October 26, 2001	Friday	Shaba'an 8, 1422

NEW DELHI: Barely a week after US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited New Delhi and Islamabad to counsel restraint upon the leaders of Pakistan and India, the South Asian rivals are back to exchanging shrill rhetoric, taunting, chiding and threatening each other. If they carry on this way, matters could well go “out of control” — as Powell fears — with unspeakably grave consequences for this volatile region’s 1.3 billion people, or a fifth of humanity.

But there is a difference between the rhetoric of the past and the latest exchange of verbal hostilities. This time around, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself — otherwise not known for inflammatory speech — has joined the battle of words, as has President Pervez Musharraf.

On Monday, Musharraf threatened to “teach India a lesson” if it tries to cross the Line of Control (LoC). He also said that in Pakistan, “we don’t wear bangles” — India should know that Pakistan is no pushover. It must not indulge in a military ”misadventure”.”

On Tuesday, Vajpayee replied by calling Pakistan an ”untrustworthy” neighbour and accused it of opportunism and betrayal, and of supporting “cross-border terrorism” in Kashmir. He said: “Islamabad has armed the Taliban. But it is itself waging a war against that very Taliban. Who will trust them?” He challenged Islamabad to decide if it wants to be India’s friend or its adversary.

Not to be left behind, hardliner Defence Minister George Fernandes said India is a “peace-loving” country that has never waged war, and described as “rubbish” Pakistan’s charge that New Delhi has plans to cross the Line of Control that runs through disputed Kashmir.

Competing with him, Hindu hawk and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani vowed to pursue a tough “pro-active” policy. India’s foreign ministry did not help matters by saying it does not wish to indulge in “sterile debates” with Islamabad, which should stop ”chasing chimeras” — instead, it should address “cross-border terrorism”.

On Tuesday, Pakistan handed over a demarche, a formal diplomatic protest, to the Indian ambassador in Islamabad, against “provocative” statements from New Delhi.

The immediate trigger for this war of words was provided by the recent turn in the course of the Afghanistan war, with the United States launching long-expected, but delayed, air strikes on frontline positions of the Taliban in the north.

Pakistan has been lobbying hard for the inclusion of ”moderate Taliban” elements into an alternative government in Kabul. The United States has not publicly opposed this and may be strongly inclined to support such a deal — if its limited, personalised objective of getting Osama bin Laden “dead or alive” is met.

However, India, Russia and Iran strongly oppose the inclusion of “moderate” Taliban elements in a future government, calling it an oxymoron or contradiction in terms.

Neither India nor Pakistan has control over the factor — the pounding of Taliban frontline positions — that is causing the present shifts in military balances. Both are keen to exploit their effects.

In the Pakistani and Indian cases, domestic considerations too play a large role. Vajpayee’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, faces a tough election in Uttar Pradesh. With its electoral base substantially eroded in recent years, it hopes to win votes by appeasing non-secular Hindu opinion with a militant anti-Pakistan stand.

The Vajpayee government also mobilized military forces in Kashmir in a “pro-active” strategy to inflicting “punitive” strikes upon “secessionist” fighters who exploit widespread popular alienation with the Indian state. It is under internal pressure to use the present global “anti-terrorism” climate to put down the freedom struggle with a heavy hand.

Musharraf is besieged by hardline Muslims. The only way he can sustain his support for the US-led unpopular war, besides censorship and street-level repression, is by playing the India card. He too can be expected to step up the anti-India rhetoric.

The danger of the rhetoric of mutual hostility spinning out of control is very real. US strategists have drawn up more than 25 plausible scenarios of an India-Pakistan armed conflict. The likely escalation of each conflict scenario means a nuclear conflagration, according to military sources. Meantime, US leaders have again appealed to India and Pakistan to defuse mutual tensions. Powell has even offered ”help” to do so. But India rejects any “third party” mediation.

The sole hope for mutual restraint is quiet diplomacy to get Vajpayee and Musharraf to meet in New York, where in three weeks’ time they are to address the UN General Assembly. But even this seems difficult as Vajpayee has said he will not meet Musharraf unless “cross-border terrorism” ends.

South Asia, with its own sordid sideshow in the Afghanistan war, remains on a short fuse.—Dawn/InterPress Service.