Inder Kumar Gujral and Nawaz Sharif, then prime ministers of India and Pakistan, respectively, met at Male during the Saarc summit to discuss how to improve relations between the two countries. Both decided to normalise trade and business first.

But they also appointed a committee of bureaucrats, drawn from both sides, to discuss Kashmir. With this task done, Gujral requested Nawaz Sharif to allow the export of cotton which was in short supply in India at that time. The latter agreed to it. But a secretary-level official from Pakistan shouted from the corner of the room: “Mian Sahib, what about Kashmir?” The deal did not take place.

This is the bane of relations between India and Pakistan. The bureaucracy in Pakistan believes that being adamant serves its interests. India, too, faces a similar problem. Yet being a democracy, with political masters, the situation has never reached a point where the rulers make up their mind to implement a particular policy and fail to do so because of bureaucracy.

Lately, things are beginning to look up between India and Pakistan because of various reasons. One of them is that people on both sides are sick of enmity and its fallouts. Elections in Pakistan, however rigged, have thrown up a political alternative. This is an opportunity for both the countries to start afresh. I wish New Delhi would take the initiative after the government is formed in Islamabad. I am happy to see new ideas for rapprochement emerging in Pakistan that reflect a different approach from the old mulish one.

Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), who is set to lead the next government in Pakistan, has proposed to keep Kashmir ‘aside’ to focus on trade. “We do not want to be hostage to that situation,” he said while underlining ‘strong feelings’ on Kashmir. Whatever else he may be, Zardari is a realist. He understands that too much embroilment with the Kashmir issue has told upon his country, economically, politically and socially. The entrenchment of the armed forces is one of the worst consequences.

Terrorism which threatens Pakistan in many ways, Zardari knows, was initiated by Gen Ziaul Haq and sustained by Gen Pervez Musharraf to bleed India. True, the latter suffered and it still does. No one in Delhi knows when and where terrorists will strike again. Yet, as a gathering of clerics of Dar-ul Uloom at Deoband in India has said, terrorism is against the tenets of Islam and that the religion does not in any way condone the killing of innocents.

Deoband is a severe, orthodox sect of Islam closely connected to the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia. Zardari may have been influenced by the fatwa from Deoband. He may also be feeling helpless against the situation where terrorists are striking in the northwest. (Last year, there were 56 attacks by terrorists in Pakistan which killed 759 citizens, including over 239 security personnel and injured 1,685 people.) Zardari’s first priority is to eliminate terrorism. This is what Benazir Bhutto would have done had she been alive. To fight terrorism, Zardari has no recourse except relying on the armed forces. He also realises that he cannot challenge the military so long as Kashmir is hanging fire.

Keeping Kashmir ‘aside’ does not mean that Zardari is writing off Kashmir. Nor does it mean ‘sidelining the question’ as is the fear of the Hurriyat leaders. It only means that the two countries have open trade and commerce so that the goodwill generated in the process will help both overcome the impediments on Kashmir and come to a settlement. “We can be patient till everybody grows up further,” says Zardari.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto also told me once in an interview that it was not incumbent on his generation to solve every problem. “Let the next generations take up Kashmir,” he had said. Zardari has argued that “maybe, coming generation grows up even further and then let us interact as human beings and come to a position of love”. This is a practical approach.

Pakistan should exploit the opportunity of having access to India’s open markets as the West is doing. Even now the unofficial trade between the two countries through Dubai and Singapore alone is said to be worth $2bn. Why not have direct trade which will earn custom duty, excise tax, etc for both the governments and save importers the money spent on bringing goods through circuitous routes?

I know there are hardliners who will frown upon Zardari’s suggestion. The two countries have fought three wars on Kashmir and have wasted billions of rupees on defending the line of control. (India has increased its military budget by 10 per cent, from Rs960bn to Rs1055bn.) Thousands of people have died on the Indian side of Kashmir in the insurgency which has been there on and off for many decades. Terrorism has ended the insurgency.

Kashmir is a political question and it needs to be settled that way. The armed forces cannot solve the problem. Many commanders on the Indian side have said so. The commanders on the Pakistan side have also felt the futility of a militaristic approach. Zardari’s statement only underlines that he feels that a new initiative is needed to break the logjam.

In fact, Pakistan should tear a leaf out of India’s book. The latter has a problem with China on the border. They fought a war in 1962 on this issue. New Delhi believes that Beijing has 35,000 square miles of Indian territory under its occupation. Still India has made the first move to build economic ties with China. New Delhi has not whittled down its claim; every three months, it holds a meeting with Beijing on the delineation of the border. In a way, it has kept the border dispute aside. But that does not mean the problem has been settled. New Delhi is utilising the peace at the border to trade which has trebled in the last couple of years. China is reciprocating without reservations.

Pakistan, too, does not have to give up its claim on Kashmir. Nor does it have to abandon the Kashmir Solidarity Day, an exercise that has existed for some years. But nothing stops it from having trade and business relations with India. Were this to happen, the top industrial houses in India would be willing to invest in Pakistan, as they are doing in the UK, Europe, the US and even China. New Delhi should also offer concessions in tariffs because it is a developed country compared to its neighbours.Once trade between India and Pakistan is established, the arrangement can be extended to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Ultimately, the entire region from Afghanistan to Myanmar can become a common market, like the one that European countries have. The sky is the limit.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

PPP’s Asif Zardari has correctly pointed out the need to re-negotiate the contract with the establishment. This is no mean task and would, besides other things, require major changes in the design of the state.

The political forces cannot be empowered vis-à-vis the establishment until and unless concrete action is taken on the following three issues: (a) provincial autonomy (both political and fiscal), (b) shifting the emphasis from military to socioeconomic security, and (c) re-imagining the state.

The PPP’s new chair also apologised to the Baloch people for all the atrocities done by the state, especially during the times of the PPP government of the 1970s. However, Mr Zardari must think beyond apology and take affirmative action to alleviate the concerns of all smaller provinces and under-represented sub-regions of the country including those within Punjab.

The best recipe is provincial autonomy the mention of which might unnerve the centrist forces. Such elements believe that giving political and financial powers to the federating units will weaken the Pakistani state. This is because they imagine the state as a centrally controlled force in which the majority of people adheres to a single set of objectives, language and culture. Such a formula was adopted soon after the country’s birth in 1947 in the form of imposing a single language to be adopted not as a language of communication but a national language. These elements perceive the mention of other nationalities and diverse cultures as antithetical to the state and prefer to adopt centrist organisations as the symbol of national unity.

However, their approach has always divided the country rather than gel people from diverse cultures together. A sense of nationalism that connects people of the four federating units cannot prevail unless people are allowed to enjoy their other identities at the same time. In fact, it is a fallacy to argue that people from the smaller provinces want to walk away. Separatist movements happen all over the world which indicates the sentiments of a minority and not the majority.

However, separatist movements gain a life whenever the state structure is top-down and not sensitive to the identities and regional ethos of the people. Thus, provincial autonomy will strengthen the country and give a sense of ownership to the people. Why should certain parts of the federation consider other parts as less nationalist and patriotic? Fiscal autonomy will create a sense of partnership in the state. It is a fallacy to argue that a majority of the people of this land, including those in the smaller provinces, do not want to be part of the federation.

Fiscal autonomy is highly essential because it will provide each federating unit with the financial means to develop and plan for it accordingly. The people of the federating units are owners of their resources and should have the right to voluntarily decide on what they would share with the rest to get public good such as defence, law and order, common currency, etc. The state bureaucracy has consistently opposed the idea of the federating units having control over their earnings because this is what would weaken the centre and take the power away from a certain kind of elite based in and around Islamabad.

The propaganda about how regional forces or identities will mar the strength of the Pakistani state is a story which is encouraged to divert attention from the need for empowering regions and their people. One of the ramifications of a heavily centralised state, therefore, was the excessive focus on defence versus development debate. In fact, the concentration on this issue is both a cause and effect of a powerful centre which was always justified in the name of consolidating the state.

The peculiar prioritisation of state expenditure, however, created an imbalance between different regions and communities which stoked the fire of ethnic tension. Since Pakistan, soon after its birth, turned into a security state, the growth of indigenous population was neglected and the resultant imbalance of socioeconomic development amongst communities created tension between the resourceful and the neglected. The under-developed societies of some areas could not compete with those who had better education and exposure. Whenever political governments tried to eradicate the imbalance, though imperfectly, it created greater tension and conflict. The relationship between the Urdu-speaking migrants (mohajirs) and the ethnic Sindhis is a case in point which I will discuss at greater length in my next article.

What a state chooses to spend on its military security versus socioeconomic security is a political issue, which should take into account the will of the people of the federating units. If there is a consensus on the fact that the current threat to Pakistan emanates from internal issues rather than external, then it calls for changing the priorities for spending the state’s resources. Moreover, with provincial autonomy the units will have greater say in what kind of security they want.

The other important issue is of re-imagining the state which is a contentious matter and demands political solutions. Here, I am referring to the need for dividing the state into more rational linguistic units. History tells us that the present sub-regional political division was done by the British. Earlier, the regional divisions looked different. For instance, at one point in time Sindh extended up to Multan.

Of course, we cannot revert to the older boundaries but what is necessary is to make space for the smaller linguistic groups that have consolidated in different parts of the country. For instance, the Seraiki-speaking people have been demanding a sub-region and so have the Urdu-speaking population that now dominates the life of urban Sindh. There are several linguistic based divisions which can be imagined.

Surely, such a suggestion would make a lot of people nervous. And this is where the parties need to appreciate the problem and develop a political consensus. An over-centralised state benefits the establishment rather than the people.

Over the past sixty years, there have been major demographic and political changes in the country which should be taken into account while considering the future of the state. For instance, the concentration of growth of the Urdu-speaking migrants in the urban centres of Sindh and the movement of other ethnic groups to these cities has created tensions which need to be resolved. Then there are various ethnicities in Punjab who feel under-represented because of being lumped with the rest of the population for years. These communities are divided due to the varied degrees of development.

The answer, of course, is to bring equitable development to all regions. Meanwhile, the tensions, which result from inequitable development trajectories, can be resolved through giving these communities the confidence of political participation recognised within the larger political framework of the state. In the past, under representation and varied development trajectories have been the source of conflict and misunderstanding amongst the communities. There is nothing sacrosanct about the existing regional boundaries. However, this is an extremely sensitive issue which will have to be dealt with tenderly.

The political government might not be able to address this issue soon after it gets into power. However, this is not a matter which can be ignored endlessly.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

IN a year of extraordinary events, it is even more extraordinary that the fate of the deposed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry, continues to dominate the headlines.

Were it not for the defiant Chief Justice (CJ) and indefatigable lawyers, there is no doubt that the issue would have been swallowed up by other events. Yet, public support has masked fundamental miscalculations on the part of both the CJ and the lawyers’ movement since last July.

The restoration of the CJ by the apex court on July 20, 2007, was an event that had the potential to re-shape the judiciary. Chief Justice Chaudhry was back in the saddle until Dec 12, 2013. A tireless worker by all accounts and a populist to boot, Iftikhar Chaudhry was the judge to make the judiciary responsive to the needs of ordinary citizens. Five years later, he would even have had the satisfaction of administering the oath of office to the successor of President Musharraf.

Instead, the CJ, spurred on by the lawyers’ movement, opted for a ruinous confrontation with the president. It is impossible to determine what the top judge or the members of the bench that was to decide the president’s fate last autumn were thinking; however, there can be little doubt that the Supreme Court was emboldened to take on the presidency with the lawyers’ support. The lawyers were the media’s darlings and, more importantly, their movement was a bellwether of public support for the president’s removal.

Yet, the lawyers were wrong to demand the president’s ouster through the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Removing the president was – and is – a deeply political act. Whatever the merits of ejecting Musharraf from the presidency, it required political support, not the marshalling of purely legal arguments.

In the period between July 20 and Nov 3, frenzied lawyers alternated between threatening the Supreme Court with eternal damnation for propping up a dictator and promising the everlasting adulation of the public were the court to bow to their demand.

One claim in particular of the lawyers’ movement stood out: signing off on the re-election of Musharraf as president was akin to endorsing the doctrine of necessity. Each time a dictator has captured power in Pakistan, the doctrine has been trotted out in one form or the other to give a legal patina to the patently illegal. These legal eagles shrewdly recognised that such an accusation against a Supreme Court trying to assert its independence was the ultimate humiliation.

The problem, however, was that it was a false comparison. The doctrine of necessity is a tool used to validate the dissolution of a legislature. In deploying the wonky doctrine, the courts have explicitly sided with the executive and army chiefs at the expense of the country’s civilian politicians. Last autumn, the lawyers’ movement demanded that the Supreme Court embark on an unprecedented – and dangerous – challenge to the executive, the military and a sitting parliament.

Whatever the theory of the Supreme Court’s role in the institutional structure of the Pakistani state, it had in fact placed an unbearable stress on that structure. The relationship between the courts and the executive is paramount everywhere, but exceptionally lop-sided in Pakistan. Paula Newberg, author of perhaps the best book on the Pakistani judiciary, Judging the State, describes the reality of the judiciary-executive relationship thus:

“If constitutions and executives allow (courts) to function, they must in some way heed them. Courts can limit some executive power, but executives possess the power to legitimate the capacity to judge; in turn, the polity must, however distantly in some instances, legitimise them both.”

Put in the current context, the Supreme Court had a range of smaller devices to curb the power of the president over the next five years, while Musharraf had only one blunt instrument – declaring martial law – which he had already pledged to give up in the near future. In the days leading up to Nov 3, there were clear indications that the then-general was willing to use the only weapon in his arsenal. The lawyers responded by telling the court that history has never been made by those who capitulate.

Reality in Pakistan, however, is often odious and Newberg’s assertion that courts in Pakistan “function on the basis of privilege as much as right” is telling. It is no good for the courts to stake a claim to greatness when they can be laid to ruin at the stroke of a pen. This is exactly what happened on Nov 3 and few would argue that the country is better off as a result.

Several months on and the fate of the 63 deposed judges continues to hang over the country’s politics. The lawyers have focussed on the restoration of the judges, shrewdly recognising that restoring the judges will eventually dislodge the president. The debate this time is on the mechanism to restore the pre-Nov 3 judiciary. The merits of an executive order, a simple resolution in parliament or a two-thirds amendment of the Constitution are fiercely contested.

In truth, there is no right answer. Few would argue against the suggestion that a Chaudhry Iftikhar-led Supreme Court would deem an executive order to be sufficient, while Chief Justice Dogar would prefer a two-thirds majority. The ‘right’ mechanism that will eventually prevail is no more than the one that will reflect best the political landscape.

The problem has been and always will be the same: the country is destined to go around in circles until Pakistanis internalise the value of adherence to the Constitution. The doctrine of necessity, the doctrine of revolutionary legality, the doctrine of might is right – they have no intrinsic constitutional merit. Indeed, the doctrine of necessity was seemingly consigned to the dustbin of history in the early 1970s. Its resurrection later in that decade did not mean the theory had gained new credibility – it just meant that a new dictator was on the scene.

There is at least one redeeming factor in all of this: Pakistan may not be a democracy, but it is a legal polity. After four dictators and Nov 3, this may seem laughable. It is not. It is good that every illegal act by the executive has been decided by the Supreme Court. The resulting jurisprudence may cause a grimace, but the silver lining is that everyone – the military, the executive, the bureaucracy and the politicians – agrees that a judicial verdict is necessary each time. When those same actors internalise the primacy of the Constitution, this unanimous acceptance of judicial authority will stand the country in good stead.

Put another way, the Pakistani shibboleth of the rule of law is half fulfilled: there may be little by way of law, but there is a valuable rule.

The writer is a Karachi-based lawyer.

cyril.a@gmail.com

DOES the Taliban Movement’s latest announcement of ending the unilaterally declared ceasefire in the tribal belt, which followed accusations of the government targeting their people, indicate that the militants are out of a covert race with the US to woo Pakistan’s future government?

Doesn’t the new series of suicide attacks in Swat, Bajaur and Dara Adamkhel strengthen this notion and imply that the Taliban mean business?

The race began when Maulvi Omar congratulated the triumphant political parties immediately after the Feb 18 elections, and expressed the willingness of the Taliban to enter into a dialogue with them provided they distance themselves from the previous policy on the war on terror. Has the US not done the same, though conversely? And let’s not forget that both the PPP and the PML-N were inclined to open a dialogue with the militants.

The Taliban Pakistan, it seems, were more interested in concentrating their efforts on the Afghan front as preparations for a spring offensive are in full swing. There were signals that this time, they were not interested in wasting their energies on areas outside Afghanistan. But now they may be forced to do so particularly after information regarding the UAV, which struck a house in South Waziristan, was leaked. It killed twelve militants and took off from Peshawar airbase, indicating that the government’s policy vis-à-vis the Taliban was unlikely to change.

Although the missile strike in South Waziristan has undeniable significance, more important was the ensuing demonstration in which elders of the area asked the army to clear its position as far as the responsibility of the attack was concerned. The role of Mullah Nazir, who is a government strongman, seems to be under question even though he ensured peace and tranquillity for almost a year after his fierce battle with Uzbek militants and succeeded in evicting them from the area. Aren’t these indications that the honeymoon between the militants and the government is over?

The evolving situation will determine the response of the future government vis-à-vis the war on terror. The next government faces tough options in this regard; it can either continue the same policy and face a similar law and order situation or it can enter into negotiations with the militants to diffuse the volatility. In the first case, it would mean that the people who voted for an improved law and order situation will be disappointed and that will affect the PPP’s position in general and the ANP’s popularity and vote bank in the NWFP in particular. The latter option of negotiations with the Taliban may meet with American disapproval and both these political parties may find themselves in some trouble again.

Interestingly many observers and analysts believe that the results of the recent elections prove that the masses favour moderate forces. But they seem to overlook the basic fact that extremism is not the trademark of Islamists alone. It exists in various forms in the echelons of Pakistani society. The public is therefore waiting to see whether the new mandate will bring peace and security through negotiations or will it exacerbate the current situation. Answers to these questions will determine the stance of the public and decide whether it will once again look for another saviour. So one should not conclude that the recent voting has put an end to the Islamists!

The writer is the Islamabad bureau chief of Al-Jazeera satellite channel.