Two Punjabi PMs rekindle hopes of India-Pak peace

Within 24 hours of police claiming to have eliminated a top ranking Lashker-e-Toiba militant in the thickly populated locality of downtown Srinagar, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militants, in a dreaded ambush, killed four soldiers near Tral in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Friday. While the militants “decamped with two AK-47 rifles of the soldiers”, a militant was killed by the security forces in the operation launched by the army immediately after the lethal attack took place.

The killed militant holds a BTech degree and had joined the “militant” ranks only a month ago; educated youth still enthralled by militancy obviously is a bad omen for peace in Kashmir. Just a day earlier, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah had indicated a significant reduction in the incidence of violence.  “There was a 36% decline in militancy-related violence in J&K during 2012 as compared to 2011 and 54 security forces’ bunkers were removed from public places here in 2012,” Abdullah had confidently claimed last Wednesday.

In another disturbing incident, ceasefire violation along the Line of Control in Tutmari Gali in Kashmir took place on Friday evening; “a brigadier and two jawans were injured in firing from across the border”. And, according to some unconfirmed reports, an Indian soldier was also killed in an “IED blast in Krishna ghati sector of Poonch in Jammu division”.

The prospects of peace in Kashmir truly resemble a rollercoaster of hope and despair.  In the morning, a probable Indo-Pak bonhomie brightening the idea of peace may virtually get demolished with the occurrence of a nasty violent incident towards the evening. The tit-for-tat savagery of Sarabjit and Sanaullah had almost confirmed the worst apprehensions that the two Siamese twins, India and Pakistan, will perhaps never overcome their deep mistrust that now ferments a lasting enmity.

For the moment, however, the elections in Pakistan have, to some extent, cheered-up the otherwise all-encompassing depressing situation.  Pakistan prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif, even before assuming charge, formally extended an olive branch to India. Prime minister Manmohan Singh reciprocating the sentiment in equal measure has apparently improved the atmospherics. Providence has provided a unique opportunity: two Punjabi migrant prime ministers of India and Pakistan are again at the helm of affairs in their respective countries. Nawaz Sharif’s family of Kashmiri origin migrated to Pakistan from a village, Jatti Umra, near Amritsar, in 1947.

Equally, the poisonous atmosphere of Partition had forced a young Manmohan Singh along with his family to leave his village Gah near Chakwal (in Pakistani Punjab) for Amritsar. The 2,000-odd inhabitants of Gah have been eagerly waiting for the homecoming of their most illustrious son Manmohan Singh since the time of his becoming prime minister.  The jubilant villagers of Jatti Umra distributed sweets on Nawaz Sharif’s recent electoral victory. It’s not for the first time that two migrant Punjabi prime ministers are about to run the show in India and Pakistan.

In the middle of the 1990s, at the height of militancy in Kashmir, the late Inder Kumar Gujral and Nawaz Sharif had laid the foundation for a Indo-Pak composite dialogue. The famous couplet of Ali Sardar Jafri, “Guftagu bandh na ho, baat se baat chale” had almost become the signature tune of Inder Kumar Gujral, aptly emphasising the continuation of talks for friendly relations. Gujral’s persistence of “let’s keep on talking”, despite all the traditional blockages and ups- downs — the very nature of Indo-Pak relations — eventually resulted in institutionalising the peace process. Atal Bihari  Vajpayee’s historic bus ride to Lahore was, in a way, paved by the composite dialogue process.

The presence of two Punjabi prime ministers in New Delhi and Islamabad have perhaps rekindled hopes for lasting peace. People who know Manmohan Singh intimately will vouch that deep inside, he is fully committed, rather convinced, with the idea of peace with Pakistan. Due to his unassertive nature he, however, was unable to overcome the ingrained institutional mistrust towards Pakistan; 26/11 finally constrained his space for a meaningful peace initiative.  A sustained peace overture from Pakistan in a relatively violence-free atmosphere may help realign the derailed peace process. The businessman-turned-politician Nawaz Sharif seems to be committed to doing that, at least publicly. 

However, while Nawaz Sharif is on the ascendancy, repeated scams have tarnished Manmohan Singh’s image of an honest politician. A year before elections are due, Manmohan Singh seems to have lost control over the affairs of his government. A dispensation barely surviving from one crisis to another can hardly be expected to muster enough courage to venture on a path-breaking peace process with its deeply estranged neighbour.  In the event of a Narendra Modi kind of leadership emerging victorious after the next elections, the prospect of a peace process with Pakistan becoming more remote sounds to be a foregone conclusion.       

At a time of a perceptible upswing in Indo-Pak relations, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai virtually barging in, along with his ambitious “wish list” of arms and ammunition, last week was the most inappropriate time for him to visit India,   Peace in Kashmir, or for that matter, in India on the whole, cannot be forged via Kabul. An enhanced military cooperation between India and Afghanistan at this very juncture may trigger a much wider conflict in the entire region.

For India to arm Kabul regime will provide Pakistan a readymade excuse to further equip Taliban and also push them towards Kashmir. The valley again becoming an arena for a bloody tug of war is a most scary scenario. One hopes that the mandarins in Delhi have not missed the caution of a national daily: “If the US with all the lethality it commands, could not find a military solution to the Taliban, how likely is it that the Afghan National Army will succeed in such an endeavour?”

The author based in Srinagar writes on contemporary issues.Views expressed are personal.