PRESIDENT Pervez Musharraf’s speech of January 12 should mark a turning point in the current eyeball-to-eyeball military confrontation in the subcontinent. There has been a grudging welcome of the speech by Jaswant Singh, the Indian foreign minister, whereas the Indian media and public seem more enthusiastic.

Jaswant Singh has stressed the need for effective implementation of Musharraf’s proposed measures and has linked any de-escalation of the military build-up to such progress. The United States and other countries have warmly welcomed the measures announced by President Musharraf and urged India to reciprocate. Under the circumstances, the threat of hostilities has visibly receded.

As usual, the versions put forward by India and Pakistan about the course of the recent events — and their respective motivations and aims — are sharply different. However, there can be little disagreement that the war hysteria was created by India, which assembled its troops on the border in a most aggressive manner. Pakistan’s response to this development was measured and moderate; and its military moves were entirely defensive. And yet, curiously, the international pressure led by the US was applied mostly on Pakistan. This paradox needs some explaining.

There is perhaps a second paradox. While India has more than its share of fire-breathing hawks, those responsible for policy-making in India must know that a war between India and Pakistan can quickly turn into a nuclear holocaust. That will only lead to massive devastation, which can in no way serve India’s national interests. Hence, Indian policy-makers have really no choice but to rule out any outright war with Pakistan. This being so, how can one explain the Indian war hysteria?

On reflection,it appears that India has followed a carefully worked-out strategy — albeit a highly risky one — since the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament. It has sought to exploit to the hilt two guiding factors in current world politics, namely i) that there must be no nuclear war; and ii) that any blatant act of terrorism justifies retaliation by the use of military force. Whoever carried out the attack on the Indian parliament, therefore, provided India the great opportunity to exploit these two global concerns to its own advantage.

India’s immediate objective seems to be the curtailment of support by individuals or groups from across the border to sustain the freedom struggle in occupied Kashmir. India has been insistent for more than a decade that such “cross-border terrorism” has been taking place from the Pakistani side. As it turned out, in the past decade, the Indian arguments fell on deaf ears and its expectations that international pressure would be brought to bear on Pakistan did not materialize. However, in the changed international environment after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, and the launching of the “war against terrorism” by the US and its allies, India found a golden opportunity. It sought to draw a parallel between the incidents of September 11 and December 13. If the US was justified in retaliating against Afghanistan for harbouring “terrorists,” how could it oppose a similar response by India against Pakistan?

Secondly, India calculated that any spectre of a nuclear war in the subcontinent would be a cause of grave concern to the US and others. These countries would seek to intercede with India not to go to war. New Delhi would then place the condition that these countries must put the pressure on Pakistan to stop or reduce the activities of the jihadist groups based on its soil. This is what has actually happened. Furthermore, Pakistan as the smaller country, with a weaker economy, is also more susceptible to pressure.

Let us assume that India had not raised the war hysteria. In that situation, would the US and others have applied the present degree of pressure on Pakistan to curb Islamic extremists on its soil? Clearly, there has been a method behind the Indian madness in creating a situation of eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. In other words, it never had any real intention of going to war, since that would be as ruinous for India as it would be for Pakistan. What India has done in actual fact is to wage a war of nerves. Evidently, it has secured certain results as well. By the same token, it is unlikely to deescalate in a hurry, so that it can maintain the pressure on Pakistan to curb the activities of pro-Kashmiri groups operating across the Line of Control (LoC). Hence, the military stand-off is likely to continue, at least for some time.

Is Pakistan,then, the loser in the present context? Fortunately, there seem to be some positive aspects to the current situation for Pakistan as well. The US and others have warmly welcomed the measures announced by President musharraf. Hence, the mileage gained by India on the issue curtailment of the activities of the Islamic extremists is unlikely to yield any further results. Instead, the pressure would probably now increase on India in the context of the international community’s determination that there should be no nuclear war. This should also increase to some extent the degree of international interest in resolving the Kashmir dispute. President Musharraf has certainly urged the West to do so. Moreover, the curbing of the Islamic extremists should benefit Pakistan, both internally and externally. The destabilization of Pakistan, witnessed over the last few years, as a result of gun running and widespread terrorism has damaged the country’s international image as well as dried up foreign investment. The suppression of these groups and the xenophobic attitudes of the jihadists would strengthen Pakistan, both internally and externally. In fact, these steps ought to have been taken much earlier.

The international image of President Musharraf also has improved. He is viewed as a balanced, moderate and progressive ruler. He has shown courage and foresight. He has also received tremendous coverage in the global news media. In the process, Pakistan has gained in importance as a key country in the region and even on the world stage. The West now has a stake in supporting Gen. Musharraf and in keeping Pakistan afloat as a viable country. Significant economic dividends have already been secured by Pakistan and this trend is likely to continue.

On the other hand, India’s international image has suffered because of its policies of nuclear brinkmanship. It has raised fresh fears in the world about its sense of responsibility as a nuclear power. Of course, the present-day India has no resemblance with the image of that country sought to be built up by its founder Mahatma Gandhi who had won world renown for his philosophy of non-violence. The moral edge that this philosophy had given India is dead and gone. Today’s India is acting like a power-drunk bully — jingoistic, arrogant and averse to the world’s pleas for restraint and moderation.

For Pakistan, there is need for self-introspection as well. A nation must know what are its limitations. Realism rather than emotionalism must be the basis of policy decisions. For too long have we allowed a drift in our society towards jihadist militancy and extremism. This has hurt us in more ways than one. Our policy towards the Taliban regime was also defective. It is undeniable that we should seek friendly relations with any regime that comes to power in Afghanistan and hence we had to establish a good relationship with the Taliban. But there was no need to go overboard in our support for the Taliban regime. The fact was that its ideology had little in common with our attitudes.

Some of our closest friends like Turkey, Iran and China had serious misgivings about the Taliban. Befriending the Taliban at the cost of creating cracks in our relationship with these countries was unwise. In the internal fighting in Afghanistan, we appeared to have become partisan against the Northern Alliance. This has evidently done long-term harm to our equation with the non-Pukhtoons in Afghanistan with whom previously we never had any problems.

In the context of Indo-Pakistan relations, realism also demands that policy-makers in Islamabad revert to the pre-1989 policies on Kashmir. The degree of activism seen in the past decade needs to be diluted. President Musharraf’s speech of January 12 perhaps is already a pointer to a new phase in our policy. Pakistan’s national interests must take precedence over everything else. If this was so in the case of Afghanistan, it must be so in the case of Kashmir as well. The present crisis has shown how adamant India is on holding on to Kashmir. Clearly, there can be no military solution to the Kashmir problem. In the present context, of course, little worthwhile results can be expected from talks. However, as Churchill once said, “talk talk is better than shoot shoot.”

Pakistan needs time to consolidate itself. It has at present a rare window of opportunity for economic development. In President Musharraf we have a leader who has given the country an honest and dynamic government. This is the right time to set our house in order. We need to become more inward-looking and have to be less preoccupied with foreign policy problems. Pakistan has great potential for progress. Its people have the talent and the capability to rise to great heights provided we have capable leadership and provided, of course, we have peace within and peace without. In other words, Pakistan needs some breathing space. A wise people must have the patience to wait for the opportunity when it is best placed to tackle its adversary and the latter is at a relative disadvantage. Acting prematurely does more harm than good. Economic progress and consolidation should be the guiding norms for Pakistan.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.