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The manner in which the Pakistan
government dealt with an Air India plane en route from Abu Dhabi
to Delhi that had to make an emergency landing on Monday in the
small town of Nawabshehr in Sind province is to be welcomed but it
would be misleading to infer that this marks a radical departure
as regards the orientation of the 'deep-state' in Pakistan towards
India.
The larger context in which Islamabad (seat of the civilian
dispensation) and Rawalpindi (GHQ of the military where actual
power rests) have made certain security and foreign policy choices
is better reflected in the regional events of early July. Two sets
of differently troubled bilateral relationships, namely that
between India and Pakistan on one hand and the US-Pakistan on the
other, were reviewed over the last week - with results that may be
described as "more of the same."
On July 5, the foreign secretary-level talks between India and
Pakistan ended inconclusively in Delhi against the backdrop of
fresh revelations about the November 2008 Mumbai terror attack.
The handing over by the Saudi authorities of one 26/11 suspect,
Abu Jundal (aka Ansari), an Indian Muslim citizen who was part of
the LeT led attack on Mumbai, has provided fresh evidence of
Pakistani complicity. The cooperation and coordination between
India, Saudi Arabia and the US in apprehending a 26/11 suspect
from Saudi territory has added to the dismay of Islamabad, but
predictably, there was no explicit reference to this matter in the
joint statement issued by the two countries after the foreign
secretary talks.
Concurrently, the severely strained relations between the US and
Pakistan were reset on July 3 with US Secretary of State Hilary
Clinton stating that she was "sorry" for the death of Pakistani
soldiers in the November 2011 during a US air strike. The Pakistan
government which had sought an "apology" from the US to assuage
growing anti-American sentiment, accepted this olive branch and
agreed to resume the movement of supply convoys that had been
halted for the last seven months.
This compromise was expected since the Pentagon is critically
dependent on the Karachi-Afghanistan access to sustain its
logistics supplies for US troops in the region and to plan the
re-location of huge inventory and heavy equipment in the run-up to
the 2014 withdrawal. It is evident that some hard bargaining was
done by both sides and while Pakistan has not insisted on a higher
price per truck, the US has agreed to release to Islamabad direly
needed funds that had been put on hold. The opposition and the
right-wing parties in Pakistan have threatened to oppose this
rapprochement.
However, this is an uneasy truce since the terror issue - or the
support to this malignancy that the Pakistani deep-state provides
- has been left to fester and this has implications for Delhi and
the India-Pakistan bilateral relationship. Rawalpindi, the HQ of
the Pakistan military, has not been persuaded to sever its links
with the Haqqani group in Afghanistan - which is of relevance to
the US - and the endorsement of terror units such as the LeT and
its leader Hafeez Saeed whose focus is India. Having compelled the
US to "blink" first on the apology issue, there appears to be a
sense of triumph within the Pakistani "deep-state" that it can
continue with this policy of selective support to terror groups
and extremist ideologies even while dealing with the sectarian
forces that now challenge the Pakistani state with impunity.
The confluence of certain dates in July over the last four decades
merit recall to place the two bilateral relations in perspective.
On July 2, 1972 India and Pakistan signed the Simla Agreement and
the salient section of the preamble includes the following: "That
the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by
peaceful means through bilateral negotiations or by any other
peaceful means mutually agreed upon between them. Pending the
final settlement of any of the problems between the two countries,
neither side shall unilaterally alter the situation and both shall
prevent the organization, assistance or encouragement of any acts
detrimental to the maintenance of peaceful and harmonious
relations."
The Simla Agreement remains the most magnanimous war termination
accord in recent history but regrettably 40 years later, a review
of the spirit of Simla is disappointing. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
reneged on the promises made and in the years that followed, a
deep anti-India orientation became the dominant characteristic of
Pakistan.
In keeping with its tumultuous history, on July 5, 1977, General
Zia-ul Haq seized power from Bhutto, who was subsequently sent to
the gallows on July 4, 1979. The steady and corrosive Islamisation
of Pakistan began under General Zia and this was compounded by the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in late 1979 which in turn led to
the US-Pakistan alliance and the birth of the
Kalashnikov-wielding, theologically motivated mujahedin.
The US has made a Faustian bargain with the Pakistan military and,
notwithstanding the enormity of the Osama bin Laden episode which
demonstrated beyond doubt the duplicity of Rawalpindi apropos
terrorism, the US has chosen to accept this contradiction - as it
did with the A.Q. Khan revelations. The fact that Pakistan is in
possession of nuclear weapons and that this in turn resulted from
extended China-Pakistan cooperation which the US, during the
Reagan years, ignored due to compulsions in Afghanistan at the
time is part of the complex history of the Pentagon-Rawalpindi
relationship.
The "more of the same" syndrome is evident in the fact that in a
US election year, the Afghanistan card is back in play and
President Obama has little room to make any radical changes in US
policy.
For India, the terror supporting strategy of the Pakistani
military - that was refined during the Zia years - will remain the
abiding challenge in the years ahead. More discerning voices in
Pakistan are deeply concerned but helpless to change the
orientation of their own guardians and as the Daily Times, Lahore,
noted editorially (July 6): "The ramifications of Zia's legacy
have proved manifold and insidious. The genie of extremism
released from the bottle by him has given birth over time to
various jihadi groups operating in Pakistan with impunity, with
help from the deep state."
India has to accept the grim reality that the spirit of Simla
(July 1972) will remain elusive, while insulating itself from the
distorted malignancy that General Zia has bequeathed to his
country.
C. Uday Bhaskar is a well-known strategic analyst.
He can be reached at cudayb@gmail.com
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