FOLLOWING Pakistan’s volte face in its Afghan policy, President Pervez Musharraf set four national “objectives” which he claims have been “achieved”: maintaining the integrity and security of Pakistan, securing the safety of its strategic assets, avoiding any damage to the Kashmir cause, and rehabilitating the economy. If these were the valid objectives following the war on terrorism declared by the US on September 11, have they been attained, and what should Pakistan’s objectives now be?

Upholding the integrity and security of a state is an axiomatic duty of every government — an aim which it is impossible ever to realize fully. Indeed, September 11 showed the vulnerability of mighty America. As for the policy of attempting to safeguard Pakistan’s strategic assets, it seems that these weapons for which Pakistan paid a heavy price have now become an instant liability.

In relation to the Kashmir cause, it is difficult to see how any damage to it has been avoided in the context of the present crisis. Kashmir cannot be won by war, either by India or by Pakistan; its cause has survived all the vicissitudes of the political and security situations in the region in the past several decades. If by joining the coalition against terror Pakistan expected India to become more amenable or hoped to have the US play a more positive role for a solution, it was merely wishful. Secretary of State Colin Powell only recently reiterated, “To the extent that the United States could be helpful in fostering [a] dialogue, fine, but we cannot become the mediator or the arbitrator or the intermediary between them.”

The last of the objectives, the rehabilitation of the economy, has not even begun to take shape. The estimated consequences for the current financial year of the impact of September 11 events have risen from $1.5-2.5 billion to over $3 billion in economic losses. Unfortunately, while we have had a stream of foreign leaders visiting Islamabad over the past weeks, they have not come carrying gifts — but only promises to offer. Many Pakistanis felt that the main prize would be received personally by President Musharraf from President Bush in New York on November 10, but that was not to be. Pakistan’s reward for “bold”, “courageous”, “pivotal” support in the war against terror has been limited to words of praise, and we must now await the IMF, World Bank and the consortium meetings in December for something more substantive.

It would surely have been wiser if the government had not given so much publicity to objectives that were self-evident and that in any case were not matters for instant realization. As it has turned out, these have remained largely unfulfilled. President Musharraf should have disregarded advice to announce these amorphous objectives as having been achieved. Instead, what Pakistan needs to consider now are specific goals closely related to our immediate national needs.

Before deciding on the course of action Pakistan should adopt in the new context, the aims of the countries which have a direct stake in the Afghan crisis should be considered. These include Russia, Iran, India, China, Saudi Arabia and, most of all, the US. Russia and its “near abroad” in the area, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, would not accept the US as the sole arbiter, deciding on how to fill the power vacuum in Afghanistan. They support the Northern Alliance and encouraged it to march on Kabul. At the same time, there has recently been a remarkable change in US-Russian relations as symbolized by the friendly meeting between presidents Putin and Bush in Texas. An economically hard-pressed Russia would probably be content to see a reversion to the position of a neutral Afghanistan as in the early seventies, accommodating Russian interests and countering militant Islam.

Iran supports the Shia and Persian-speaking elements in the Northern Alliance and shares Russia’s anti-Taliban views. India too supports the Northern Alliance, but its aim is to pressure Pakistan from the north and the east. Its support for the US-led coalition against terror serves its interest in seeking a dominant role in South Asia. It also counts on US encouragement to emerge as the fourth power in the Asian continent to balance Russia, China and Japan.

China views uneasily the growing US presence in Afghanistan and the ties between the US, Russia and India. It has no base from which to play a significant role in the region, but is trying to lift the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang province economically and to develop outward trade from there through Gwadar, cutting by half the distance to the sea.

Recent developments in the region have marginalized Saudi Arabia. Its relevance remains only because of oil. Recent events have, in fact, shown the lack of clout and relevance of most Muslim states.

The US will, of course, maintain its dominant position in the region as in the world at large. To date, however, Pakistan has not enjoyed the reciprocity of support that President Musharraf undoubtedly expected for being “in complete agreement with” the US on the issue of terrorism. Equally relevant is the fact that the precise aims of the US in the region, apart from the proclaimed war against terror, are not very clear. Only time will show.

Pakistan, however, cannot wait for US policy to evolve or be spelt out. It has already been forced to wait for financial support. It is necessary for Pakistan to determine its own position and establish its own priorities. Although the situation is still extremely fluid and will remain so for quite a while, we should make a start by defining the nation’s aims and objectives, updating the process in the light of the changing circumstances.

It is essential to ensure the national and territorial integrity of Afghanistan. A north-south division along ethnic lines would have very serious consequences for Pakistan’s national integrity. Given the Northern Alliance’s hostility, it should be Pakistan’s main endeavour to have a stable and neutral government in Kabul, initially under the UN auspices. Pakistan’s call for the inclusion of “moderate” Taliban, if indeed there are any, in a future set-up in Kabul appears unrealistic. Pakistan’s role as a king-maker is no more. However, Pakhtoon leaders who are not part of the Taliban should be encouraged to participate in any future set-up. At the same time, Pakistan should take steps to prevent a large influx of Afghan refugees. The orderly establishment of a broad-based government in Kabul will contribute to the return of the Afghans now in Pakistan.

In order to avoid being isolated, Pakistan must revive and re-develop its earlier close ties with Iran and China. It was a mistaken policy to look for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan. From the 19th century onwards every power which became involved in Afghanistan — more recently the Soviet Union — came to grief. Prior to the 1970s, Iran naturally provided strategic depth for Pakistan. Moreover, while it would be difficult to secure much cooperation from other supporters of the Northern Alliance, there is room for it where Iran is concerned. Not having good relations with the US, it would also be in Iran’s interest to reciprocate as a fellow Muslim state. There are no basic differences between Pakistan and Iran and relations could be quickly improved by Pakistan dealing firmly with sectarian troublemakers.

China has stood by Pakistan in every difficult situation, despite our acting on important occasions without due consultations with Beijing. Even when we joined SEATO in 1954 against China, President Zhou Enlai said he “fully understood” Pakistan’s position; and this was equally true up to 1961 when Pakistan, although recognizing the Chinese government de jure, followed the US position of supporting Taiwan holding the UN seat. Beijing has had contacts with the Northern Alliance for several years, but would not readily allow Pakistan’s interests to be undermined by Indo-Russian efforts. China would like to develop its troubled Xinjiang province and to prevent the export of religious extremism from Pakistan. Judging by President Musharraf’s recent statements, he shares this view. There are indeed numerous opportunities for cooperation with China, not least in communications and defence projects. Pakistan must move speedily in this direction.

Clearly this is not the time to allow relations with India to deteriorate. India will endeavour to take advantage of Pakistan’s exposed position. Our initial glee at the non-acceptance of India’s offer of logistic support and facilities by the US coalition was misjudged. India still has a role to play in the anti-terror coalition and that should not be at Pakistan’s expense. Pakistan should start by avoiding rhetoric and calling for a dialogue with New Delhi. As for India’s principal supporter, Russia, we should maintain the best possible relations with it and not, as in the past, ignore Russian interests

Pakistan must direct its efforts to ensure an adequate level of military preparedness in order to avoid being made subservient to India. The recent developments, or rather absence of them, concerning F-16s does not augur well and represents confusion at the decision-making level. The principal aim of foreign policy is to ensure national security, and Pakistan must give undivided attention to this.

Finally, it is important to touch on some basic domestic objectives. It is essential to secure financial assistance from the developed world and we should not hesitate to make demands. All agree that Pakistan needs to kick-start the economy through reactivation of public sector programmes and private investment. Until the Afghan situation is finally settled, there will be little private investment. In the meanwhile, the government should concentrate on the public sector to help alleviate massive unemployment. For this, large funds are required.

It is equally imperative to create conditions conducive for investment and a key factor in this is the maintenance of law and order. The government must ensure that Taliban supporters and other disruptive forces are not allowed to obstruct a return to economic growth. If there is one truly salutary outcome of the dramatic change in Afghan policy, it is President Musharraf’s new-found determination to deal firmly with militant sectarianism and religious extremism in Pakistan.

EVERYONE has an opinion on Kashmir. Few have the facts. This also goes for the partition of Punjab in 1947. Everyone has an opinion, but if you ask what the facts were, you are unlikely to get a clear or coherent response. It is only half a century when those momentous events took place, which means they are almost within living memory.

However, most people, if asked as to what exactly happened, will give different answers, peppered with a lot of emotional adjectives, but little by way of well laid-out facts. Kashmir is a case in point. How many of us have read Chaudhri Muhammad Ali’s masterly account of the genesis of the Kashmir dispute in his book ‘The Emergence of Pakistan’? Or Chaudhri Zafrulla Khan’s autobiography ‘Tehdis-i-Naimat’? Anyone who wants to know precisely what happened needs to read the relevant pages from these two fascinating works.

Muhammad Ali writes that when Congress accepted the division of India, it did so with the intent to truncate Pakistan and make it an unviable state. Kashmir’s annexation was seen as the final nail that would seal the coffin of the new-born country. Nehru told Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, who repeated it in a speech on October 21, 1947, that “due to the strategic position the state (of Jammu and Kashmir) holds, if this state joins the Indian Dominion, Pakistan would be completely encircled”.

Muhammad Ali writes that Congress had reached a secret understanding with the Maharaja of Kashmir for accession but the accession was only to be officially accepted by Delhi after Hydrabad had been duly annexed. The Quaid wanted to visit Srinagar after the June 3 plan was announced but was told he would not be welcome. Instead, Mountbatten went to Srinagar and told the Maharaja to opt for one or the other dominion, but “at no stage did he tell the Maharaja that in view of the geographical and strategic factors and the overwhelmingly Muslim population of the state, it was his plain duty to accede to Pakistan. The arguments he so forcefully put before Hyderabad, Jaipur and Jaiselmere for accession to India applied with equal strength to Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan. But he never used them on the Maharaja,” writes Muhammad Ali.

According to him, “ In Hyderabad and other Hindu majority states with Muslim rulers, he (Mountbatten) had given forthright advice in favour of immediate accession to India. The way he equated the unequal claims of India and Pakistan, the assurance he gave of protection to the Maharaja if he decided on accession to India, the indefinite method he suggested for ascertaining the wishes of the people, could only have left the impression on the mind of the Maharaja that he could with equal facility accede to India, if he so desired.”

When Mountbatten flew to Lahore on November 1, 1947 — Nehru pretended he was too ill to travel — the Quaid proposed to him a ceasefire in Kashmir, withdrawal of all, repeat all, forces, including the tribesmen, and a plebiscite to be held jointly under the direct supervision of the two Governors-General. This generous offer which would have settled the question of Kashmir once for all was rejected by India. This was in 1947. What hope is there in 2001 India would accept any reasonable settlement of the issue? Muhammad Ali writes that the meeting with Mountbatten disillusioned the Quaid completely and he felt that he had been deceived. “We have been put on the wrong bus,” he said bitterly. Thereafter, his health began to deteriorate rapidly.

Zafrulla’s account is even more chilling. He was asked by the Quaid to represent the Muslim League case before the Boundary Commission headed by Cyril Radcliffe. Earlier, the Quaid had proposed that the demarcation of the dividing line in Punjab and Bengal should be entrusted to the UN; Nehru rejected it. The Quaid also proposed that the commission should comprise three Privy Councillors. Mountbatten said the members were all of advanced years and would not be able to tolerate the heat of India. This was an excuse. It was easier to manipulate one man compared to three.

Zafrulla had only three days in which to prepare the case. He did not even have secretarial help till Khwaja Abdul Rahim, a member of the ICS and a Muslim nationalist, stepped in. Two days before the hearing, Justice Din Muhammad, a member of the Boundary Commission with Muhammad Munir came to see Zafrulla and told him that the entire exercise was a joke because the dividing line had already been decided upon. He said Radcliffe had told him the night before that he was going to fly over certain areas of the Punjab the next day. When Din Muhammad protested that such an inspection might prejudice his mind which as an umpire he must avoid, he replied that though the aircraft was small, two people could go with him, and invited Din Muhammad and a Hindu representative to do so.

The flight was aborted because of bad weather but Din Muhammad was able to take a look at the map the pilot was to use to fly the route given to him. Din Muhammad was certain that what he had seen was the predetermined Punjab partition line. Radcliffe had been in India less than a week, part of which he had spent in Calcutta. Who had given him the map which showed that two crucial Muslim-majority tehsils of District Gurdaspur were not to be in Pakistan? He told Zafrulla that he was rushing to New Delhi to seek the Quaid’s permission for Munir and him to resign because the entire exercise was a farce. He did meet the Quaid who said the two men were not to resign but to do their best while staying on the Commission. The Quaid was a fair and honest man and expected others, especially the British, to be fair and honest. He also believed that an English judge, which Radcliffe was, could not be dishonest. For once he was to be proved wrong.

When the award was announced, Zafrulla was in Bhopal. He writes, “I felt paralyzed.” The final dividing line was more or less what Din Muhammad had seen on the map which, it transpired, had been prepared in Lord Ismay’s office. Muhammad Ali saw it pinned to a wall in Ismay’s office when he went to see him to discuss the disturbing reports the Quaid had received about the predetermined award. Mohammad Ali told Ismay there was no need for a discussion because the map on his wall proved that the Quaid’s reports were accurate. “Ismay turned pale and asked in confusion who had been fooling with his map,” Muhammad Ali later wrote.

Pakistanis have often been accused by foreigners of wallowing in the past. Perhaps they are right; but what they do not appreciate is that in order to understand the present, it is essential to understand the past. Given our history, and given India’s unenviable negotiating record with Pakistan since independence, it is only the most optimistic among us who can hope for a change of heart in New Delhi today or tomorrow.

CAN the spirit of the successful achievement of the Putin-Bush meeting be now carried over into Russia’s relationship with Europe? In many ways it is easier for the US to make a big peace with Russia than it is for Europe.

There has never been any territorial issue between the two, apart from the quiet selling of Alaska to the US in 1867. Despite all the tension of the cold war it remains true that neither Russia nor the US lost a soldier to the other side in combat.

Yet for Europe the memories of war with Russia and Russian occupation run deep. Is it at last possible, ten years after the fall of communism, for contemporary Europe to finally respond to Mikhail Gorbachev’s plea to build a “common European house”?

This is Europe’s call. America will want to be privy to the content of the discussions, but Washington knows that in this case what Europe decides it wants it cannot obstruct. Nor does it have any real reason to interfere.

There is now urgency in the matter. The European Union made it clear this week that most of the eastern European countries, not long ago stalwart allies of Moscow, are on track for integration into the European Union by 2004. The larger ones are already members of Nato and Russia seems to be downplaying its opposition to future membership of the smaller nations on its Baltic border.

Is Russia a European or Asiatic nation? It is a question that has been debated for 500 years at least. The nineteenth century Slavophile, Nikolay Danilevskiy argued that Russia possesses an instinctive Slavic civilization of its own — midway between Europe and Asia. Yet Dostoevsky speaking at a meeting at the unveiling of a statute to the poet Pushkin said, “Peoples of Europe, they don’t know how dear to us they are.”

If this is the predominant mood among Russian intellectuals today they still have to contend with the nationalism —-and Slavism — of the rump Communist party and those powerful voices in the army, and even the foreign ministry, who fear a loss of independence if Russia is swallowed up in a greater Europe.

Seventy years of totalitarian communism, following on the autocracy of the tsars, as Norman Davies writes in his monumental history of Europe “ has built huge mental as well as physical curtains across Europe.” It was Churchill who called the Bolsheviks “a baboonery”, steeped in the deadly traditions of Attila and Genghis Khan.

Yet Lenin and his circle assumed that one day they would join up with revolutionaries in the advanced capitalist countries. The Comintern in the early 1920s discussed the idea of a United States of Europe.

It wasn’t the Bolsheviks but Stalin who pointed Russia eastwards.

In today’s liberated Russia the European heart beats fast. The roots go deep. Muscovy has been an integral part of Christendom since the tenth century. In the late imperial era it was not just Dostoevsky and Pushkin who wrote in the European tradition, but Lermontov, Tolstoy and Chekhov, giants then whom the passage of time has not demoted. Russian music, so eminently of European pedigree, with Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov rivalled anything that came out of nineteenth century Germany, Austria and Italy.

The Ballet Russe and the Stanislavsky Theatre School were the leaders in Europe. Even Stalin chose not to squash this inheritance, although he sought to control its legacy and energy in his own ruthless manner.

Russia has now found with America that it has been able to fashion a common alliance- against terrorism, for nuclear disarmament, against nuclear proliferation to unstable countries and perhaps even the quiet, unprovocative containment of the growing might of China. The agenda with Europe is more demanding, but its rewards will be much more long-lasting.

If discussions on the future membership of Russia in the European Union began now it would take at least ten years and probably twenty to bring to the point of consummation. Russia still has too much corruption, misadministration, and lack of widespread democratization, not to mention seriously inadequate legal institutions for it to be a quick process. But, as with Turkey today, the carrot of future entry can prove to be a good stick for beating the system into shape.

Europe itself has to decide how much it wants this. It has within its power the opportunity to anchor Russia firmly within Europe, to cut off for all time the Russian temptation to look eastward. Without Russia welcome in Europe it leaves the Russian psyche dangerously exposed—-insecure, exiled from its natural centre of gravity and horribly free to roll around the deck like the proverbial loose cannon.

Yet for some Europeans there will be a price that goes beyond the usual debate on subsidies and the cost of the development of backward regions.

It is to give up the vision of a united federal Europe, under one parliament and one president.

Already with the planned admission of eastern Europe and Turkey the EU is getting too large for such a grandiose idea. With Russia a member, clearly it could not work. Yet Europe would still gain more than it ever dared aspire to—-the continent-wide union of its members and the stabilization of this great centre of civilization that has spent too much of its history at war with itself.—Copyright Jonathan Power

IN THE wake of the global campaign against terror, three major trends have become evident, all of which are of utmost significance to the global community. The first is an unprecedented eagerness on the part of governments to sharpen their swords against terrorism at home.

President Bush has already conferred sweeping powers on the FBI to investigate the sinews and nerves of the terrorist networks at home. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government, matching its unseemly haste in joining the US-led anti-Osama bandwagon, lost no time in improvising the potentially draconian, Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO), in India. Even those governments that have not cooked up legal provisions to ‘crush’ terrorism seem to be infected by the prevailing “terror-psychosis”. All on a sudden it looks as though our world has only one problem: terrorism.

While it is indisputable that the merchants of terror must be neutralized, we have to be vigilant against the likelihood of the ‘war efforts’ against terrorism legitimizing a repressive intolerance of civil liberties and the right to dissent. The foremost need in this context is to define ‘terrorism’ objectively. The global community needs to agree on what comprises terrorism in its two-fold expressions: the terrorism practised by the state, and the terrorism resorted to by ideological groups and subversive elements that have no patience with peace or dialogue.

If the concept of terrorism is allowed to remain vague, it will become a sledgehammer in the hands of repressive regimes against those who demand justice and civil liberties. It is alarming that so many nations rush into the so-called “global coalition against terror” without any agreed understanding of what terrorism is!

What should make us worry all the more is the fact that some of the eager participants in this global anti-terrorism alliance — Russia, for example — are themselves combating regional aspirations for autonomy. India’s own zeal in fighting terrorism is the thorn in our flesh called ‘cross-border terrorism’ on account of Kashmir. Freedom fighters and free thinkers have been terrorists and subversive elements in the eyes of the political establishment from time immemorial. To Saddam, for example, the Kurds are out-and-out terrorists. It would be a tragedy if the campaign against terrorism were to legitimize the repression of genuine struggles for justice and liberty. Already Black Tuesday has made the political establishments in many parts of the world more brash and belligerent.

An ambience is emerging in which the language of terror seems more seemly on the lips of authority than it did before September 11. In our keenness to kill the body of terror, we should not allow ourselves to be possessed by the spirit of terrorism. Four centuries ago, Shakespeare anatomized the irony of killing the body of Caesar only to unleash the spirit of Caesar (i.e., Caesarism). For the oppressed peoples of the world, a terror worse than the survival of bin Laden is the dreadful prospect of the ruling establishments being possessed by the spirit of bin Laden: the spirit of intolerance fortified by the cult of violence.

The second crucial issue relates to the folly of articulating this ‘contestation of terror’ in the pomposity of a ‘civilizational conflict’ which it decidedly is not. Unfortunately, President Bush’s hapless use of the metaphor of ‘crusade’ in describing the global effort against terrorism, was a windfall for Islamic fundamentalism. All the more so because the silhouette of Samuel Huntington — the false prophet of historical apocalypse — looms large over the horizon of American foreign policy. Ironically and unwittingly, Huntington has sketched the blueprint for Pan-Islamic solidarity; for the Islamic world tends to equate Christianity with the US and Europe, as is evident from the incidents of anti-Christian violence both in Nigeria and Pakistan, in the wake of the War on Terror.

This vivisection of the world into the Christian and Islamic civilizations, as though there is nothing in between, is even more a-historical, fanciful and frivolous than the arbitrary division of the world into two blocs led by the two superpowers. The plausibility of this contrived ‘civilizational conflict hypothesis’ depends wholly on human suggestibility. The fact, for instance, that millions in India believe that Lord Ram was born at a specific spot in Ayodhya thousands of years ago, is no proof of its verity or validity.

The ‘civilizational conflict’ hypothesis has, however, horrendous scope for mischief. And, in the days ahead, the terrorists are bound to make a lethal use of this fanciful myth. As the US and its allies get bogged down and, consequently, resort to punitive bombardments leading to increasing civilian casualties in Afghanistan, the idea of a civilizational conflict might look more and more credible and compelling to the Muslim world. This could have unimaginable consequences, which it is most irresponsible to discount.

The third issue relates to the intellectual and ideological hegemony of the western world in the emerging global order. Over a period of time, the Euro-American bloc of nations got used to projecting its agenda and interests as the global agenda. At the core of this ethnocentrism is the dogma of the inherent superiority of the western culture over all other cultures and the core belief of the ultimacy of technology.

Technology is the seed of materialistic power and it is assumed to be all-sufficient in solving every human problem, extant and emerging. It is this that underlies Bush’s smug assumption that the Taliban can be quickly bombed into submission and that the menace of global terrorism can be rooted out at will. Till now this dogma has not been either confronted or contested, except perhaps for a while in the jungles of Vietnam. The wound of Vietnam was healed with the balm of Iraq’s easy humiliation.

The blind faith of the western culture in the omnipotence of technology alone should suffice to prove that the religion of the west is not Christianity but materialism. So, if and when a genuine civilizational conflict does take place, it will not be between Islam and Christianity, but between the civilizations of materialism and of spirituality. Now, terrorism itself belongs to the culture of materialism.

The use of passenger planes as weapons of mass destruction by the terrorists tells its own tale. Terrorism is neither Christian nor Muslim. It is, quintessentially, a materialistic phenomenon. A terrorist does not become Islamic either by having a Muslim name or a fundamentalist ideology. Nor does an anti-terror front become Christian just because its leaders have Christian names and their ancestors embraced the biblical faith at some point in history. Those who put their whole trust in might, whether of wealth or of technology, are alien to the way of Jesus Christ who said, “Put down the sword; he who takes the sword will perish by it.”

The world stands at the crossroads today. This is a time for honest and objective thinking, and not partial truths and partisan advocacies. Our duty by humankind demands that we recognize the contrived myths and manoeuvres of our times for what they are. Ironically, it is in the interests both of the terrorists and their antagonists to conjure up the monster of Christian-Muslim ‘civilizational conflict’.

Historically, Christians and Muslims are brothers condemned, by their religions it would seem, to inveterate hate and hurt. The question needs to be asked, at least at this eleventh hour, if the seed of terrorism does not lie in this perverse religiosity that makes brothers honour their God — apparently of love and compassion — BY SPILLING EACH OTHER’S BLOOD?