The disaster dividend

Yet a calamity of this nature, spread across territory that is, in effect, divided between two countries, cannot but have a diplomatic upshot. It may be crude to make such calculations, but politics 8212; in-house or cross-border 8212; is necessarily a cold, dispassionate business.

It is fairly obvious that the earthquake has changed the Indo-Pakistani equation over Kashmir. This has not happened in accordance with some romantic notion of 8216;8216;let8217;s all live together8217;8217;, but is grounded in two new verities.

First, the Pakistani construct of 8216;Azad Kashmir8217; is today in a shambles. Its government, nominally autonomous of Islamabad, has disappeared, many of its key functionaries are probably dead. The chief minister is living in a tent. This is a sad, unfortunate story; what it also means is that Pakistan8217;s proxy regime in PoK has been reduced to a political cipher.

For years, PoK has been inaccessible 8212; foreign journalists or brave tourists had no problem getting to Srinagar, but couldn8217;t quite walk into Muzaffarabad at will. Today, the region is swarming with foreigners. In the past week, the Americans have doubled their troop deployment in PoK, set up a military hospital in the territory8217;s capital. British troops have arrived too. In the Pakistan National Assembly, the opposition is going ballistic.

As PoK is rebuilt 8212; an enormous, bureaucracy-laden process that will, no doubt, take years 8212; foreign aid workers, United Nations officials, global contractors, Western media crew are going to become a near permanent feature. Their presence alone cannot negate terrorism, but can curtail the freedom of the ISI and the jihadis.

In essence, the Valley is still with India, but, with luck, PoK could become an international peacetime playground. The loser? Pakistan.

Second, the opening up of the LoC with 8216;meeting points8217; at three locations 8212; five, if India accepts Pakistan8217;s proposal 8212; is a nuanced, creeping movement towards the idea that dare not speak its name: the acceptance of the LoC as an international border.

Both countries have a problem acknowledging this potential solution. It is impossible to sell to a domestic audience in Pakistan, and difficult, though perhaps not impossible, to accept in India. Neither is it, in itself, a guarantor that terrorism will end.

Nevertheless, once Kashmiris from both sides of the border begin to meet 8212; at facilities conveniently built and guarded by, among others, the Indian Army 8212; it will reduce public grievance that much. The 8216;meeting points8217; have been created in an emergency; there is no reason why they cannot stay on, far outlasting the earthquake8217;s aftermath.

For India, it will be a public relations bonus 8212; given that, over the past half-century, people in the two Kashmirs have not been able to mingle. If that problem vanishes, without in any way affecting the territorial integrity of India, who8217;s to complain?

The collateral gains from the earthquake have culminated a year of three diplomatic landmarks for India. One of them is well-known, of course: the July 18 nuclear agreement with the United States, and the mutual courtship of New Delhi and Washington before and after.

Other than that, two natural disasters have come to India8217;s use 8212; the Kashmir earthquake and the tsunami of December 26, 2004. Both killed thousands, wreaked much damage, claimed a huge price. Yet, in their silent, enigmatic way 8212; so like the moods of nature 8212; they advanced the goals of Indian foreign policy.

How did the tsunami help India? Simply put, it was a non-weaponised analogue of the 1998 Pokhran II nuclear explosions. It changed the world8217;s perception of India, was a signal that this country could handle its problems and was ready for membership of the 8216;big boys8217; club8217;.

India8217;s civil administrative capacities were tested, broadly successfully, in the days and weeks after December 26. By January, the rest of the planet had realised that when the government of India refused bilateral aid, it wasn8217;t just posturing.

India recovered faster than many other tsunami-hit countries 8212; a fact conceded by agencies from WHO to Human Rights Watch. Simultaneously, it sent ships to help Sri Lanka, even before the United States Navy got moving. Why, by the afternoon of tsunami Sunday itself, an Indian Air Force pilot had made a heroic landing on a damaged airfield in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

More important, before the UN woke up, the 8216;core group8217; of the US, Japan, Australia and India took charge of post-tsunami operations. This suggested future possibilities.

Together, the four countries are the only major democracies in the vast hemisphere from America8217;s west coast to Israel. The 8216;core group8217; represented four nations of critical economic and military size. It could be the template for an Asia-Pacific 8216;concert of democracies8217;, a sub-group in the Proliferation Security Initiative against WMD trafficking.

In the end, the 8216;core group8217; could be no more than a collective of regional 8216;leader nations8217;. The fact is, India graduated to top percentile. No wonder the tsunami 8212; like the temblor in October 8212; would have left South Block satisfied.