Talking with Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is long overdue

The good news is that New Delhi has finally woken up to the need for a communication channel with the Pakistan chief of army staff (COAS), General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

The bad news is that the Indian establishment is ignorant of protocol and new diplomacy: how to do business with the Pakistan army when a civilian dispensation sits in Islamabad.

In July 2010, Kayani gave himself (though the US takes credit for it) an unprecedented three-year extension starting November 2010 and will thus outlast both his president and prime minister to oversee Pakistan’s next general elections, lead his country’s strategic dialogue with the US when president Barack Obama’s re-election depends on Afghanistan, and control Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

A media report on March 27 said the Indian high commission in Islamabad has been told to establish contact with the Pakistan COAS. This means the Indian defence adviser would go to the Pakistani military intelligence and seek an appointment for his boss with Kayani. This was the day when having received prime minister Manmohan Singh’s invitation to witness the India-Pakistan cricket World Cup semi-final at Mohali on March 30, prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was awaiting Kayani’s clearance before responding to Manmohan Singh’s missive.

Having learnt the Zardari lesson, Gilani would not dare bypass his COAS. To recall, after 26/11 attacks, president Asif Ali Zardari, believing he had inherited his predecessor’s powers, announced without checking with General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, that Pakistan would send its director general, ISI, to India to help investigate the attacks. Zardari was both oblivious of his own army’s involvement in 26/11 and out of his depth. Within months, he was cut to size, so much so that the entire Pakistani civilian leadership is in disarray and lacks credibility.

For India, talking with Kayani is long overdue; it should have happened when he took over as army chief in November 2007. The 26/11 attacks a year later were perhaps his reminder that Delhi needed to reach out to him. He even sent his DG, ISI, Lt General Shuja Pasha, to the Indian high commission under the pretext of attending an iftar party in October 2009 to signal his growing impatience with the stalled Kashmir resolution dialogue. It has finally fallen on a lowly Indian brigadier (in the Indian high commission) to invite Kayani to probable bilateral (backchannel) talks. This will be a naive and flawed move.

Realpolitik demands that the Indian national security adviser (Kayani may disregard an invitation from his Indian counterpart) invite the Pakistan army chief to visit India and maybe speak at the National Defence College in Delhi; the backchannel signal should be that the Indian prime minister would be pleased to meet him. This could be the beginning of a formalised strategic dialogue with Pakistan. Without this, the present bilateral and backchannel talks with Pakistani civilian leaders will continue to flounder with the possibility of more 26/11 attacks.

Were this to happen, it would slowly transform India’s conduct of its national security; a necessity considering that the military in both Pakistan and China is part and parcel of their national security policy-making. Hypothetically, if Kayani were indeed to visit India, he would also meet the Indian military leadership.

This could be the moment of introspection for the three Indian service chiefs to assess glaring discrepancies in relative levels. In Pakistan, all corps commanders function at both operational and strategic levels; while preparing their command for war, they are key advisers to the COAS on national security matters. In India, even the service chiefs are operational players. For example, after the 26/11 attacks, Manmohan Singh met the three chiefs only once to know their views on conduct of war. It is another matter that on their own initiative, they started preparing for a likely Indian retaliation with possibility of escalation. Instead of being members of the cabinet committee on national security headed by the prime minister, the service chiefs remain content with being special invitees when called to attend.

After the 1998 nuclear tests when India declared itself a nuclear weapon state, for service chiefs to remain operational players when they are responsible for the delivery of strategic (nuclear) weapons is a fatal national security shortcoming. The government knows what reforms and corrective measures need to be taken. It is, however, afraid that they may make the military bold enough to seek a larger role. And hence the hesitation to invite General Kayani, Pakistan’s real power centre, to India.

The writer is editor, FORCE newsmagazine. The article will appear in the April issue of FORCE