the people of both countries.

It is time to introspect whether we should remain enmeshed in the bitter and flawed inheritance of the past or whether the people of India and Pakistan should transcend them with a creative vision animated by a desire to resolve the genuine problems that the sub-continent faces. Kashmir, Siachin, concerns about interference, potential hegemonies are less important than the profound issues of peace, stability and development which will affect our future.

Some illustrative facts starkly describing our collective and tragic predicament are worth recalling. The UNDP's Human Development Report for 1996 states that South Asia is and will be the poorest part of the world in the foreseeable future. It will also be the most illiterate region of the world, equally lacking in primary health facilities. More children go hungry in South Asia than in any other part of the world. South Asia has the largest number of minor children involved in labour. The preliminary estimate is that there are 134 million such children who work for 15 hours a day on an average. South Asia contains 40 per cent of the world's absolute poor, surviving on just a little less than one dollar a day. South Asia requires primary schooling for a minimum of 126 million children, basic health care for nearly 700 million people, safe drinking water for nearly 800 million people, apart from meeting the nutrition and family planning requirements of 400-500 hundred million people.

The UNDP's estimates are that this will cost $ 129 billion over the next 15 years. That is $ 8.6 billion per year. This is apart from the need for resource mobilisation for developmental purposes and for modernising the economies of the countries so that we can become effective participants in the new international economic order emerging after the end of the cold war.

What, however, is actually happening is that India spends between 7-10 per cent of its Budget on defence and has to provide for another $ 25- 27 billion dollars for debt servicing and other external inputs needed for sustaining economic development. Pakistan spends nearly 25 per cent of its Budget on defence and another 50 per cent on debt servicing, depending on external assistance to manage other aspects of its economic survival.

Both common sense and clinical logic should make the governments of the two countries and people seriously question whether this infructuous, non-productive expenditure on defence, fuelling an arms race, is justified. Unless one suffers from jingoistic hallucinations, the inescapable answer is "No".

Geography, history, linguistic, religious and cultural linkages alongwith incontrovertible economic complimentarity between our two countries make the antagonistic relations between India and Pakistan patently irrelevant and unacceptable. Even if one makes allowances for the stipulation that politics is not logical, perhaps is a matter of general perceptions, historical memories and emotions, we must realise that the need is to change these perceptions and emotional orientations which are detrimental to our collective interests. This process may take time, but the endeavour should commence.

A radically innovative approach must be sought to resolve the Kashmir issue. India and Pakistan sticking to their rigid negotiating stances and territorial claims based on historical and colonial arguments is not going to solve the problem. Nor would insistence on reviving UN resolutions or both sides claiming the entire territory of the state of Jammu and Kashmir achieve this purpose. A more objective and clinical perception of the geo-political and geographic nature of the territories which comprise the state of Jammu and Kashmir should be the basis for exploring possible solutions.

The state was the creation of Dogra Imperium which consisted of areas and peoples with distinct demographics, religious, ethnic and linguistic characteristics. One only has to perceive the identities of Ladakh, the valley, Jammu, Baltistan, Gilgit and other areas under the control of Pakistan now to realise these diversities. If one looks at the history of the state from the late 17th century onwards, it manifests a significant coincidence that areas now under the control of Pakistan are those which had closer linkages with Afghanistan, the Northwest Frontier Province and Pakistani Punjab, whereas the areas under the Indian control now had linkages with Tibet, with the power structures in Delhi and with the Hindu and Sikh kingdoms and principalities.

The Line of Control, as drawn in 1972, in a manner confirms the traditional geo-political identities of the regions which came under Dogra rule. Despite this being so, the unilateral insistence by India that the Line of Control as it is should be acknowledged as the international border would not be acceptable to Pakistan. A practical solution should be the recognition of the traditional geo-political and demographic identities of different segments of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and of meeting of contemporary geo-strategic interests of both India and Pakistan.

Pakistan should also not argue for Jammu and Kashmir's affiliation to it on the basis of the two-nation theory or as a completion of what former Pakistani president Ghulam Ishaq Khan called "the unfinished tasks of the partition". Pakistan should take into account Indian geo-strategic interests and the ramifications of any solution of the Kashmir issue on the polity and socio-religious and demographic integrity of India.

The most significant contemporary interest of Pakistan would be to have strategic elbow room to safeguard the Karakoram highway and the Kumjerab Pass. India's interest is to acquire similar elbow room to neutralise the vulnerabilities of Jammu against possible Pakistani threats. Both India and Pakistan should give territorial concessions responsive to these respective interests. Both should compromise.

Former prime minister Deve Gowda's statement that the Line of Control with adjustments could bring about a solution of the Kashmir issue can germinate such a solution. India should give some territory in the northern extreme of the Line of Control of Pakistan which should reciprocate by ceding territory at the southern edge of the Line of Control to meet India's concerns.

Negotiations will no doubt be complex and fraught with emotional prejudices, political claims and strategic apprehensions. They would take time, but in my assessment, negotiations with this balanced objective in view should commence as early as possible during the current cycle of dialogue which began in March.

The confrontation at Siachin should be ended while India and Pakistan are engaged in substantive negotiations on the Kashmir issue. A mutually acceptable draft agreement for military disengagement from the Siachin heights has been in existence since November 1992. There is no reason why that agreement should not be implemented. If there are some political and military details to be sorted out because of the five years that have passed since the finalisation of this agreement, the task should not be insurmountable.

The other issues related to the Wullar Barrage or Tulbul navigation project, the demarcation of the boundary at Sir Creak, etc can be negotiated, because the technical aspects of these issues have more or less been sorted out. They are hanging fire only because of political reticence on both sides, which should be given up.

Beginnings have already been made to revive people-to-people contacts, liberalise travel facilities and expand bilateral economic relations. There is increasing public support on both sides of the border for such cooperation. The governments of India and Pakistan should respond to these orientations in public opinion, otherwise their claim to be democratic governments would become spurious. Reduction in defence expenditure, availability of resources for developmental purposes and augmentation of foreign exchange resources, which will benefit both countries, are obvious if such a purposeful process of discussions is sustained.

All this of course involves educating public opinion and garnering their support. The only way to resolve the points of controversy between India and Pakistan is for the governments of the two countries to realise and for them to convince the people of India and Pakistan that the combined interests of nearly 1.2 billion people of the sub-continent are infinitely more important than the controversies which have bedevilled our relations for the last 50 years. Maintaning communications imbued with realism is the only option available to India and Pakistan. This option should not be given up. Whatever the pressure or difficulties may be.

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