“Either diplomacy or war”

Source: Indian Express
Thursday , Aug 13, 2009 at 2353 hrs New Delhi:

“Trust but verify,” the Prime Minister says, invoking Ronald Reagan. Of course, Reagan did not just stop at enunciating a maxim. He worked to, and succeeded in helping dismember “the Evil Empire.” One does not have to even ask whether the Prime Minister will do anything of the sort.

But take the maxim itself that the Prime Minister says he believes in following. Has all verification not already shown that Pakistan has not just been organizing terror-strikes against India, it has conducted a proxy-war continuously, unrelentingly for three decades? Evidence apart, haven’t the highest authorities of Pakistan acknowledged as much? Did Musharraf not proclaim, “Jihad is an instrument of State policy”? Has Zardari not said just a fortnight ago that, indeed, Pakistan spawned terrorists? Has our Army not said just a few weeks ago that infiltration into Kashmir has been stepped up again?

The Prime Minister’s reason for going on trusting is belief, it is faith in the current leadership of Pakistan. He told Parliament on 29 July, “I sincerely believe that it is as much in Pakistan’s interest as it is in ours to strive to make peace. Pakistan must defeat terrorism before being consumed by it. I believe the current there understands that. It may not be very strong, but the impression that I have is that the current leadership understands the need for action. [What “may not be very strong”? The current leadership of Pakistan? The understanding that the current leadership of Pakistan has about the need to fight terrorism? Or the impression that the Prime Minister has formed of the understanding that the current leadership of Pakistan has about fighting terrorism?] I was told by their parliamentarians who accompanied Prime Minister Gilani that there is now a political consensus in Pakistan against terrorism. That should strengthen the hands of its leadership in taking the hard decisions that will be needed to destroy terrorism and its sponsors in their country.”

Last time the faith was in George Bush – “The people of India love you, deeply.” Will we never learn? When Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister, we were told, “No, no, you don’t understand. She and Rajivji have excellent rapport. You see, they were at Cambridge at the same time” – as Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Bhutto had been at Oxford in their time! When Nawaz Sharif replaced Benazir, we were told, “No, no, you don’t understand. He is a businessman. He is a practical wheeler-dealer. We can cut a deal with him.” When Musharraf ousted him, we were told, “No, no, you don’t understand. He is going to be there for years, in any case. It is with him that we have to strike a deal.” When he weakened, the argument became the opposite: “You don’t understand. We have to be generous and come to an agreement that he can present to the Pakis as a victory. Don’t you see, the alternative to him are the mullahs? We have to trust him. We can trust him. You see, he has learnt from Kargil.”

Now that Zardari and Gilani have replaced him, “I believe the current leadership there understands that.” Advocates in the Rajya Sabha added the tested argument: “Don’t you see, whenever there has been democracy in Pakistan, relations with India have been better? If we don’t reach out, these current leaders will weaken. The Army will be back, and relations with India will worsen once again.”

Trust apart, are Zardari and Gilani the “current leadership”? Is it not that collective – the Army, the ISI, and the organizations they have spawned, the LeT/JuD, and the like? On the one hand, the Prime Minister asks us to trust the new realization among the current leaders. On the other, in the same statement to Parliament, he reports that both Zardari and Gilani told him that “Mumbai was the work of non-State actors.” Anyone who is prepared to swallow that does not know a fig about, or is deliberating shutting his eyes to the pervasive presence and role of the Army-ISI and allied agencies in Pakistan’s State and society. But even if that assertion is taken at face value, what does it establish? That Zardari and Gilani may be the “current leadership”, they are not in control. How then can a new realization among them – on which also the only evidence we have is the Prime Minister’s gut feeling, “I believe the current leadership understands that…” – be the basis of policy?

And what precisely is this current leadership prepared to “seriously address”? After the Taliban had reached within 100 miles of Islamabad itself; after the Americans had put the fear of a complete rupture into them, these “current leaders” began an offensive against the Taliban. Only against the Taliban in its western provinces. Indeed, even in that region, only against those sections of the Taliban that have gone out of the control of the ISI-Army.

Neither the “current leadership”, nor, of course, the Army-ISI have raised a little finger against the terrorists and organizations they have reared in the East for assaults on India. Quite the contrary, as we shall see.

The moral is what it has always been: do not go by your assessments of “current leaders”. Go by the nature of Pakistan’s State and society. Go by the attitude of that State and society towards – not Pakistan; not the world; not the US, but – our country. And in that, go by their attitude to what they have made into their obsession regarding our country – that is, Kashmir. Is there the slightest evidence that the basic attitude towards India, and towards what they insist is “the core issue” has changed in any way?

“But we cannot change geography,” the argument goes. “Pakistan is our neighbour. It will always be so.” For seven months, the PM says, we have used all bilateral and multilateral instruments. It is only after doing so that the new course embodied in the Sharm-el-Sheikh Joint Declaration has been charted. Actually, the only things that have been done are two: plead with the US and others to do something; and go on talking to Pakistan at different levels. Naturally, this could not and has not yielded anything.

Pakistan will not desist from what it has for three decades been successfully inflicting on us for the simple reason that we are not able to, and manifestly do not have the nerve to inflict any cost on the ones who are orchestrating the assaults.

But it is diplomacy or war, says the Prime Minister, and the Congressmen echo him in chorus. There is no third alternative.

But even in one element – dialogue – of one of these alternatives, diplomacy – there are two alternatives! Dialogue after the preconditions you have laid down are fulfilled. Or dialogue irrespective of whether what you said were preconditions are fulfilled or not. To get the answer to the question whether the choice is only the binary one that the PM posits –“diplomacy or war” – consider two questions:

• How is it that Pakistan has been able to use a third option against us for 30 years? The option, namely, to inflict, and go on inflicting violence on us, but always do so at a level below the threshold that would trigger a full-scale war?

• How is it that Dawood Ibrahim is able to live in style in Karachi and go on orchestrating operations against India? How is it that Paresh Barua and other leaders of ULFA are able to hide in plain sight in Dacca and go on killing people in Assam?

The answer is obvious: Pakistan has built the requisite capacities, and we have not. After every assault, therefore, we are left in the same quandary: “Either diplomacy or war.” And “diplomacy” here means just going from one capital to the next requesting others to do our work for us.

But things obviously don’t stop there. There is the further lemma: “And as no sane person wants to go to war, the only way is dialogue.” And then the lemma after that: “As Pakistan has shown that it will not fulfill the pledge it had made of not allowing the territory under its control to be used for terrorism against India, there is no alternative to giving up the precondition…”

And so we recommence dialogue – confident that the next assault will make us forget the last one.

Foretold

In the wake of the attacks in Mumbai, the Prime Minister and others in Government laid down two conditions for the resumption of talks and the “peace process”: that Pakistan must bring to book the ones who had planned, controlled and directed the operations from Pakistan; second, that it must dismantle the infrastructure and groups that it had built up for terrorist assaults against India.

These two conditions were reiterated again and again in the months that followed. S.M. Krishna emphasized them as the new Parliament commenced. I said and wrote then that the Government would be compelled to abandon these conditions and resume the so-called dialogue without any conditions whatsoever.

That required no astrology! The reason was simplicity itself. Americans are desperate to get out of Afghanistan. To do so while retaining the pretext that they have accomplished their objectives, they have to be able to claim that they have restored “normalcy”. For that they are dependent on Pakistan. They will, therefore, have to do Pakistan’s bidding. And that bidding will be, “Get us concessions from India.” They will, therefore, force the Government to make concessions. And the modality for that has to be resumption of “dialogue”.

The Government would have to do all this, I said, as it has become perilously dependent on the US.

How much more “composite”?

That is exactly what has happened. The Prime Minister has had a meeting with the Pakistani President. He has had a two-hour meeting with the Pakistani Prime Minister. As The Hindu has reported, and as the Prime Minister has subsequently acknowledged, the head of the ISI, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, has met Military Attaches in our embassy in Islamabad. There have been meetings at other levels – the “formal Track-II”, so to say. In the Sharm-el-Sheikh Joint Statement the roadmap for further talks has been set out: Foreign Secretaries will meet “as often as necessary,” the Foreign Ministers will meet during the forthcoming UN General Assembly session – which, incidentally, begins in just three weeks.

And the talks that have already started cover everything. The Joint Statement says that the two Prime Ministers “considered the entire gamut of bilateral relations…” Not just that. Our PM has pledged that “India was ready to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues” – the last two words being a euphemism for Kashmir.

The Government makes out that the “composite dialogue” shall actually be kept in abeyance till, as the PM put it in the Lok Sabha, “Pakistan fulfils, in letter and spirit, its commitment not to allow its territory to be used in any manner for terrorist activities against India.” Yet, as we have seen, the talks are taking place. The roadmap for further talks has been set out. The agenda is to cover everything.

A vital substitution

Several other aspects in regard to this sleight of words should be noted. Twice in his statement in the Lok Sabha, the Prime Minister; and then on the 31st July, S.M. Krishna in the Rajya Sabha laid down as the condition that “Pakistan fulfill, in letter and spirit, its commitment not to allow its territory to be used in any manner for terrorist activities against India.” Ostensibly this is the commitment that it had made in the Joint Declaration of Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Musharraf in February 2004.

Do you notice the change the PM and Krishna have made? In the Vajpayee-Musharraf Declaration the words had been carefully chosen: Pakistan shall not allow the territory “under its control” to be used for terrorist attacks against India – that meant the territory of Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Replacing “territory under its control” by “its territory”, as Manmohan Singh and Krishna have begun doing, means either of two things: either that we now recognize POK as Pakistani territory, something that the Vajpayee-Musharraf Declaration specifically did not do; or that Pakistan does not have to do anything in regard to groups and infrastructure that it has created in POK and is using against India.

Another bit of bad drafting?

Furthermore, as “all issues, including outstanding issues” are on the table, has Parliament been told; have even the leaders of other political parties been taken into confidence; I dare ask, have other members of even the Cabinet Committee on Security been taken into confidence about the contours of the “solution” to Kashmir that the Government is prepared to arrive at with Pakistan?

Apart from the intrinsic importance of the issue of Kashmir, there are two reasons why the question is important. First, as we saw in the Nuclear Deal, and as we have now seen in the abandoning of preconditions to which the Prime Minister had committed himself and his Government, Manmohan Singh’s stratagem is to present everyone with a fait accompli. Second, the Resolution that the Parliament passed unanimously on Kashmir and which stands unaltered to this day is that the only unfinished business in regard to Kashmir is for India to get back the portion illegally occupied by Pakistan. Does the Government stand by that Resolution or not?

Foolhardiness to foolishness

Foolhardiness crosses all limits in two subsequent clauses of the Joint Statement. First, “Both Prime Ministers recognized that dialogue is the only way forward. Action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed” – an expression that gives, to use the expression much favoured by the Prime Minister, a clean waiver to Pakistan from the commitment it had undertaken in the Vajpayee-Musharraf Joint Declaration.

Nor can this be put to bad drafting. For it faithfully reinforces what Manmohan Singh had agreed to in the statement he signed with Musharraf in April 2005. The peace process is “irreversible”, the two proclaimed. Further, the two “pledged that they would not allow terrorism to impede the peace process.” What was the result? Musharraf’s Army and ISI continued to execute their murderous operations against India; and the onus to keep these from impeding the peace process fell on India! The consequence of the new Statement will be exactly that.

The next provision raises foolhardiness to foolishness: “Both leaders agreed that the two countries will share real time, credible and actionable information on any future terrorist threats.” Imagine this pledge had been signed earlier. The equivalent of Zaradari and Gilani in Pakistan receive information that the Indian Embassy in Kabul is going to be blown up. You think they will pass the information to India? Remember that even the friendly American agencies were constrained to say that the ISI had planned the assault. Or look at it the other way: we get to know that terrorists have captured Kuber, and are moving in to attack Taj, the Railway Station, Oberoi in Mumbai; should we give that information to the Pakistani Government so that its agencies and the handlers may alert the terrorists?

Will we never learn? In July 2006, there were a series of blasts in trains across Mumbai. Two hundred were killed. What was the creative response of our Government? Within two months, in another act of faith, it set up a “Joint Mechanism” with Pakistan for fighting terror! This was presented as the great breakthrough, the result of out-of-the-box thinking – “For the first time Pakistan has agreed to cooperate in curbing terrorism. No earlier Government has been able get Pakistan to do this.” If you count only the major strikes by Islamic groups and only from six months after the Mechanism was formed, giving it time to get functional, so to say, and excluding all the strikes in J&K and the entire Northeast, you bump into the explosions on 19 February 2007 near Diwana in Haryana: 68 killed; in Hyderabad on 18 May 2007: 11 killed; in Hyderabad again on 25 August: 44 killed; in Ajmer on 11 October: 3 killed; near simultaneous blasts in Varanasi, Faizabad, Lucknow: 15 killed; in Rampur on 1 January 2008: 8 killed; 8 blasts in Jaipur on 13 May 2008: 80 killed; 8 blasts in Bangalore on 25 July 2008; 17 blasts in Ahmedabad on 26 July 2008: 53 killed; 5 blasts across Delhi on 13 September, and again on 27 September 2008: 27 killed; 26 to 29 November 2008: assaults at multiple locations in Mumbai: 166 killed. In between, there was the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008. And, of course, the attacks across Kashmir, and the Northeast… [For an authentic, regularly updated enumeration, see the outstanding South Asia Terrorism Portal, www.satp.org]

And all through the Joint Mechanism was holding meetings. Of course now, it will not just hold meetings. The Prime Ministers have pledged that it will also pass on or be furnished “real time, credible and actionable information”!

Narrowing even the single condition

That enumeration is a cruel reminder of another facet of our collective psychology: convenient amnesia. We allow, in fact, we almost use every assault to erase from our minds the memory of previous assaults. Of no one is this truer than of our governments. In the Joint Statement that our Prime Minister has signed, the demand that Pakistan dismantle and destroy the infrastructure and groups which it has set up to attack India, of course, finds no mention. But nor does any assault except the attack on 26/11 in Mumbai. The Indian demand has now been reduced to the minimum – that is, that Pakistan bring the organizers and directors of that attack to book.

And notice what the Pakistani Prime Minister has pledged to do even in regard to this minimal demand. In the Joint Statement we are told, “Prime Minister Singh reiterated the need to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to justice. Prime Minister Gilani assured that Pakistani will do everything in its power in this regard.” And now see how things work out to the convenience of the perpetrators and organisers. Under pressure from countries across the world, Pakistan put the head of the LeT/JuD, Hafeez Sayeed, under house arrest. In the judgement which the Lahore High Court delivered on 6 June 2009, the High Court released Hafeez Sayeed even from the minor inconvenience of remaining in his own house, recording that not a single document had been brought on record that the Dawa or Sayeed or his associates were involved in the Mumbai incident. It also recorded that no evidence had been adduced to establish that Sayeed or any of his associates had any links with Al Qaeda or any other terrorist movement. Indeed, the court went on to say that “the security and anti-terrorism laws of Pakistan are silent on Al Qaeda being a terrorist organisation.” When the case came up before the Pakistan Supreme Court, the position was no different. The oral remarks that fell from the Chief Justice were along the same lines. Sayeed has, therefore, been set free even from having to remain in his own house.

How very convenient! To make a show of doing something, you ask the man to stay in his house. At the hearings, you produce no evidence. The Court frees the man even from that minor inconvenience. And you claim that you have done everything you had pledged to do. Recall that the Pakistan Prime Minister has pledged Pakistan to do “everything in its power in this regard.” Surely, now the Pakistani authorities can say, “What can we do? Our courts have set the man free. Doing anything more about him or his associates is not in our power.”

In fact, what more evidence is required for proceeding against a person like Hafeez Sayeed or Sallauddin who operates to this day out of Muzzafarabad in POK? Their speeches are available on tapes by the hundreds. The literature recording their hate-filled words and the murderous declarations of their organisations against India and Indians are available in piles and piles of publications. But, to the convenience of all concerned, the court insists on “specific evidence”; the Government produces none; the court sets the man free to work his evil. The commitment enshrined in the Joint Declaration is fulfilled!

The perpetrator as Judge

Nor is that the end of this predictable tale. The Joint Statement goes on to record, “He [ the Prime Minister of Pakistan] said that Pakistan had provided an updated status dossier on the investigations of the Mumbai attacks and had sought additional information/evidence. Prime Minister Singh said that the dossier is being reviewed.” That is exactly what I had warned would happen. Soon after the Mumbai carnage, the Government announced that it would give detailed evidence and information to Pakistan. At that very time, I warned of the consequence of doing so: you will be installing Pakistan on the seat of the Judge; the authorities there, the controllers of those authorities – the very ones who would have sanctioned and planned these attacks – will now be pronouncing on whether the evidence you have given them is sufficient and credible or not. Even the Home Minister, P. Chidambram, has since been compelled to say that furnishing evidence to Pakistan has become an endless exercise – they just keep asking for more. As The Indian Express reported the other day, now Pakistan has asked for a sample of the “pink foam” taken on board MV Kuber; a statement from the Indian magistrate who recorded the confessional statement of Kasab; the testimony of experts who conducted the forensic examination of the GPS device; the testimony of experts that establishes that the terrorists were in touch with handlers in Pakistan; the interrogation reports of others who were first arrested, and so on. As for what we will do now, the Joint Statement records our Prime Minister assuring the PM of Pakistan, “the dossier is being reviewed”!

But through this dossier Pakistan has admitted that persons of and from Pakistan have been responsible for terrorist attacks on India, the PM says. This is the first time that Pakistan has made such an admission. The NDA Government was never able to get the Pakistan Government to admit as much… With Kasab in our hands, with his having made a detailed confession, admitting to the role of Pakistanis is the least that the Pakistan Government could have done.

I become the cause!

Then there is the howler regarding “Baluchistan and other areas.” Apropos of nothing, the Joint Statement records, “Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that Pakistani has some information on threats in Baluchistan and other areas.”

Pressed to put up some sort of defence, Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha that this was just the unilateral view of the Pakistan Government. Is a Joint Statement of two Prime Ministers the place in which one of them records his unilateral assessment of some internal problem that is on his mind? And just see what the Prime Minister of Pakistan said immediately after the Sharm El Sheikh Statement was put out: “The Joint Statement underlines our concerns over India’s interference in Baluchistan and other areas of Pakistan.” The Interior Minister of Pakistan, the Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army have all been asserting that India is behind the troubles, and not just in Baluchistan. Pakistan has blamed the troubles in Swat, the explosions at the Police Academy in Lahore, even the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers on India. And here is our Prime Minister signing a Joint Statement incorporating this “unilateral view”.

The Prime Minister told the Lok Sabha that he had categorically told the Prime Minister of Pakistan that India had nothing to do with the troubles in Baluchistan, etc. As that was the case, what was the difficulty in adding one sentence after that “unilateral view” of the Pakistan Prime Minister? Why could just a few words not have been added to record, “In response, the Prime Minister of India said that India had nothing to do with the troubles in Baluchistan or any other areas of Pakistan”?

But the Government and its backers were not done. In both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, they invoked me to explain the reference to “Baluchistan and other areas” in the Joint Statement! Had I not said in Parliament, they demanded, had I not written that Pakistan will desist only when we acquire the capacity to do a Kashmir to Pakistan in Pakistan? Had I not said that Pakistan itself was presenting us opportunities in Baluchistan, Baltistan, POK, etc.? Had I not said, they asked, “Not an eye for an eye, not a tooth for a tooth. For an eye, both eyes. For a tooth, the whole jaw”? How can you now object to the reference to Baluchistan in the Statement? they demanded.

What importance these spokesmen confer on me! That two Prime Ministers should be moved to make a reference to matters just because of what I had said. I might as well say all that again. After all, that is exactly the view I hold. And may be, by my saying it again, in the next Joint Statement they will refer to me by name!!

Faithful drafting

To attribute all these things to “bad drafting” is worse than disingenuous. No official, certainly not a Foreign Secretary who has served the country with great distinction in the most delicate assignments for decades, would have slipped up on a document as important as a Joint Statement of two Prime Ministers. Quite obviously, someone whose command he could not disregard would have told him to agree to the words which we now find in the Joint Statement.

Moreover, the words faithfully reflect the convictions on which the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, has been proceeding all these years. When the Joint Statement puts the victim of Pakistan’s terrorism – that is, India – at par with the perpetrator of that terrorism – that is, Pakistan – it does so in furtherance of his oft-expressed view that Pakistan is a victim of terrorism. When this Joint Statement records, “Both Prime Ministers recognized that dialogue is the only way forward. Action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed,” the Statement does no more than once again reaffirm what Dr. Manmohan Singh pledged in the statement he signed with President Musharraf in April 2005, namely that the two of them “would not allow terrorism to impede the peace process.”

Characteristic

But red herrings are the well-practiced device. The Government has signed the End Use Monitoring Agreement with the US. It maintains, with the same disingenuousness, that, in fact, the Agreement precludes the United States from unilateral inspections of equipment it supplies – that the venue and timing of the inspections shall be determined by India. This is how the Prime Minister put it in the Lok Sabha: “There is no provision – I repeat, there is no provision – for any unilateral action by the United States side with regard to inspection or related matters. India has the sovereign right to jointly decide, including through joint consultations, the verification procedure. Any verification has to follow a request; it has to be on a mutually-acceptable date and at a mutually acceptable venue. There is no provision for on-site inspections or granting of access to any military site or sensitive areas.”

The US supplies F-16 fighters. What will we do? Bring them for display for display and inspection to the India Gate? The US supplies some optical devices for our Air Force’s aircraft. What will we do? Take them out of the aircraft for them to be inspected at some civilian venue?

The fact is that American officials – Condoleezza Rice, Nicholas Burns, and others – had repeatedly assured the US Congress that the Administration would ensure, what they called fall-back safeguards. That is, if the US was not satisfied with the inspections that were carried out by the IAEA, the agreements to be signed with India would ensure that India would give access to US inspectors to inspect the equipment and materials which had come from the US. And the 123 Agreement specifically provided for this – all that it did was to replace the word “inspectors” by the word “experts”. India pledged under that Agreement to “facilitate” the visits of those “experts”.

The End Use Monitoring Agreement merely operationalizes that pledge, and enlarges it to cover all sensitive supplies from the US. That is how the US Assistant Secretary of State, Philip Crawley said that this new Agreement is part of the understandings arrived at during the negotiations of the Nuclear Deal. But we are to swallow, “mutually acceptable date and venue.”

The device is even more evident in regard to the Prime Minister’s new observation in regard to the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies. Throughout the discussions on the Nuclear Deal, when persons like me read out specific provisions of the 1954 US Act, of the Hyde Act, Government spokesman maintained, “But those are laws of the US. We are not bound by them.” The question was: “Is the US Government bound by them? Will US companies that will be exporting materials and reactors and technologies to India be bound by them?”

Persons like me read out the specific provisions of US laws as well as the repeated affirmations of President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and others in which they pledged that India would not be given the processing and enrichment technologies, and that the US Government would work with other members of the NSG to ensure that they also would not make such technologies available to India. But, “No, we are not bound by US laws or what US officials say… ‘Full” means full…”

And now see what the Prime Minister has slipped in. Responding to the concerns which members had expressed about restrictions that seem likely on transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to India, the Prime Minister told the Lok Sabha:

“…our Government is fully committed to the achievement of full international civil nuclear co-operation. Consistent with this objective in September last year, India has secured a clean, and I repeat we secured a clean exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, one that was India specific. At that time also, there were attempts to make a distinction but we got a clean exemption which means that the Nuclear Suppliers Group consisting of 45 countries has agreed to transfer all technologies which are consistent with their national law.”

Did you notice the last seven words -- “which are consistent with their national law”? But, exactly as persons like me had pointed out at the time, the US laws – the 1954 Act, the Hyde Act, the new Act passed in October 2008 approving the 123 Agreement – prohibit the US from transferring such technologies and they bind the US Government to work with other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to ensure that they also refrain from transferring such technologies.

That is the device: do what you will; present everyone with a fait accompli; and slip in a few words every now and then to establish that you have done nothing which you have not already said you would do!

Just the trailer

Each step is leading to the next one. The Joint Statement which the Prime Minister has signed with the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the disastrous concessions which he has made through it, are not a case of bad drafting. They are what the conductor – the US – finds convenient. We should, therefore, open our eyes to what is coming: pressures to withdraw over troops from Siachin; pressures to grant “autonomy” to Kashmir… All this simply because the US, dependent as it is on Pakistan today, has, to get Pakistan to curb the terrorists along its Afghan border, to deliver to Pakistan what the latter has not been will to get on its own.

Open your eyes now. No use wailing after the deeds are done.

An empty claim?

Source: Indian Express

Monday , Sep 08, 2008 at 2352 hrs

Arun Shourie

Manmohan Singh and his spokespersons have said times without number that the US has assured India of “uninterrupted fuel supplies”. They have pointed to Article 5(6) as proof to say that the 123 Agreement enshrines this commitment. I had pointed out at that very time that the Article is just a face-saving farce. Manmohan Singh had told Parliament that the Americans had assured him that they would ensure “uninterrupted fuel supplies”, and that this would be provided in the 123 Agreement. In the event, the Americans did not budge an inch, they refused to incorporate any assurance to this effect in the 123 Agreement. At the last minute, to pleas that something had to be done to save face of the Manmohan Singh Government, they agreed to cut and paste his statement saying that in the 123 Agreement such an assurance shall be incorporated. But this was the 123 Agreement! What was to be provided in this 123 Agreement was left to some future 123 Agreement!

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Yet, the people here were sought to be fooled - we have got the Americans to promise us “uninterrupted fuel supplies”. Indeed, the insinuation went further - it was almost as if fuel supplies could not now be stopped under any circumstances. In answer to question 15 and again in answer to question 18, the US government states that only if fuel supply is interrupted for no fault of India, shall the US assist in resuming it. Thus, if some US firm fails to live up to its commitment to supply fuel, or if there is some disruption in global markets, the US will chip in. But if, for instance, we test; or we default in the account we keep of uranium we import, mine and use; or if we default on any of the numerous conditions prescribed in the 123 Agreement, the Hyde Act, the agreement with the IAEA, as well as under the guidelines of the NSG, and, as a result, fuel supply is stopped, the US will most emphatically not step in to restore fuel supplies.

Similarly, while we have been fed the fiction that the US has agreed to our building “strategic reserves” of fuel so that our reactors are not subjected to the Tarapur experience, twice in this document — from answers to questions 19 and 20 — we learn that there is no assurance to this effect. That India can secure fuel only, as the Obama amendment in the Hyde Act provides, for “reasonable operational requirements”. Not just that. The replies reveal that what this phrase - “reasonable operational requirements” - implies is not clear at all!

Manmohan Singh has repeatedly asserted that, in the event fuel supplies are interrupted or other difficulties are created, India has the right to take “corrective measures”. What is this magic bullet, we have wanted to know. Of course, there has been no answer. The US Congress asked Bush’s officials the same question. What does the Indian PM mean by “corrective measures”? The suggestion has been that, if things don’t turn out to our satisfaction, we can always withdraw our reactors from safeguards.

The answer to question 25 and again the answer to question 42 show how empty a claim this is. The Indian Government has not described what the expression means, the US Government says: we expect India to live up to the letter as well as the spirit of its commitment that it shall adhere to the safeguards “in perpetuity”. Furthermore, says the US Government, quoting the precise words to which persons like me had drawn attention in Parliament, the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has told the US Congress, “We have been very clear with the Indians that the permanence of the safeguards is the permanence of safeguards without condition.”

When the text of the 123 Agreement became public, I had drawn attention to the minatory Article 16. This provides that, should India, in the judgment of the US, step outside its commitments, even if the Agreement is terminated, the US shall have the right to get back every bit of nuclear material, every bit of non-nuclear material, every reactor, component, every ounce of fuel it has supplied under the Agreement. This position is reiterated in answers to questions 41 and 42.

Manmohan Singh keeps repeating, and so do the managed parts of the media, that India’s right to test remains unaffected. The US Congress as well as officials of the US Government have made it absolutely clear that the moment India tests, even if it is for peaceful purposes, the 123 Agreement will be terminated, and all nuclear commerce will stop. These consequences shall follow immediately. This position is reiterated in this document not once but four times - in answers to questions 16, 17, 37 and 38.

But it is not only in regard to tests that the government has woven falsehoods. The answers make two further things explicit. First, a test by India is not the only circumstance which triggers these consequences. It is just one of the circumstances that will invite the termination of the Agreement and the stoppage of all nuclear commerce. Other circumstances will be, such as a “material violation of the 123 Agreement, or termination, abrogation, or material violation of International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.” Notice the “such as” that I wrote in the preceding sentence: these are not the only circumstances that will trigger the consequences. The answer refers to them with vital prefatory words, “for example”. Second, as the answer to question 38 puts it, that this is the import of Article 14 of the 123 Agreement is clear and well understood by India as much as by the US.

The final blow, the one that comes in response to the last question, number 45, is devastating as it shows how blatantly the Manmohan Singh Government has been lying. It has been maintaining that in the 123 Agreement, if nuclear commerce with India is stopped, the US Government has pledged that it will assist India to get the supplies, etc., from other members of the NSG. This sort of an assertion could be made only on the belief that everyone concerned is an idiot. Yet, not only has it been made, it has been swallowed and spread by sections of the media.

The Hyde Act binds the US Government to ensure the opposite — namely, that, if it terminates the 123 Agreement and stops nuclear commerce with India, it shall ensure that India cannot get the supplies from any other member of the NSG. That position is reiterated, and the pledge that the US Government will indeed ensure this is repeated in answer to question 45. The US Government has drawn attention of the Congress to the guidelines that exist in the NSG, and pledged that they will apply in case the US stops nuclear commerce with India.

Paragraph 16 of the NSG guidelines, the US government says, “provides that suppliers should (1) consult if, inter alia, one or more suppliers believe there has been a violation of a supplier/recipient understanding; (2) avoid acting in a manner that could prejudice measures that may be adopted in response to such a violation; and (3) agree on “an appropriate response and possible action”, which could include the termination of nuclear transfers to that recipient.” If the NSG agrees to the exception for India, the US Government assures, this guideline “would apply in the case of any nuclear transfers by a Nuclear Suppliers Group supplier to India.” And yet the falsehoods continue.

And now comes the NSG waiver. Hailed as a great victory for the country, it seals the three-year-long effort to get India into the two-layered net — a layer to limit the country’s ability to enhance its strategic capabilities; and the second layer that follows from the first: as we will not be able to acquire the sinews ourselves. To secure us against China, we will necessarily have to seek protection under the American umbrella.

Recall that the Hyde Act has several provisions that prescribe what India must do in regard to the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, the Wassenaar Arrangement, the MTCR, the Proliferation Security Initiative. Manmohan Singh declared in Parliament that these are “extraneous provisions” and that India shall not accept them. Just the other day, Pranab Mukherjee repeated, “We shall not accept any prescriptive conditions.” “The waiver must be unconditional and clean”, the Government has been saying all along.

The waiver, which is being hailed as a great national victory, states that it is being given as India has undertaken “the following commitments and actions.” Among these is the pledge that it shall continue its moratorium on tests. Both as a result of the 123 Agreement with the US, and now by the pledges made to the NSG, the Government has converted what was a voluntary decision into a pledge that is now a binding international commitment.

And make no mistake, it is a commitment for the indefinite future. For, as Japan has stated after the meeting, nuclear commerce with India shall cease the moment it tests. Second, exactly as the Hyde Act requires, India has pledged “its readiness to work with others towards the conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty.” Yet, we are fed the lullaby: “The Hyde Act does not apply,”

Third, having entered the cage, we are now subject to scrutiny by NSG members in accordance with, to take just one instance, part 2 of the NSG guidelines. These say, in portions, that each member country shall have to be satisfied that India’s “statements and policies” “are supportive of nuclear non-proliferation” and that our actions are “in compliance with its international obligations in the field of non-proliferation.” The “non-proliferation” that concerns us is not of our giving nuclear technology or materials to others, but of our developing our strategic weapons.

Put this requirement alongside the statement that Pranab Mukherjee made on behalf of the Government to secure the waiver. In that statement the Government pledged that India shall desist from “an arms race including a nuclear arms race,” and that it will join steps being taken towards disarmament and non-proliferation. But all those agreements — the MTCR, the FMCT, the Wassenaar Arrangement, the PSI — agreements and arrangements about which Manmohan Singh had said India has “reservations”, which he said are “extraneous” to the nuclear deal, are one and all regarded by the NSG members as steps that are necessary for non-proliferation. By pledging to abide by guideline 2 of the NSG, and to have our “compliance in this regard to be assessed by each member before and as it trades with us, we pledge ourselves to signing up on each of them. It is not for nothing that, after the meetings, Germany, which had been presiding over the meetings, declared that India shall now have to undertake to work for the “entry into force of the CTBT and a termination of fissile material production for weapons.” Exactly what the Hyde Act prescribes.

Finally, contrary to the falsehood that the Government has been feeding us, that should the US stop nuclear supplies to India, it is bound by the 123 Agreement to help India obtain them from other countries, the waiver has been given on the condition that all members shall ensure the opposite.

Paragraph 3(e) prescribes as follows: Participating Governments will maintain contact and consult through regular channels. For the purpose of considering matters connected with the implementation of all aspects of this Statement taking into account relevant international commitments or bilateral agreements with India. In the event that one or more Participating Governments consider that circumstances have arisen which require consultations, Participating Governments will meet, and then act in accordance with paragraph 16 of the Guidelines.

And that paragraph requires that all members act in such a way that, if one country decides to terminate nuclear supplies to a recipient country, in this case India, that recipient is not be able to obtain the supplies from elsewhere. Exactly what the Hyde Act asked the US Government to ensure, and exactly what the US Government pledged in that letter to the US Congress it would ensure.

And yet, “The Hyde Act does not apply,”; “the US administration letter has no force of law”; “a national victory”. The Government has taken the country into a chakravyuh — the consequences will unfold one by one. As for the media, I can only plead with great sadness in my heart, do not make yourselves an instrument of falsehoods. The consequences far transcend your momentary shows and “stories”.

Time to deal with the aftermath

Time to deal with the aftermath

Arun Shourie

Then came the point on which the prime minister received much applause. Members like me had drawn attention to the very comprehensive and intrusive inspections that were being accepted. Government spokesmen insisted that we had, in fact, been recognised as a Nuclear Weapon State, and that the IAEA would devise “India-specific safeguards”. These, we were sought to be convinced, would be akin to the ones that apply to the five Nuclear Weapon States. I had drawn attention to four vast differences.

First, the sheer numbers. The total number of nuclear power reactors in the five Nuclear Weapon States is 217. Of these 217, just eleven are open to inspections. Of the 104 nuclear power reactors that the US has, only five are under IAEA safeguards. By agreeing to place two-thirds of our 22 reactors, that is 14, under safeguards, the government was now placing a larger number of Indian reactors under safeguards than the total number placed by all the five Nuclear Weapon States taken together! That is just the beginning: with the government having committed to put all new civilian reactors including breeder reactors under safeguards, President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and others have pointed out, within a few years 90 per cent of India’s reactors will be under safeguards.

Second, there is an even more basic difference: the Nuclear Weapon States can withdraw any reactor, equipment or material from the ambit of safeguards. Under the agreement with the US, India was being made to place its reactors under safeguards in perpetuity.

The third difference relates to the nature of inspections: for the Nuclear Weapon States, these are infrequent and nominal. Under the Information Circular of the IAEA that the US is insisting shall apply to us, inspections are frequent and most intrusive.

But there is an even more consequential factor. Under the US Bill as it had been passed by the House and the version that had been approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, inspections would not be limited to inspections by the IAEA. The US would have a right to send its own inspectors.

The prime minister was emphatic. He stated repeatedly that the safeguards agreement that we would enter into with the IAEA would be “India specific” — of course, neither he nor any other government spokesmen indicated or has since indicated how it would differ in regard to the first three points that I have listed above: the frequency and intrusiveness of inspections; our not being able to remove reactors from under safeguards as the Nuclear Weapon States are allowed to do; the agreement being without conditions. But for the moment, I am on what he said in regard to the fourth point. He said: “There is no question of India signing either a Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA or an Additional Protocol of a type concluded by Non-Nuclear Weapon States who have signed the NPT. We will not accept any verification measures regarding our safeguarded nuclear facilities beyond those contained in an India-Specific Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA. Therefore there is no question of allowing American inspectors to roam around our nuclear facilities.”

That last bit, “Therefore there is no question of allowing American inspectors to roam around our nuclear facilities,” drew the loudest applause. The PM reverted to the point. He said later in the debate: “In the Separation Plan, we have agreed to offer for IAEA safeguards nuclear facilities specified in the Separation Plan for that purpose. The nature of safeguards will be determined by an India specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA. This will be applied to the safeguarded nuclear facilities in India. Therefore, there is no question of accepting other verification measures or third country inspectors to visit our nuclear facilities, outside the framework of the India specific safeguards agreement.”

Well, Section 107 of the Senate Bill provides explicitly for detailed inspections — and not just by the IAEA. In particular, Section 107(3) requires that the US-India Agreement ensure,

“In the event the IAEA is unable to implement safeguards as required by an agreement between the United States and India arranged pursuant to section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2153), arrangements that conform with IAEA safeguards standards, principles, and practices that provide assurances equivalent to that intended to be secured by the system they replace, including —

“(A) review in a timely fashion of the design of any equipment transferred pursuant to the agreement for cooperation, or of any facility that is to use, fabricate, process, or store any material so transferred or any special nuclear material used in or produced through the use of such material and equipment;

“(B) maintenance and disclosure of records and of relevant reports for the purpose of assisting in ensuring accountability for material transferred pursuant to the agreement and any source or special nuclear material used in or produced through the use of any material and equipment so transferred; and

“(C) access to places and data necessary to account for the material referred to in subparagraph (B) and to inspect any equipment or facility referred to in subparagraph (A).”

In a word, India will have to provide not just records and reports, but also allow access to American inspectors. And neither the US administration nor the senators have been in any doubt on this score. In answer to a pointed question in this regard, secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “In addition, in accordance with normal practice, the administration is seeking a provision in the agreement for ‘fall-back’ safeguards (i.e. direct verification by the United States of material, equipment and components subject to the agreement) if for any reason IAEA safeguards are not being applied to those items as provided in the agreement. This is necessary to satisfy the requirement in Section 123(a)(1) of the A(tomic) E(nergy) A(ct) that the safeguards provided for in the agreement will be maintained ‘so long as the material or equipment remains under the jurisdiction or control of the cooperating party, irrespective of the duration of other provisions of the agreement (like that for IAEA safeguards).

“In general, the United States (like other NSG participants) relies upon IAEA inspections and monitoring. However, the United States would in fact be able to conduct ‘special verification visits’ in the form of fall-back safeguards as required by the US-India agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation in the event that IAEA safeguards were not being applied.”

During the debate, Senator Biden, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, observed, “Indian officials are reportedly upset that American personnel might need to visit India’s nuclear sites. It should come as no surprise, however, that we need to ensure that US nuclear materials, equipment, and technology are not diverted to military uses.” He emphasised that, apart from other factors, the US is bound by its obligations under Article I of the NPT not to allow such diversion when it enters into nuclear cooperation agreements with Non- Nuclear Weapon States, “And India remains a Non-Nuclear Weapon State under both the NPT and US law, despite the fact that now it does have nuclear weapons.”

So, if, as the prime minister put it, American inspectors will not be allowed to “roam around” in our nuclear plants, will they be allowed to loiter in or march through them? Is that the distinction that we will now be fed?

On top of Section 107, there is now Section 115. As Dr Gopalakrishnan, former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, has pointed out, this new section was suddenly, and without any discussion at all, inserted into the bill on the floor of the Senate. Under it, Indian nuclear establishment is obliged to enter into “cooperative research” about technologies and practices for non-proliferation with a new agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration - an agency that had not figured in the Indo-US discussions at all, and whose principal function has hitherto been the denuclearisation of the erstwhile Soviet satellites.

Dr Anil Kakodkar, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, has now gone on record to say that this section, intrusive as it is, has come as a “surprise” to him, that it is a cause of “additional concern”, that we do not need this kind of “cooperation”.

Tests in the future

The prime minister turned next to the provision in the bills as they stood at the time regarding our testing nuclear devices in the future. In their testimony before Congressional Committee as well as in other public statements, US officials had been explicit: we have made it absolutely clear to the Indian negotiators, they said, that, should India ever carry out a nuclear test, the deal would be off. I remember reading out in the Rajya Sabha the statements as well as the specific provision of the bills. The prime minister was emphatic:

“There is provision in the proposed US law that were India to detonate a nuclear explosive device, the US will have the right to cease further cooperation. Our position on this is unambiguous. The US has been intimated that reference to nuclear detonation in the India-US Bilateral Nuclear Cooperation Agreement as a condition for future cooperation is not acceptable to us. We are not prepared to go beyond a unilateral voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing as indicated in the July Statement. The same is true of other intrusive non-proliferation benchmarks mentioned in the proposed US legislation. India’s possession and development of nuclear weapons is an integral part of our national security. This will remain so.”

Well, what will the government’s stand now be because Section 104(3b) of the bill as finally passed by the Senate states, “A determination under section 105 and any waiver under section 104 shall cease to be effective if the president determines that India has detonated a nuclear explosive device after the date of the enactment of this Act.”

Furthermore, the Section 104 specifies that the deal would be contingent on full observance by India of Section 123(a)(4) of the US Atomic Energy Act — that latter provision lays down that, should any nuclear device be detonated for any reason whatsoever not only shall all nuclear commerce be halted with the country, the United States shall have the right to demand the return of “any nuclear materials and equipment transferred pursuant” to the agreement for cooperation as well as any “special nuclear material produced through the use thereof if the cooperating party detonates a nuclear explosive device.”

In its report, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is absolutely emphatic on this score. It says, “The committee believes that there should be absolutely no ambiguity regarding the legal and policy implications of any future Indian nuclear detonation. The president must terminate all US-origin exports and re-exports of nuclear materials and equipment or sensitive nuclear technology to India, and the committee expects the president to make full and immediate use of US rights to demand the return of all exports and re-exports to India, if India tests or detonates, or otherwise causes the test or detonation of a nuclear explosive device, for any reason, including such instances in which India describes its actions as being ‘for peaceful purposes.’ The committee believes that termination would include the suspension and revocation of any current or pending export or re-export licenses, and that the return of US-origin items and materials should extend to any special nuclear material produced by India through the use of any nuclear materials and equipment or sensitive nuclear technology exported or re-exported to India by the United States.”

Nor is the termination of all nuclear commerce in such an event likely to be confined to the US. Condoleezza Rice gave a glimpse of discussions that American officials have been having with other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group when she told the Senate Committee, “Our interlocutors in the NSG have made it clear that their support for accommodating civil nuclear cooperation with India hinges upon India’s successful implementation of its commitments in the July 2005 Joint Statement, including India’s commitment to continue its moratorium on nuclear testing. We do not have the official views of potential nuclear suppliers regarding a termination of transfers of nuclear material, including fuel and technology, to India should India detonate a nuclear explosive device. However, we expect that there would be irresistible political pressure for NSG participants to terminate any transfers of nuclear material and technology to India should India detonate a nuclear explosive device.

“Moreover, there is a provision in the NSG guidelines calling for suppliers to meet and consult if a supplier believes there has been a violation of the supplier/recipient understandings resulting from the guidelines, particularly in the event of, among other things, an explosion of a nuclear device. India’s 1998 nuclear tests prompted the NSG to meet in an extraordinary plenary for such consultations. The guidelines further reference the possibility of a common response, which could include the termination of nuclear transfers.

“We have made it clear to the Government of India that the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative relies on India’s commitment to continue its unilateral nuclear testing moratorium. This gives India clear economic and energy incentives not to test.”

That last point — of creating “clear economic and energy incentives not to test” — has been a cornerstone of this “Energy Cooperation Initiative.” The principal sponsor of the bill, the influential head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Senator Richard Lugar, while moving the bill, emphasised the same point. He told the Senate that the objective of the bill is to provide “a lasting incentive for India to abstain from further nuclear weapons tests and cooperate closely with the US in stopping proliferation.” Recall the enormous pressure to which successive Indian governments have been subject by fuel supplies being cut-off to just the Tarapur reactor — one that produces a mere 365 MW of power. Imagine the pressure that will descend on them when we are faced with the prospect of 35,000 MW being switched off. That is what Rice and others mean when they talk of creating “clear economic and energy incentives not to test.”

Four conclusions for government, two for us

There are several other features of the bill as it has been passed by the Senate that fly in the face of the assurances that the prime minister has given to Parliament. But the few that I have listed are sufficient to show that not one of the “concerns” that the prime minister said he has conveyed to the US president has been heeded - not one, not in the least. The Senate has stuck to the version about accepting which the prime minister had said India has “grave difficulties”. Yet his spin-doctors are declaring victory. And many in our media are lapping it up.

The US is not to blame for this. Their process is so transparent that no one here can pretend that anything at all in the foregoing has come as a surprise. The administration there as well as their legislators want closer ties with India — both because they see India at last beginning to stretch itself to its potential, and also as a possible counter to the growing power of China. But for them, non-proliferation is also a very important objective. The NPT has been a vital and, in a sense, very effective mechanism for arresting the spread of nuclear weapons. But it has begun to fray: India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have acquired the weapons in spite of the Treaty. Brazil, Argentina, Turkey, Egypt, Taiwan are within reach of them. The treaty has also not been able to prevent clandestine proliferation — for instance, by Pakistan. Americans and others have accordingly been looking for other devices with which to supplement that treaty.

The Indo-US agreement is devised as a possible model to achieve this objective among others. American officials have made no secret of this. Pressed about its rationale, this is how Rice responded during her testimony before the Senate Committee:

“Under this initiative, 65 per cent of India’s thermal reactors will be brought under safeguards, a figure that the Indian government has said could rise as high as 90 percent as India procures more civil reactors in the next 15 years. To put this in perspective, imagine the alternative: Without this initiative, 81 percent of India’s current power reactors — and its future power and breeder reactors — would continue to remain outside of IAEA safeguards. The Indian nuclear power program would remain opaque, a nuclear black box.”

Indeed, one of the most knowledgeable experts on South Asian security matters told me that India itself should look ahead - to a situation in which, as a consequence of North Korea’s weaponisation, Taiwan goes nuclear; in which, as a consequence of Iran’s weaponisation, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia feel compelled to go nuclear; in which Pakistan continues its clandestine proliferation and Bangladesh acquires a nuclear capability — via Chinese built reactors. And it should assess whether it would not be in India’s own interest if the Indo-US Agreement becomes a model for other countries.

They have also been very candid about their modus operandi. Pressed about the aspects that had not been covered, Burns and Joseph urged the Senate to “resist the temptation to take actions that will prejudice our ability to realise the important and long-standing nonproliferation objectives embodied in the Initiative.” They urged it to see that “the commitments India has made under the Initiative are a significant gain over the status quo.” And said, “We believe the best course is to lock-in the significant gains reached and then seek to achieve further nonproliferation results as our strategic partnership advances.”

The problem has not arisen, therefore, because the Americans have been opaque. But because our government has concealed, prevaricated, and outright misled us. And now it is in a bind.

I would, therefore, urge four things to government:

• Do not make a Micawber of the country — waiting for something to turn up.

• Do not make the mistake that earlier Congress governments made — that because you can plant stories in the media, the facts are going to go away.

• Do not make the mistake that earlier Congress governments made — to think that because it controlled three-quarters of Parliament, it could control the situation outside Parliament.

• Yes, closer relations with the US are in India’s interest, but do not make this deal the test of those relations.

But as I have little hope that the government will heed my advice, I would urge two things to the rest of us — especially to my friends in the media:

• Do not be taken in by lullabies of the government and its agents.

• Find out yourselves what is going on behind the scenes: whether in negotiations with Pakistan — on Siachin, on Kashmir; or in those “Round Table Conferences” with Kashmiri separatists; or in regard to this nuclear deal.

(Concluded)

China’s economic growth is not just ‘economic growth’

Arun Shourie: Wednesday, November 08, 2006

It is a grave error to be mesmerised by China’s economic growth as if it were just ‘economic growth’.

To begin with, much of ‘economic growth’ consists of things that add military muscle. When China produces modern weapons-systems — apart from many other systems, it has made major advances in cruise and ballistic missiles, space technologies including technologies to disable enemy satellites, electronic warfare capabilities; when it lays out ‘infrastructure’ in Tibet — that is all ‘economic growth’. But it has direct military implications for India. The train that traverses heights of 16,000 feet to reach Lhasa can carry tourists, no doubt; but also men and materials of the PLA. When — as satellite imagery shows and ground information confirms — China builds 39 transport routes from its interior to the borders with India, and upgrades 15 of them for heavy vehicular traffic, including a four-lane highway right up to the border of Sikkim, all that too is ‘economic growth’; but that ‘growth’ should awaken us to what it implies for our security.

Second, economic growth translates directly into the ability to bend others to subserve a country’s interests. No country in South East Asia — and that includes Australia — will take a step today without factoring in the likely reaction of China to that step. Nor can even the US Administration be oblivious of the fact that China is today the largest financier of its deficit, that it holds one of the largest chunks of US securities, that US firms have such high exposure in China. When the Chinese president announces during his visit to Latin America that China will invest $ 100 billion in that region, and gives $ 20 billion on the spot to beleaguered Argentina; when he announces another $ 100 billion investments in the five Central Asian Republics; and the country chalks up projects to invest yet another $ 100 billion in Iran, China acquires deep and pervasive influence. Will these countries heed us or China when they have to vote on reorganisation of the Security Council? Similarly, the fact that, in the contention for influence in Central Asia, China can deploy resources of an order that Russia just cannot today set aside, has compelled the latter, anxious as it is to check US advances in these five states, to accept being a sort of junior partner to China in the region. The mining boom in Australia, including its production and export of natural gas, are directly linked to China’s growth. ASEAN, and even Taiwan, have been already sucked into the Chinese sphere — their incomes are directly linked to continued Chinese growth. China does not have to deploy any means — certainly not military ones; of their own accord and in their own interest, these countries keep China’s likely reactions in mind.

Why go that far? Do we not do so? Our silence on Tibet speaks for itself. Similarly, it is well known that six years ago Vietnam offered us access to the strategic Cam Ranh Bay. We declined — so as not to offend China. Even six years after establishing a Tri-Services Command structure in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, we have not positioned any significant assets there — in part out of the apprehension that doing so would bring us into direct contest with the Chinese footprint in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Third, China is already translating its economic power into military might. The 2006 Report of the US Secretary of Defence on China’s military prowess records that the modernisation of Chinese forces is proceeding at a pace faster than US agencies had earlier thought likely.

Fourth, more directly, the scale of China’s and India’s economic development is already making us compete for natural resources — like oil and gas. And the resources that China has accumulated are enabling it to outbid India in contest after contest. In the contest for PetroKazakhastan, China defeat our bid of $ 3.6 billion by bidding $ 4.2 billion. It already has acquired exploration rights for the overwhelming area of Kazakhstan, and has already built a 1000 km pipeline to carry oil from that country into Xinjiang province of China. We depend on Iran for being a counter to Pakistan; for much of our oil and natural gas. But China has now become Iran’s largest market for oil. It has identified projects for investing $ 100 billion in that country in the next 25 years — and this has contributed in no small measure towards its securing deals to import 100 million tons of Iranian LPG and also 150,000 bbl/day of oil — the latter deal is itself worth $ 100 billion. In far away Ecuador too China’s Sinopec and CNPC beat ONGC and won access to 143 million tons of proven oil reserves. In Angola, we had almost got the deal to take over Shell’s operations for off-shore exploration — China swooped it away by extending a 17 year, $ 2 billion soft loan to the country... This rivalry is bound to intensify in the coming years, and the differences in the resources that each side can deploy for each contest is bound to make all the difference to the outcome.

And the country is China

These factors are by themselves enough to raise concerns about the future. They are compounded by the fact that the country we are talking about is China, and not just any other country.

The dominant orientation of China throughout its history has been to power — the acquisition of power, the use of power, the manipulation of the symbols of power. Second, its singular concern in this regard has been to ‘control the periphery’ — that is, to control the areas from which, and the groups by which its security may be threatened. As the areas from which its security may be threatened now include those that are at great distances from it — say, the US — it is determined to acquire capacities that would enable it to keep those distant areas in check also. In any event, India lies literally on its periphery.

Third, and most consequentially, during the last two decades, China has completely rewritten its military doctrine — from ‘Peoples War fought on Chinese soil’ to ‘Local wars under high technology conditions’ to the current doctrine of ‘Force projection under high technology conditions’.

Fourth, China has been doggedly pursuing the consequential ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’, and the ever-new weapons systems that go with it. In particular, a novel danger stems from its emphasis on building capacities to hurl ‘the assassin’s mace’ at the ‘acupuncture points’ of integrated, modern economies — to disrupt power grids, financial systems, air traffic control networks, railway traffic control networks, communications and broadcasting networks... and to do so suddenly, simultaneously and on a fatal scale.

In no doubt about India

And China has a clear idea about India — that it is a potential nuisance. It views us as one of the ‘claws of the crab’ — the crab is the US whose aim is to contain China; a crab with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia and India as its claws. The recent moves for closer relationship between the US and India, advantageous though they are for us, have had the incidental effect of reinforcing this perception.

Accordingly, China has pursued a consistent strategy of containing India in return, of keeping it confined to, and busy in South Asia.

With this aim, it has given aid to Pakistan for all sorts of purposes — including the development of atomic weapons and acquisition of missile technology. And it has a long tradition of doing so. Recall the counsel of The Wiles of War, “Murder with a borrowed knife” — that is, instead of doing anything overtly aggressive yourself, find the entity that is naturally predisposed to do your enemy down; arm it. China has entered into a military pact with Bangladesh. There have been reports of its offering to build an atomic reactor for Bangladesh. Myanmar is a dependency of China. In fact, the largest supplies of Chinese arms go to four countries in our region — Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Iran.

Tibet has been militarised — to put the Tibetans down, no doubt; but only to put them down? China has redoubled its efforts in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius. It already has access to the ports of Myanmar — from which it has also taken on lease the Coco Islands just 30 miles from the Andamans. Now it is helping build and it thus acquires access to deep-sea ports round us: Chittagong in Bangladesh and Gwadar in Pakistan — the latter alone at a cost of $ 3 billion. It is also upgrading the naval base in Omara for Pakistan. Along with constructing the port at Gwadar, it is building highways that will link Gwadar to locations within Pakistan but also to Urumchi in China. The most consequential of this string of ‘initiatives’ is the project to dredge Myanmar’s Irrawaddy River — this is to be done by Chinese engineers and much Chinese labour. It isn’t just that a good proportion of this workforce will stay on in or around the new facilities. Once the project is completed, China will acquire a useable waterway giving direct access from its Yunnan province to the Bay of Bengal...

Could all this be out of absent-mindedness? The fact is that China has effectively ‘ringed’ India, and is redoubling its efforts to ring it tighter.

Furthermore, in every international arena, there is a pattern to its actions vis a vis India. It has exerted much effort to keep ASEAN from establishing closer links with India — it has campaigned to have ASEAN+3 (ASEAN, Japan, South Korea and China) and not ASEAN+4 which would have included India. It has summarily rejected the G-4 framework for the expansion of the Security Council. It did not condescend to let India enter the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation — through which it is institutionalising its influence in Central Asia. In the end, it agreed to grant us “observer status” — but only along with Pakistan and Iran; and only when we agreed to it getting the same status in SAARC and BIMSTEC: for the latter, it was vigorously supported not just by Pakistan and Bangladesh but also by our ‘traditional friends’, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Learn from China

None of this is ground for complaint against China. It is pursuing its interest as it sees them. The question we have to ponder is: ‘What are we doing for our interest?’

The lessons are manifest:

• Do not get swept off again by the ‘bhai-bhai’ business.

• Get out of the ‘see no China, speak no China, hear no China’ policy. See what China is doing with clear eyes.

• In particular, do not leave the formulation of a response to just four/five desk-officers working on the China desk.

• Reflect on the capacities that it is acquiring — as Musharraf once said, once capacities are acquired, intentions can change swiftly.

• The time to start preparing for that sudden change of intentions is the time it would take to develop the counter — that is, decades before the change ‘suddenly’ erupts in view.

• Remember, to fall behind a neighbour is to tempt him to assault us.

• Indeed, if the present distance continues, and all the more certainly if it increases, China would not have to ‘assault’ us. The distance will ensure that other countries heed it rather than us. And that we heed it too.

(Concluded)

The Jihadi Mentality: Its Recoil and Danger

Arun Shourie
The war in Kargil has ignited an intense reaction across the country. War does. War that results from aggression by the other does even more. This time round two factors have caused the reaction to be even more intense. There is the element of betrayal: India had extended the hand of trust and friendship; Pakistan, it now turns out, merely pretended to reciprocate. And then there is the effect of television. This is the first war which has been brought into our living rooms: we see the extreme conditions in which our soldiers are defending our country, we see the majesty and beauty of our sacred mountains which the enemy has violated, we see the bodies arrive, we see and hear the valour of the bereaved parents and wives.

There is another reaction. We are all humbled: by the valour of the soldiers, by the fortitude of the relatives. Would I agree to begin the trek up some God-forsaken, distant hill, each of us is forced to think, knowing that as a result, within three-four hours, I may be dead?

The form the reaction has taken is just as telling. Each time a body is taken back thousands upon thousands stand in reverence along the route. When it arrives in a city or a village, thousands come out to pay homage. Neighbours and others visit the family of the soldier. Contributions to funds have exceeded all expectations.

The visits are out of empathy. The funds are for caring: to care for the soldier who has been disabled, to care for the wife and children of the soldier who has been killed.

The papers of Pakistan, especially the Urdu papers, on the other hand, have been full of reactions of an entirely different kind. Of "Jihad conferences" being held, of "Jihad centers" to be opened for recruiting volunteers, of collections for yet another "Jihad fund". The volunteers are not to care for anybody, their mission is to go across, and vanquish and destroy the land of kufr, the Hindu-India. The funds are not for caring, they are to destroy and dismember the land of kafirs, the Hindu-India. The speeches that are made at these gatherings, the slogans that are raised -- "Kashmir banega Pakistan" -- the very words that are used -- "Hindu-India, the birth-enemy of Pakistan," the "Battle for Hind" -- contain a venom, which we cannot comprehend.

But it is something we should learn to comprehend. For our neighbour is saturated with it. The venom, and the actions it triggers, will recoil on Pakistan of course. But that will take decades. In the meanwhile, unless we develop antigens to that poison, untold costs will be inflicted on our country. Moreover, if we falter in crushing every single action which that poison triggers, the poison will acquire greater and greater potency in the eyes of the Jihadis -- see, it is because of the Jihadi-spirit that our mujahideen have given those banias such a licking, they will conclude. So, every single action that is spurred by that sort of spirit must be completely crushed. But how will be ever ensure that it is crushed if we turn our eyes from what triggers it?

Lt. General Javed Nasir is one of Pakistan's "thinking Generals". He has been head of the ISI. He is among the Generals who were associated with Pakistan's successes in Afghanistan. Not just a typical voice, therefore, a crucial one. Recall that Nawaz Sharif made his desperate flight to Washington on July 3, that he signed the capitulatory joint-statement with Clinton on July 4. On July 1 -- that is, just three days before Nawaz Sharif had to accept that Pakistan would withdraw behind the Line of Control -- Lt. General Javed Nasir was telling Pakistanis that India was on the brink of defeat and collapse and disintegration! Readers would have concluded that the Indian defeat was so overwhelming that Vajpayee had as good as lost his mind!

Defeat in Kargil will spell disaster at the polls, that is what is staring Vajpayee in the face, this former controller of the ISI wrote. "He was angry," the General wrote, describing, no doubt from secret sources of the ISI, a meeting of the Indian Prime Minister with our Service Chiefs, "froth coming out of his mouth, shaking with anger, a little bit stammering [sic.], he let the Khakis have it." "I order you to throw them out, otherwise there will be large-scale sackings irrespective of ranks."

The Kargil operation has already inflicted unbearable cost on India, the General calculated. Each shell of Bofors costs a thousand dollars, his spies told him; in just one week India has fired nearly 30,000 rounds, his sources on the front told him. That means India has burnt up three billion dollars in just one week, his calculator indicated. And now India will have to spend another ten billion dollars to replace the barrels of the guns. Four days earlier, in another article, the General had recalled how, at the time of the Lahore Bus diplomacy, in an article in The Nation, "I had implored the Pakistani Army and Mujahideen to interdict the Srinagar-Drass road to make things more difficult for the Indians in Siachin. The Mujahideen executed a brilliant plan." His brilliant plan having been executed so brilliantly, Indians are on the run, the General informed his countrymen.

And for good and obvious reasons, he said. "Whereas the Mujahideen are fighting for a just cause and Shahadat is the greatest honour they can receive and as such they are fighting for this noble objective, the Indian soldiers are highly demoralized. Most of them have already completed their Kashmir tenure and want to go back to the safety of the mainland. They are being forced into the attacks and kept in Kashmir against their will. They only fulfil the formality of attack." This plain truth was being portrayed by Pakistan TV, he said, and that is why the Indian Government banned it! But Indians continue to watch Pakistan TV "for factual and correct situation", using dish antennas, he said, "despite house raids by police"! All we have to do is to keep the road to Siachin closed, he wrote the next day. That will force India to spend Rs 30-40 crore a day, "which will break the Indian back"! The General painted even rosier gardens. If the Indian Army can be prevented from retaking the Kargil positions, Vajpayee will be forced to lunge into Pakistan crossing the LoC. This prospect "offers the Pakistan Army the opportunity of the century to redeem its honour and take revenge for Dhaka." Once Pakistan makes a major penetration into India, the Sikhs will get and grab "the opportunity of the millennium to rise and play havoc with India's lines of communications." And once there is a major setback to India in Punjab, "the Sikh dream of Khalistan will become a reality." And that will induce the Tamils to revolt in the South, and the Nagas and the Mizos to proclaim their Unilateral Declaration of Independence"!

Faced with disintegration, Vajpayee will have to opt for the nuclear option, the General forecast. Therefore, he counseled the world, before India reaches that point, the world should solve the Kashmir problem "in accordance with the resolutions of the Security Council." Q E D! Not only has Pakistan the opportunity of a century because of the bind in which India is caught, Allah has conferred a special boon on Pakistan to enable it to avail of this opportunity, the General's reasoning went. And what is that boon? "In Parvez Musharraf we have an excellent General," he explained, "who has the blend of dynamism (his SSG background) and superb professionalism. Allah chose him for this occasion. He will not only deliver but deliver beyond expectations of all. He is the gift of Allah to the nation."

The only thing to guard against is American perfidy, the General wrote. On his reckoning, the Pakistan Army has won each and every war with India, and it is only the USA, "which has a history of betrayals towards Pakistan," that has compelled Pakistan to forgo what it had won on the ground! General Hamid Gul, an even more formidable former head of the ISI, was announcing victories in even more vivid colours. "General Gul predicts Indian troops surrender," ran the headlines of The Pakistan Observer on 27 June. That the Indians were concentrating so many troops in the area is all to the good, General Gul told the paper. Soon, the monsoon will set in, and they will be trapped in "the hills, dales and jungles of Kashmir while this terrain is familiar and friendly to the Mujahideen." "He said," the paper reported, "it is pre-ordained that this military machine that subjected Kashmiris to terrorism will be humiliated and disgraced at the hands of a handful of Mujahideen."

These are the analyses of Pakistan's "thinking Generals," of its "strategic thinkers," these are analyses appearing in the country's "responsible, sober" English papers. The Urdu papers of course carry reports of even more glowing victories -- as I write this I have at hand reports from Nawa-e-Waqt, al Dawa, Ausaf, Jasarat, Khabrein, Din -- they give even more Allah-ordained reasons on account of which India is about to disintegrate before the might of the Mujahideen. "Enemy is being thrashed from all sides;" "These militants are battle-hardened having fought in Afghanistan for over ten years;" "The Mujahideen have been waiting for open war with India since long. Now they have the opportunity with the opening of the Kargil front;" "The Amir of Markaz Dawat wal Irshad, Professor Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, further claimed that the foolish Europe does not know that Mujahideen have arrived there also in a clandestine manner;" "Maulana Mohammed Azim Tariq, President Sipah-e-Sahaba, said that the moment Government declared Jihad the Sipah-e-Sahaba would provide 50,000 trained Mujahideen for fighting alongside the Pakistan Army;" "The meeting of the Jamiat Ahl-e-Sunnat-o-al-Jamat held in Islamabad under the Chairmanship of Qazi Abdul Malik decided that the Jamiat will send 20,000 volunteers;" "Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Amir Jamiat-e-Islami has started collecting Jihad-e-Kashmir funds, and Jamat-e-Islami is issuing pamphlets urging people to obtain the blessings of Allah by taking part in the Battle of Hind;" "A pamphlet issued by Abdur Rashid Turabi, Amir of the Jamiat-e-Islami in Azad Kashmir says that the shadows of war are deepening, and Pakistanis should give a fatal blow to the birth-enemy of Muslims, India, the Mujahideen have reduced the pride of the enemy to ashes, he says;" Ausaf reports that according to its survey ninety five per cent of the people in Islamabad and Rawalpindi believe that the Kashmir issue can be solved through war and not through negotiations; according to the survey, 99 percent of the people in the North West Frontier Province want the Government to declare Jihad against India for solving the Kashmir issue; "Thousands of armed tribals at a public meeting on 27 June at Miran Shah in Northern Waziristan Agency announced Jihad against India and took an oath that they would not rest unless they hoist the Islamic flag in Delhi".

The article of faith, that India is the "birth-enemy of Muslims," the conviction that the opportunity of the century has come, that Allah has given them an instrument for availing it, the hallucinatory reports that the enemy is being routed, the conviction that Jihad is the solution, the fever for it.

And the foundation of all this: the conviction that everything that is being done is in the cause of Islam. The Ausaf of 30 June: " A group of Al-Badar mujahideen left Mansehara for Kashmir on June 29 for taking part in the Battle of Hind. Bidding them farewell, Commander Ejaz Ali, Amir Lashkar-al-Badar, instructed them to eliminate Indian troops and hoist the flag of Islam in Kashmir. They had to fight the Indian Army from Kargil to Delhi." Two days later, on 2 July, the Ausaf reported, "Pakistani ulema, including Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, Mufti Jamil Khan and Dr. Abdur Razaq issued a Fatwa of Jihad against India in Islamabad on July 1. In the Fatwa, issued in response to a query from the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, they said that students should be sent on Jihad by shutting down all religious schools." Ideologies become blinkers: believers keep looking at the world through one pair of pre-fabricated spectacles, they keep fitting developments into one straitjacket when in fact the world is changing inside out. The adherents are therefore "pre-ordained", to snatch General Hamid Gul's expression, to flounder. Hallucinatory reports of non-existent victories can only make the ultimate defeat more certain, more thoroughgoing, and swifter. But that very preconditioning predisposes believers to invade and assault.

That is what we must see, at last. 1948, 1965, the brutality unleashed on East Pakistan in 1971, the terrorism they caused in Punjab throughout the 1980s, the insurgency they spawned in Kashmir in the 1990s, Kargil now: is it right to be surprised each time?

And, other things apart, Pakistan is by now the hub of what can only be described as an "International Islamic Rapid Action Force": Jihadis from various Islamic countries, available for one Jihad after the other.

Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, and, of course and always, Kashmir. "Taliban Minister for Communication, Naimatullah Khan Naumani, Minister Hajj-o-Auqaf, Maulana Abdul Wali, Special Force Chief, Maulvi Gul Zarin, I.G. Police, Maulana Anwar, addressing a function on the occasion of the 14th death anniversary of Maulana Irshad in Kabul (on 29 June) announced war against India alongside Kashmiri mujahideen," reported the Ausaf on 30 June. "They said that the help of Kashmiri and Pakistani mujahideen during Russian aggression was a debt on them, and it was now high time to clear this debt. They did not fear India, they said, nor any other power. They would fight alongside Kashmiri mujahideen for the freedom of Kashmir and their preparations in this regard are complete."

In a word, Kargil is but one step for the Pakistan Army and the terrorists Pakistan has spawned. We must see that defeating them in Kargil can be but one step for us.

India Connect
July 12, 1999

Not Just an Islamic, But a Psychological State

Arun Shourie

India's size has become "an unmanageable liability," writes an analyst in Pakistan's Frontier Post of June 9. "As a result, nearly one-third of its 25 states are at war, where military troops are routinely called out to keep peace." The cause for this is largely "India's exclusionary political, religious and social order that is heavily biased against non-Hindu minorities," he says. This from an analyst whose own country is being torn apart by killings of Shias by Sunnis, of Sindhis and Mohajirs by Punjabis, by tensions between Baluchis, Pakhtuns and Punjabis. Second, except for a brief period, he observes, India's economy has been stagnating around "the Hindu pace of growth." This from an analyst whose country is living from month to month on what is the seventeenth bail-out package from the IMF since 1958, this from an analyst the currency of whose country has been devalued over forty five times in the last decade, this from the analyst in whose country even the management of the Water and Power Development Authority, even of the Karachi Electricity Board has had to be handed over to the Army! Third, its military power has remained "less than decisive in its conflicts with Pakistan except for its military action in East Pakistan." The Pakistan Army has lost every single war it has fought with India, yet India's military power has been "less than decisive"! And as for that one exception which even he acknowledges, the case of 1971, it seems that in the author's view, it is "the backing of the overwhelming majority of native Bengalis" which enabled Indian forces to prevail.

A bit of a change in that last bit, I must say in fairness! For in their history textbooks, children are taught that the "native Bengalis" very much wanted united-Pakistan to continue and it was only the cunning of Hindu-Bharat which waylaid them.

The next point will truly be news to us. Recalling some hare-brained proposals for "solving the Kashmir problem," he says "Even if I were Indian, I couldn't help but support Pakistan's so very obviously rational approach to the conflict on Kashmir." Not just that, this analyst knows something we don't, for he continues, "This rationality in Pakistan's position has the majority of Indians re-looking at the Kashmir conflict in terms of 'justice' although their immediate motive is economics. In survey after survey, the majority of Indians have come to believe that the cost of keeping Kashmir is higher than leaving it alone..." The only way out for India is to resolve the Kashmir issue "in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir, and in accordance with UN resolutions," writes a former Army colonel in the June 11 issue of the same paper. Till it does so, not only will it keep bleeding, such analysts write, it will be exposing the region to "power-play by the West under CIA machinations." "But India," the colonel continues, "with typical narrow-minded bania mentality, refuses to see the realities on the ground and the resultant fall-outs of a continuing impasse over the Kashmir issue..."

"The latest Indian Army operations in Kashmir are due to the adamance of the mujahidin who are waging war to achieve their aim of self-determination," observes the Jang in its editorial on June 4 - two lies in those few words: that the invaders are mujahideen, and that the goal of their invasion is self-determination! "History tells us that when people of any region start sacrificing themselves for their rights then no power on earth can restrain them from their goal. This time mujahideen have given a new life to the movement and the Kashmir issue has become prominent. The Indian government has tried to crush the mujahideen but all in vain..." The invasion has given a new life to the secessionist movement in Kashmir? That will certainly be news to the tourists in the Valley!

"No doubt India is losing on the war front," the Jang announces, "but at the same time the Indian propaganda machinery has become very active with western media support..." In a word: only mujahidin from within Kashmir are involved, militarily they are prevailing, if at all India is scoring a point it is only in propaganda, and that too only with western help! Still the latter is a matter of concern to the paper. "We fail to understand," the paper says, "why our 'grand official intellectuals' have failed in convincing the foreign media that the Kargil war is not based on fundamentalism. Why most of the foreign media reports on Kashmir are anti-Pakistan and anti-mujahideen and why our diplomats and embassies are unable to present the mujahideen's case in its right perspective. And finally why western rulers are endorsing the views of Vajpayee in the context of Indo-Pakistan relations and the Lahore Declaration."

A week, and that lacuna too seems to have been made up! "Its (India's) casualties are mounting," writes an analyst in the Nation of June 13, "and there is a grudging acceptance that it is also losing the media war to Pakistan. These twin pressures are beginning to take their toll on a wary populace which has seen political instability followed by military failure. Elections are less than three months away and no one seems to know which way the country is headed." "In such a situation," he concludes, "Pakistan should stand its ground with grit and determination and appreciate its brave men in uniform who are manning our territory with courage and ensuring that India's aggressiveness is countered swiftly and severely."

Soon, however, that Pakistan is completely isolated diplomatically cannot be denied. But that only proves that it is a martyr in the cause of Islam! Taking note of the US reluctance to swallow the Pakistani version, the Army colonel observes that the US has always been bending backwards to "placate India." And for reason, he writes, "We may be aware of the US role the world over against the interests of Muslims. And its desire to somehow contain China, its only possible rival after the disintegration of the USSR. It will like the dispute over Kashmir to be so resolved that as a result of it the present land linkage between Pakistan and China is severed. In this context, its best bet is India as a countervailing power... In fact the US is / has been actively helping India in its technological attainments through Israel." In a word, if the US is not swallowing the Pakistani version that is because it is congenitally anti-Muslim, and if India has achieved something technologically that is because the US has been helping it via Israel!

Hence the colonel's ringing exhortation: "Let there be no misconception about the US and Indian collusion where interests of Muslims and the western nations clash. For the loss of Muslims also becomes the gain of India. It is time we realised this and the OIC, the Arab League and Mutamar-e-Islami worked together towards unity and greater cohesion in their ranks to thwart the designs of these enemies of Islam."

A complete rupture from reality. That one-third of India's states are at war, that our economy is collapsing, that India is losing on the war front, that Pakistan has overcome the initial Indian advantage and is now winning the diplomatic battle too, that to the extent that the US etc. are not endorsing Pakistan's position that is because they are anti-Muslim, that India's technological advances are due to American help via Israel, that Pakistan's rational position on Kashmir has led every Indian to re-think his country's stance... A psychological condition, schizophrenia. To the onlooker the figments are so absurd that he tends to disregard them. But the person concerned actually believes the hallucinations. He acts on them.

That is one lesson: we must at all times be alert to what Pakistani society and rulers are reading into developments in India, for those inferences will tempt them to instigate, and to invade. The manifest instability of our governments during the last few years, their being pushed and pulled from every side would have been an important factor in the Pakistani calculation. So myopic, so self-centred are those who have been pulling down governments, those who have fractured the electorate that it is useless asking them to see the consequence of what they are doing. At least the rest of us should heed this consequence -- of tempting a neighbour who is so apt to misread the situation in any case -- and quarterise these politicians and groups.

But that is just the preliminary lesson, almost an incidental one.

First, we must bear in mind that the one -- Pakistan in this case -- who conceives of himself as an enemy has an inherent advantage. He can prepare for one type of operation -- it was sponsoring insurgency last time, it is high-altitude warfare this time -- at a place and a time of his choosing. We have to prepare ourselves to counter that entire gamut of possible operations.

That will take resources. Therefore, we must not cavil at sparing them. There is no other way to survive. Things which have come to light during the past few months also show that we must rethink management of defence at several levels.

The management of production and procurement of defence equipment, for instance. The sorry tale of snowmobiles is well known by now. But it is just one of many. From the fate of the plan to produce ammunition for the Bofors guns within the country to the way proposals to produce bullet-proof vests have been knocking around - all speak to the same state of affairs.

The relationship that should prevail between the defence forces and the defence ministry, for another. To refuse to re-examine this on the clich�, "The forces must be subordinate to civilian authority," is to ensure that many operational requirements will not be attended to in time. It is also to ensure that resentments which have erupted in the past few months will continue to fester.

The composition of the National Security Council, the staffing of its secretariat, its function and role, for a third. The council really has to be more than a version of the India International Centre's Saturday Lunch Club.

But the basic lesson that Pakistan's Kargil invasion holds out is the old one, an unfortunate one but an inescapable one: Pakistan remains an implacable enemy. It sees only one role for itself: to break India. It is doubly convinced of this purpose because it sees itself as a state dedicated to Islam, and India as a dar-ul-harb, the land of war to vanquish which is an Allah-ordained duty. It stokes insurgency in Punjab, that leaves 21,000 dead. But it fails to wrest Punjab from India. Therefore, it inflames insurgency in Kashmir.

That leaves 15,000 dead. But that too fails to break India. So, it begins planning Kargil... Pakistan will just not abandon these operations. It sees no other role for itself. It sees that mission - of breaking India - as a divine mandate. At each turn it is convinced that while the particular operation which has just concluded has failed, the next one will break India.

Therefore, a united, prosperous Pakistan is not in India's interest. It will only be that much more zealous, and more effective in carrying out its mission.

And, therefore, we must engage Pakistan in the arms race which it cannot afford, we must lift restrictions we have put on our agencies and ask them to widen the fault-lines which have developed in Pakistani society and polity.

That is the basic lesson. Do not shy away from it. Listen to what the enemy is saying. Look at what he is doing. Look at his nature - full-face. Look at what he conceives his nature to be. As a first step, learn not to drown voices which try to awaken you to that enemy, and his nature.

Asian Age
July 2, 1999