Time to dump Musharraf?

The prime minister held back from saying anything against Pakistan in his address to the nation a day after the Mumbai massacre. The Foreign Office too has moderated its language against Pakistan despite what it called the 8220;appalling8221; remarks of Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri linking terrorist violence in Mumbai to the unresolved dispute over Jammu and Kashmir.

It is also necessary to recall that Manmohan Singh inherited the framework of the peace process from his predecessor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who negotiated the January 6, 2004 statement with Musharraf in Islamabad. That statement was the result of a prolonged roller coaster ride between India and Pakistan during 1998-2004, which saw the nuclear tests, the Kargil war and the military confrontation after the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001, and reflected a delicate compromise.

Under that agreement, India agreed to negotiate purposefully on Kashmir in return for Pakistan agreeing to end cross-border terrorism. This shared understanding, which produced many impressive results in the last two years, is now being shredded by the series of terrorist acts in India, starting with the Diwali-eve bombings in New Delhi last October.

Despite the offensive nature of Kasuri8217;s remarks, he was only reiterating the conventional wisdom prevailing in Islamabad on the nature of the linkage between talks on Kashmir and expanding terrorist violence in India. The essence of this popular line in Islamabad is that India is responsible for the alleged slow pace of talks on J038;K, and that stoking terrorist violence is one way of getting India8217;s attention.

Irrespective of what most of us think about the awful nature of this proposition, it must be addressed head on.

In the few rounds of talks on J038;K between the two foreign secretaries, it was India that put forward most of the new proposals on cooperation across the Line of Control. Whether it was the bus services across the Line of Control, or the question of opening up cross-LoC trade in Kashmir, or meeting points for the people of J038;K, it was India that put them on the table.

Even more important, India overcame its traditional reluctance to let Hurriyat leaders travel across the LoC. And India was quick to offer assistance to earthquake victims in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, which Islamabad turned down.

All that we heard from Pakistan were impressive speeches from Musharraf proposing a range of solutions to the Kashmir question. However, none of these have been formally presented in the talks between the two foreign secretaries.

Viewed from a political perspective, Musharraf had enough reason to be pleased with his gains on Kashmir from India. For one, he got India to negotiate on Kashmir, without reference to the 1972 Shimla Agreement, under the January 6, 2004 statement.

For the first time since 1972, India had agreed to take a fresh look at the Kashmir question and give up its insistence that the Shimla Agreement had reflected all that needed to be said on the dispute. Even more important, despite the many tantrums from the Hurriyat, India 8212; while holding its nose 8212; began to engage, if only to please Pakistan.

In his speech at Amritsar in March, Manmohan Singh for the first time offered to set up a 8220;joint mechanism8221;, that some in Pakistan surely saw as a first step towards 8220;joint management8221;, to promote institutionalised cooperation between the two parts of Kashmir.

It is also known that India and Pakistan have exchanged substantive proposals on J038;K through the back channel. To call these extraordinary developments on Kashmir, in just two years, as 8220;lack of progress8221; does not stand scrutiny for even a moment.

Musharraf has been accused of many things. But no one has been called him unintelligent. Musharraf knows he has got more out of India on Kashmir than any other Pakistani leader ever did. The practical person that he is, Musharraf also knows that the tranquility on his eastern borders with India since the end of 2003 has given him much needed space to cope with the immense challenges on western borders with Afghanistan.

That Musharraf has chosen to risk the good thing he has going with India can only lead to two possible conclusions. One, like all previous Pakistani leaders Musharraf is overplaying his leverage on cross-border violence at a moment when reasonable compromises on Kashmir seem at hand. The other might be that Musharraf is not in control over the terror apparatus or beginning to lose what control he had.

If the assessment is that Musharraf has over-reached, the first task of the UPA government is to disabuse him of all illusions about gaining more concessions on Kashmir through terror blackmail. The government has no option at this stage but to signal unambiguously, to both Pakistan and the international community, that the peace process is indeed reversible, and that India is fully conscious of all the consequences the reversal might entail.

If Musharraf is not willing or is unable to deliver an end to cross-border terrorism, the government could only conclude that it is no longer possible to do business with him.

Beyond these necessary signals, India must recognise that authoritarian rulers like Musharraf only care for their own survival in power. It is only by demonstrating that India can complicate his internal power calculus, that New Delhi can hope to achieve a change in Musharraf8217;s policies.