THE enemy (India) has been defeated without fighting a war and the internal enemy (a poor economy and poorer governance) too no longer threatens the country. Such is the bonanza President Musharraf imagines he has handed down to the newly elected government on which it could build up national unity and eradicate poverty. His expectation of the future looks as fanciful as the assessment of the past is flawed.

Gen Musharraf may not be denied the credit of avoiding an armed clash on the Line of Control in Kashmir by keeping his cool and employing covert diplomacy, but the solution of Kashmir remains as distant as ever and the Indian stand on not to discuss it with Pakistan unchanged.

The thrust of Pakistan’s policy toward India for many years now has been to create an atmosphere congenial for talks notwithstanding the insurgency in Kashmir and Pakistan’s support to it which India views as cross-border terrorism and a world wary of Muslim freedom movements tends to agree. To talk of victory or inflicting defeat, even figuratively, detracts from that goal. It helps India, not us. At Agra, too, Pakistan revelled in publicity while India stiffened its posture. Since then we have been trying to go back to the pre-Agra summit stage in relations with India.

It seems to be the Indian plan to widen the area of conflict with Pakistan to relieve the pressure of international opinion for a peaceful, negotiated solution of the Kashmir problem. An indication of it came the other day from India’s deputy prime minister, L.K. Advani.

He has accused Pakistan of instigating once again the dissident Sikh organizations overseas to foment trouble in East Punjab which had cost India a great deal of lives and money in the past. It may be just a prelude to the shifting of confrontation from the cold hills to the warm plains along the international frontier to India’s advantage.

The world powers and even the friends of Pakistan are not prepared to go beyond urging India to seek a negotiated settlement of Kashmir and counselling Pakistan at the same time not to allow the movement of guerilla fighters across the Line of Control. In the world view, thus, both countries have to curb their belligerent rhetoric and behaviour to pave the way to talks.

The president and the forces and agencies under his command will continue to play a decisive role in shaping the Kashmir policy and relations with India even after the elected government starts functioning. The president’s hopes about national harmony and poverty alleviation will remain unfulfilled, as they were in his own time of total control, so long as India and Pakistan remain on a belligerent course.

The military and political forces working in tandem under the new system of rule have a much brighter chance of restoring normal relations with India than acting separately as they did in the past. In the prolonged tense stalemate only the extremists, whether in Pakistan, India or Kashmir, are gaining ground; the moderate majority is the loser in all three.

Here the prime minister has a glorious opportunity to impart a touch of moderation and realism to Kashmir policy and relations with India instead of routinely endorsing the hardline of the previous regime. He seems to be letting it pass.

On the president’s new governance, the short experience of a few weeks has pronounced a verdict of failure. It has weakened and divided the institutions, whether political, administrative or judicial, at all levels. They were never so vulnerable or exposed to greater ridicule than they are now. The assemblies in particular are providing ample grist to the mills of the cartoonists and reporters alike and, perhaps, will continue to do so long as they remain in existence. Not many but the president and the prime minister expect these to last for full five years.

How the cabinets and ministries shape and behave would take, it seems another six months, three having already gone by. What remedy needs to be applied to bring stability and sanity to the new representative system will have to be thought out meanwhile. An election after three years, instead of five, could be one. Quite obviously every member cannot be made a minister nor given money to spend at will.

What should not wait is a review of the district governments which have been in existence for more than a year and the new police law. The National Reconstruction Bureau devised both on erroneous assumptions, service prejudices and extraneous advice. Neither the administrators nor the people were consulted. While the police law is still-born, most reports on the performance of the district government — nazims, councils and officials alike — are discouraging. The authority is diffused, accountability is missing and difficulties of the people are mounting. The whole system needs to be reviewed before the vested interests get entrenched.

Whatever the judgment on the performance of the district governments or their future, one obvious setback to the public service is that the educated and promising youth have lost interest in it. The loss of talent will be more acutely felt in the higher formations of the federal and provincial secretariats and attached organizations which largely drew upon the diverse field experience of young administrators and professionals in making policy decisions. Now whatever talent is attracted to the government will remain confined to offices insulated from the public.

The new police law is incomprehensibly complex and impracticable. This explains why it is coming into effect even while its authors and protagonists are still around. Yet under the new version of the Constitution it cannot be repealed or amended by the parliament without the sanction of the president. The same condition applies to the local government ordinances under which the district governments have been created. Before the new local government and police structures get mired in political controversy or tussle for power, an independent commission comprising senior legislators, administrators and local councillors should review and possibly modify both.

A many-sided wrangle for power is inherent in the provisions of the law relating to the police appointments and transfers. The procedure prescribed for the selection of the provincial police chief (IG), for instance, runs thus: the federal government will provide a list of officers to the National Public Safety Commission which will recommend three out of it to the provincial government which will then be bound to appoint one of them as IG for a fixed tenure of three years.

The National Safety Commission comprises 12 members: six of them would be MNAs chosen by the National Assembly speaker and the other six nominated by the president. The IG thus appointed could be transferred by the provincial government only with the approval of the Provincial Public Safety Commission which, like its national counterpart will have half the members drawn from the provincial assembly and the other half nominated by the governor. A similar procedure is prescribed for appointments and transfers at lower levels. The prime minister, or the chief minister, figures nowhere.

The procedure is tedious and, more dangerous, contains seeds of conflict between the federal government and the provincial governments, between the president and the prime minister and between the governor and the chief minister. That it will not be properly followed is borne out by a press report that one of the first acts of Sindh’s new chief minister on assuming office was to order the transfer of an SHO in charge of a police station.

TWO-thousand and two was not the happiest year in recent memory. The prevailing sentiment throughout was fear: fear of more terrorist attacks like 9/11, fear of regional tinderboxes being set alight, notably the Middle East and Kashmir, fear of the war against terror being expanded from Afghanistan to other countries and, on a communal and individual level, fear of being attacked because of one’s identity.

To some extent these fears proved justified. The many terrorist attacks in 2002 — ranging in scale from the murder of Daniel Pearl to the Moscow theatre siege (129 victims) to the 200-plus mortality figure in the Bali bomb blast — clearly showed that 9/11 was not the dramatic culmination of global terrorism, but part of an on-going phenomenon.

With thousands of Indian and Pakistani troops poised in a state of high alert for months across the Indo-Pakistan border, Kashmir almost became the flashpoint for a fourth (possibly nuclear) subcontinental war. In the Middle East too, the on-going violence threatened to escalate into a regional conflagration.

Afghanistan, home of the Taliban and base for Al Qaeda was the first target in the US war against terror. By the beginning of 2002 the Taliban had been crushed, Al Qaeda forced to disperse, and Afghanistan, at least in theory, set on the peace and rebuilding stage. That initial ‘success’ prompted a stream of rhetoric and threats from Washington which, coupled with physical preparations, made expansion of the anti-terror war seem imminent.

Underlying all these ‘big picture’ threats were the personal fears that disturbed so many in 2002. Muslims living in the West, Muslims living in Gujarat and Chechnya, Westerners living in the Muslim world, Christians living in Pakistan — having the ‘wrong’ identity made many such innocents potential and actual targets of violence.

Fear, sometimes justified, sometimes not. That was what characterised 2002. What of 2003 — will it too be a year of fear or could it turn out to be one of hope?

The signs are not good. Across the globe, fear outweighs hope. In South Korea, the hope of reconciliation has given way to fear of North Korean missiles. In Iraq the fear is of American bombs, while in the Middle East, Palestinians fear further Israeli oppression and Israelis fear their revenge. The fears of 2002 have been carried forward into 2003.

How did this situation come about? What are the root causes of the fear that disturbs so many different peoples across the globe? Most important, how can these fears be changed into hope?

To some extent the answer to the first question lies in the different regions identified: the extreme, suicidal isolationism of North Korea; the equally stubborn and uncaring (about its own people) government of Saddam Hussein; the ultra-Zionist Likud administration headed by Ariel Sharon and its policies of reoccupation, expansion of Jewish settlements and widespread violation of Palestinian rights; the self-serving leadership of Yasser Arafat.

By the same token, the key to hope also lies in those regions: in Pyongyang, which must stop using the threat of its nuclear programme to secure international assistance; in Baghdad, where the Saddam Hussein regime must comply with UN resolutions on non-proliferation and disclosure; in Jerusalem, where Ariel Sharon must put a halt to the consolidation and expansion of Israeli occupation, or where the Israeli people must replace him as prime minister with the pro-Palestinian-homeland Labour leader; and in Gaza and the West Bank, where Yasser Arafat must put the interests and aspirations of the Palestinian people before his personal ambitions.

But responsibility and the onus to change fear to hope lie elsewhere too. Both the Middle East and Iraq crises can be traced to collective failings in the Muslim world. Failure to provide effective political leadership; failure to put aside differences and unite in the face of common enemies; at the national level, failure to promote democracy and economic growth. These failures created the space for external powers like the US and Israel to assert themselves in the Arab world. They also fuelled the frustrations and anger that drove ordinary people to militancy.

Therein lies the second ‘Muslim’ culprit: so-called Islamic leaders like Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden’s accusations of Muslim leaders being western stooges and America being anti-Islam, and his exhortation for Muslims to reassert themselves, form a powerful, even righteous message. But the means resorted to by bin Laden and other extremists to propagate these views and advance their cause negate the righteousness of that cause. Murder of innocents like those in the World Trade Centre, in Bali nightclubs, in a Mombasa hotel, can never be justified. Human rights for Muslims cannot be advanced by the denial of those rights to others, be they American or Australian or Israeli. Fighting a fair fight means using fair means.

The failure of bin Laden and others to adhere to that basic principle has done untold damage to the Muslim world and Muslim causes. Thanks to 9/11 (and other such terrorist attacks), Muslims across the West are viewed with suspicion and distrust. Kashmir, Palestine and Chechnya have become problems of ‘Islamic fundamentalism-terrorism’ instead of human rights abuses. Afghanistan has been further pulverized, and the Arab world stands on the brink of a second, infinitely more debilitating Gulf war. As bin Laden hides from his pursuers, he would do well to reflect on the service he has rendered to his fellow Muslims.

If the war against terror (to date predominantly a war against Islam) is to be ended, political leaders like Mubarak and Arafat and ideological/militant leaders like bin Laden will have to abandon the dangerous course on which they have so far steered the Muslim world. Democracy, freedom, transparency, growth and moderation from within the ‘ummah’ are a major key to its salvation.

And then there is George W. Bush. Even with all the localized, regional and sub-regional causes for fear listed above, considerable blame still rests on the shoulders of the US President. Before he entered the White House, the world had at least one foot on the boat of global cooperation and stability. His dismissal of Korean reconciliation, his overt support for Ariel Sharon, and his obsession with attacking Baghdad, have all pushed it into a much more perilous place. American-Republican unilateralism and politicking have a lot to answer for.

More than anyone else, the key to hope in 2003 lies with George W. Bush (truly a terrifying thought). Only he can coax the North Koreans back onto the path of diplomacy and reconciliation. Only he can restrain Ariel Sharon and force the Israeli government to heed Palestinian rights. Only he can halt a catastrophic assault on Iraq. George Bush, the most powerful man in the world, has the power to make 2003 a happy new year or a fearful one. Which will it be, Mr Bush?

AS ONE committed to belief in the inevitability of Indo-Pakistan amity and consistently opposed to clandestine and not-so-clandestine interventions in Indian held Kashmir, I have reached a certain conclusion.

My conclusion is that the way forward in the subcontinent is for Pakistan to serve a two-year notice of intent to renounce the 1972 Shimla Agreement as an unequal treaty if there is no satisfactory and meaningful progress on the resolution of core and non-core disputes with India.

Defeated Pakistan in 1971 had little or no bargaining power when this treaty was entered into. It is a craftily engineered document, the bottom-line of which, a third of a century later, is abundantly clear, that the victors of war got what they demanded.

On the face of it, the Shimla accord, which has been the framework of our relationships in the past 31 years, appears fair and equitable. It proclaims a recognition of the respective positions of India and Pakistan on Kashmir, within the framework of the United Nations, forbids militarism in the pursuit of territorial aims, and enjoins bilateralism in the resolution of all disputes. Bilateralism at the time appeared a reasonable proposition.

It was never our understanding explicit or implicit that all outside mediatory intervention and the UN would be shut out of the dispute. Down the road, we know that bilateralism always meant “hands off the Kashmir Valley and Jammu” as far as India was concerned. India regards Kashmir as the spoils of the 1971 war, which it won, just as Prussia regarded Alsace and Lorraine as the spoils of war that it won over France in 1870, which was responsible for 85 years of Franco-German bitterness on a par with 53 years of Indo-Pakistan acrimony today.

Both India and Pakistan have been delinquent in observing the provisions of the Shimla Agreement in letter and spirit. India, in pursuance of its own interpretation of the Ceasefire Line, known post-Simla as the Line of Control (LOC), in Kashmir, occupied the Siachin glacier. The Kargil conflict of 1998 started by Pakistan was a belated response to Siachin. These warlike skirmishes in a backdrop of militancy supported by Pakistan and the counter-terrorism of the Indian army on the Kashmiri people has brought the two countries to the brink of nuclear war. As of today we are in a deep-freeze relationship. Prospect of negotiations have been reduced to a sorry pass. All we ask for is “meaningful talks” on Kashmir. India replies that it will talk at a time of its choosing when it judges Pakistan to have stopped supporting terrorism in Kashmir and the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure. Thus, India not only controls the timing, modalities and agenda but also dictates the outcome of any talks with Pakistan. It refuses permission to All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) members to travel to Pakistan, and so there is no dialogue among Kashmiris.

Experience tells us that India and Pakistan attach different meanings to the same words. For example, “talks” for Pakistan means getting India to recognize that a dispute exists; for India it means getting Pakistan to de-escalate institutional support to terrorism, start trade, and vacate areas of Kashmir held by it.

Actually, Indian policy on Kashmir has been marked by the ebb and flow. India agreed to a UN resolution in 1948 to hold a plebiscite subject to total troop withdrawals by Pakistan in Azad Kashmir and a substantial troop withdrawal by India from its part. Since the quantum of troop withdrawals could not be agreed upon, India, seizing upon the May 1954 US-Pakistan military arms agreement, reneged on the 1948 and 1949 UN covenants on a plebiscite. This was the ebb and flow of the first cycle. Non-alignment between the superpowers blocs was the Indian mantra of those times. Pakistan was painted as an imperialist stooge. All this was conveniently forgotten at the time of the Indo-China border war six years later when India gasped for US military support.

The second ebb-and-flow cycle relates to the grant of autonomy to Kashmir guaranteed it by Article 370-A of the Indian Constitution. What autonomy meant in practice was subject to the step-forward-and-multiple-steps-backward principle, depending on how the situation was to be finessed. This article was inserted to placate Sheikh Abdullah, who was then styled as prime minister of J&K. But the Sheikh was arrested in the early 1950s for talking to Pakistan without New Delhi’s permission.

The Sheikh was in office for a second time, but he and his successors soon became satraps of Delhi and finally its quislings, with bouts in between of direct rule by the centre. State elections were rigged in the 1980s and 1990s, which increased alienation. Last election proved an exception. By most accounts, these were freest in two decades. The current state government in J&K led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his daughter is popular and respected.

Though Article 370 remains part of the Indian basic law, Indian Kashmir probably enjoys lesser autonomy than any other state in India.

India post-1971 is not prepared to yield an inch on Kashmir. Its present strategy is to reach direct accommodation with disaffected Kashmiris represented by the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) at one end and the moderate government of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, at the other. Pakistan by design is to be shut out of the process.

Obviously India holds the trump cards. How should we proceed? Despite years of intermittent and futile Indo-Pakistan talks, it is yet to fully dawn on our political consciousness that the Shimla Agreement is merely a decorative paper cover for Indira Gandhi’s original demand at the Shimla talks between her and Z.A. Bhutto that Pakistan recognize the LoC as the international boundary. This offer was brushed aside by Bhutto, and the talks were declared a failure. Hours before Bhutto was to leave Shimla, a face-saving formulation was arrived at. The bottom-line was an undefined bilateralism to govern relations between the two countries. The devil is in the ambiguity; the treaty does not say how to proceed if bilateralism fails. As war victor, India arrogates to itself the right to be the sole determiner of the Shimla process. A number of influential countries have accepted this view.

An option for serious consideration of the new political government in Pakistan is to serve a two-year notice on India and the world community that unless the dispute is recognized and focused talks take place, the treaty will be renounced by Pakistan. Our next option will be to take Kashmir back to where it started, that is, the Security Council. The unwritten assumption of our foreign office that the Security Council will rule in favour of granting the LoC the status of an international border is an incorrect assessment. However, much would depend on how Pakistan plays its cards if the treaty is renounced.

To make this threat saleable to Western powers, Pakistan must be seen not only to stop active support of the militants in Kashmir, but also stop acquiescing in their activities. Terror is self-defeating: little do we realize what damage the ‘Jihad’ has caused to the Kashmir dispute.

To signal Pakistan’s change in policy, I have earlier advocated in these columns the use of remote imaging technology in the LoC areas to be manned by the UN (as is being successfully used on the US-Mexican border), fencing of areas which are fence-able, beefing up the UN force ten-fold on our side of the LoC, and inviting India to joint patrols on both sides to convince world opinion that the continuation of terror, if any, in Indian-held Kashmir is purely an indigenous thing, as it is in Chechnya, Palestine, Kurdistan and Southern Iraq.

Gone is the era when Kashmir was regarded as a piece of real estate to be fought between India and Pakistan. About 70 per cent of the old Jammu and Kashmir state is now within the boundaries and political culture of three countries — Pakistan, India and China. It is only the Valley which is uneasy under Indian rule. Its creative people do not necessarily seek to replace Indian domination with that of Pakistan’s, but yearn for independence, or if this is not possible at the moment, for “internal self-determination” guaranteed by India, Pakistan and the UN or US.

The freedom struggle of the valley Kashmiris has to a great extent been backed by Pakistani jihadism. Today in Afghanistan after the great jihad sponsored by us, it is hard to find an Afghan supporting Pakistan; the same might also come to pass in the Valley. No freedom struggle requires a foster parent. Acting as one, we have managed to get Kashmir de-listed from the world agenda and in the process earned the opprobrium and the denigration of our cause.

Whether we like it or not, a measure of freedom for the Kashmir valley is only possible if we can enlist the support of the public, press and governments of the western democracies. This in turn implies that the new government in Pakistan should totally distance itself from the ruinous policies prior to 9/11.

B. Raman, former head of counter-terrorism in India’s RAW (Research & Analysis Wing) and currently Director of Topical Studies, has this to say on bilateralism: “.... the bilateral channels of communications have got so clogged up by considerations of prestige, the need for face-saving, etc., that they (i.e., India and Pakistan) are not in a position, through direct interactions at the political or diplomatic levels, to probe each other’s mind on these issues without arousing public expectations and adding to the already poisoned atmosphere due to the Pakistani-sponsorship of terrorism. They have thus been obliged to depend upon third powers, mainly the US, to act as intermediaries to probe and influence the mind of each for the benefit of the other....”

An Indo-Pakistan dialogue will remain a non-starter as long as India, due to its own right-wing domestic pressures, does not admit to a dispute in Kashmir. Only outside mediation can break the impasse. An example in this regard is the honest brokerage of Norway in the 20-year-old war between Sri Lanka and LTTE.

The writer is a member of the National Assembly.