The first truth to bear in mind is the nature of the State of Pakistan. In Pakistan, power resides in the hands of persons and institutions — the Army, the ISI and similar agencies — whose importance, muscle, even crass lucre depend on hostility with India. There is not the slightest indication yet that power has at all shifted out of their hands. And they have not suffered the slightest, I repeat the slightest, cost because of the killings they have engineered in India. Quite the contrary: every ‘‘successful’’ assault on India has only increased their power and pelf. And we must bear in mind the related fact that every observer stresses: the intertwining webs of the Army, the intelligence agencies and the Islam-pasand groups and parties. The Army and the agencies channel patronage to the latter — to begin with, money: recall the open acknowledgements by successive heads of ISI — Hamid Gul, Asad Durrani — and of Army Chiefs — like Mirza Aslam Beg — that they gave money to religious parties during elections to defeat the non-religious parties; next, freedom to operate even during periods when civilian parties were shackled; then, positions — in governments, in academic institutions, and the like; even more valuable, a share in ‘‘foreign aid’’ — for instance, the vast amounts the Americans poured in for creating the Taliban. It is because of the assistance that Musharraf has given them, and the alliance he has formed with them that the Islamic parties today are in power in two of Pakistan’s four provinces, NWFP and Balochistan — where they control each of the lucrative ministries to boot; and at the Federal level are partners of the Government. In return, through the political parties and organisations that they control, even more so through the madrasa-mosque network, the ulema provide legitimacy to every military ruler; they legitimise every war or campaign that the military rulers launch; they provide the fodder for the jihads — in Afghanistan, in Kashmir; they belabour the civilian opponents of the military — they are the ones who organised street demonstrations and violence in 1977 against the Government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto which became the excuse for Zia ul-Haq’s coup; they are the ones who organised the campaigns in 1989 that led to the ouster of the Government of Benazir Bhutto; they are the ones who worked overtime to legitimise the coup of Musharraf in 1999. It isn’t just that the chief beneficiary of these campaigns was the military. The campaigns were triggered at the behest of the military, and swelled because of the resources the military and the agencies pumped in. And, of course, the religious leaders and groups have been among the principal instruments for whipping up sentiments against India — and thereby for getting people behind the military and the agencies. Nor is this condition of the State of Pakistan something floating in the air. It is well-grounded in the condition to which Pakistani society has been brought. The general mass have been Talibanised to an extent that persons in free, and free-wheeling, societies like India, the US and Europe just cannot imagine — just as we cannot imagine the dread that organisations like the ISI and the Army evoke in Pakistan. The International Crisis Group lists the astronomical multiplication of madrasas and maulanas: ‘‘By 1995, Pakistan had 20,000 maulanas with the highest madrasa certificate, in addition to 40,000 local religious scholars. Since 1989, 30,000 more students have appeared for the final exams conducted by the Deobandi Wafaq alone. A quarter of a million have passed the Hifz (memorisation of the Quran) test since 1989.’’ In 1950, the Group reports, Balochistan had only seven madrasas. By 2003, it had 1,045. In 1950, Karachi had only four madrasas. By now it has 979. The Minister for Religious Affairs in Musharraf’s Cabinet, Ejazul Haq, says that the madrasas today give ‘‘religious education’’ to ten lakh students. And we have glimpsed — but only in an academic sort of way — what is poured into wards in these madrasas as well as in ‘‘non-religious’’ government schools. The line of Maulana Maududi is what has come to prevail. Nor is the phenomenon confined to Islamisation. Pakistan is yet not able to think of an identity except as ‘‘Not India’’, except as the country whose mission it is to dismember India. What Islamisation has added is the conviction that the historical animus against India is sanctified by religious sanction — that as a matter of religion, Pakistan’s mission is to undo the error of the Partition, that its mission is to wrest back the entire sub-continent for Islam. In spite of 1971, Kargil and the rest, those who exercise power over Pakistan remain convinced that they can break India; that, if they cannot break India, they can bleed India to death; that, if they cannot bleed India to death, they can bleed India enough to hold India down to Pakistan’s level. In fact, from their point of view, Pakistan has over the last quarter century waged a masterly strategic offensive against India: at little cost, it has tied down a large proportion of India’s Forces; it has deployed a scale of violence, and that over as long a period as 25 years, violence which has put the severest strains even on the territorial integrity of India, which has inflicted thousands upon thousands of deaths, and yet not provoked any retaliatory offensive on Pakistan’s territory. Notice too that Pakistan has been able to put difficulties as much as opportunities to work: from American anxieties about the Soviet Union during the Cold War; to the opportunity that opened up because of the role Pakistan played in facilitating American contact with China; to the events that followed upon the collapse of the Taliban — Pakistan has extracted some advantage or the other. To the Islamic world, it has presented itself as the alchemist — the country that has the brains that can transform the wealth of the Muslim countries into actual power. To the Americans, and as much to the Chinese, it has presented itself as the country that can facilitate their access to the Islamic world. Nor can one be certain how the situation in Afghanistan will evolve. The Government in Kabul remains as yet completely dependent on the Americans. How long will the Americans stay the course? The other side of the picture is that India, as much as the USA, has almost completely abandoned the Northern Alliance. And Iran too, perhaps to a lesser extent, and perhaps because of its own preoccupations — what with the declarations of the IAEA, what with ominously ambiguous statements from Washington — has abandoned Ismail Khan and others in Herat. Russia has more or less withdrawn from the scene — except that, having been made to realise what a sore here can spell for its own security, it is now trying to regain some presence: witness that Dushanbe Accord that permits it to establish a permanent base of 5,000 troops, and also its decision to join the CACO, the Central Asian Cooperation Organisation. Together these developments could well resurrect the bad old times. To put the matter in a sentence, Russia, Iran, India have all abdicated Afghan affairs completely to the Americans, and the Americans are hugely dependent on Pakistan. Stretched in various directions, will the USA gravitate to out-sourcing, so to say, the strategic management of Afghanistan back to Pakistan? With a ‘‘moderate Taliban’’, the Jaish ul Muslim, say, to partner the official Government of Afghanistan? Should Pakistan again acquire sway over Afghanistan, will it once again direct the malevolent ferocity of its offspring, the fundamentalists to India? Nor should we forget that Pakistan has been able to establish an extensive network of agents and saboteurs within India. We laud the fact, for instance, that in two years, 2002 and 2003, our intelligence agencies smashed 161 ISI modules. That is a large and impressive number, true. But each time we announce, ‘‘161 cells smashed’’, we also affirm how successful Pakistan has been in establishing these in the first place. Equally ominous is the fact that there is scarcely a part of the country where these modules have not been unearthed. Moreover, on all hands 161 are but a fraction of the modules that Pakistan has in fact been able to set up across India. What is it that Musharraf has said or done which has diminished in the slightest the potential for ill of this vast network? The capacity being in place, to use Musharraf’s telling phrase, intention can change at short notice. Reflect on options. Pakistan came to realise that it could not wrest Kashmir through war. Therefore, it launched a proxy war — through terrorists, through its political agents in the Valley. From Pakistan’s point of view, this has been quite a success: India has come to accept that Kashmir is a dispute; it has come to accept that Pakistan is an equal party in the dispute; it has come to accept that, if it wants the dispute to be settled, India has to negotiate a settlement with Pakistan. Now, it so happens that in the international situation as it is today, Pakistan cannot deploy this stratagem with full force: it cannot go on sending terrorists across into India. Hence, why not the following four-step strategy directed to the same goal — of wresting Kashmir for Pakistan? n Get India to agree to ‘‘soft’’ or, better still, ‘‘open’’ borders between the two halves of Kashmir. n Once India gets irreversibly committed to these ‘‘open’’ borders, foment an Intifada-type movement demanding ‘‘autonomy’’. n And then let Islam take over. It will complete the job: the Valley has already been ‘‘cleansed’’ of Hindus; the Islamic network in the Valley is diabolically well-knit; there is nothing in civil society in Kashmir that can stand in its way. n As this process works its way, go on ‘‘talking peace’’, making sure that the onus of going on producing ever-new formulae remains on India. The exact stratagem of Jinnah. He too made sure that the onus of producing ever-fresh formulae remained on the Congress, and, for each new proposal, he had, to use Panditji’s expression, ‘‘the permanently negative answer’’. Till he got Pakistan. Recall the three parameters within which Musharraf has just said the solution must lie: you say borders cannot be changed, he said; we say the problem — that is the LoC — cannot be the solution; third, war is not an option. Does the four-step stratagem violate the parameters even in the slightest? Not only are they fully within the parameters; at each turn, Pakistan will be able to keep proclaiming that the step is just giving expression to ‘‘the will of the people of Kashmir’’! To be concluded. Extracted from Will the Iron Fence Save a Tree Hollowed by Termites?, Arun Shourie’s new book that is being published by Rupa & Co, this month. PART I PART II
