December 02, 2008	Tuesday	Zilhaj 3, 1429

IT was in April 2005 when after a summit meeting in Delhi Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the then Pakistani President, General Pervez Musharraf, publicly declared that the peace process between the two countries was “now irreversible”.

In fact, the official statement said, “they would not allow terrorism to impede the peace process”.

But that was more than three years ago, and at that time even some of the hardline rightist groups on the two sides were finding it difficult to publicly criticise the peace overtures. Not any more. The Mumbai mayhem, and its aftermath in the form of jingoism in a section of the Indian society, and the sharp reaction of the India-bashers on the Pakistani side, has already started to raise the temperature to somewhat alarming levels in the region. The question now being asked by many on the two sides of the divide is: is it all over for the nascent peace process between India and Pakistan?

This will certainly be on the back of everyone’s mind when more than 50 politicians, representing almost all the big and small parties, meet today at the Prime Minister House to develop a consensus on Pakistan’s response to what is being described as India’s belligerent attitude in the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage.

Given the level of political divide that exists in the country, such meetings are quite rare. Had the meeting been called to devise a strategy to deal with religious violence and terrorism, most of the right-wing political groups would have stayed away. But here the situation has thrown up an opportunity to question the peace process, and if possible, to undo it. So, it’s small wonder how quickly, and just on a phone call by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, almost everyone, including the Jamaat-i-Islami, agreed to participate.

Using the situation to their advantage, some of the right-wing religious nationalists in India have already resorted to war rhetoric, with a section of the Indian media proving to be a bit too gullible for this kind of jingoism. This has only helped similar hardline elements within Pakistan to try and reverse the peace process.

A few have already started to call for abandoning the peace process, some are describing the Mumbai carnage as work of

anti-Pakistan extremists within India, and those like former ISI chief Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Gul are convinced that the violence of the last few days in Karachi is the work of Indian intelligence agency RAW.

Keeping the prevailing situation in mind, it’s not difficult to imagine the kind of speeches that are likely to dominate the discussion at the PM House. And this may make the government’s challenge of dealing with the situation even more enormous. So, if Premier Gilani was thinking that the political jamboree he had called was indicative of his statesmanship, he should better be prepared to face a real challenge.

But irrespective of the rhetoric that may dominate today’s meeting, is it really possible for such forces in India or Pakistan to derail the peace process? Opinion has remained divided on the way to handle the current crisis, but most observers believe the two countries still have the potential to pull back from the brink.

Former foreign minister Gohar Ayub Khan says it’s incorrect to dub the peace process a casualty of the Mumbai carnage. He told DawnNews that the process started in June 1997 has withstood the test of much bigger crisis like the Kargil conflict and attack on the Indian Parliament, and it may be wrong to assume that it can be so easily derailed. “I think there is a need to give it a break of three or four months… to allow the situation to calm down,” and then the two sides can once again start the composite dialogue, he said.

Though former ISI chief Lt-Gen (retd) Asad Durrani’s take on the issue was somewhat different, he too was of the view that because of our compulsions, “the peace process was there to stay”. However, he warned against the US involvement in defusing the current tension as he believes they were likely to take Delhi’s side in the matter.

On the other hand, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington Hussain Haqqani believes the United States was certainly in a position to play a constructive role in the matter. He told Dawn that since the US had close relations with both India and Pakistan, it could influence the Indian government in continuing the peace process which might help the two sides to take action against the non-state actors involved in such acts of terrorism.

But how serious an impact the Mumbai carnage and the Indian government’s belief of a Pakistani group’s involvement has had on the earlier efforts to normalise relations between the two countries? Journalist and author Zahid Hussain believes the incident is a great setback for the peace process, but he too is of the view that a “complete reversal was not possible”. According to him, the two sides have learnt their lessons from the crisis of 2002 when nearly a million troops were eyeball-to-eyeball on the borders with the world fearing the possibility of an all-out war. “It’s true that the peace process is presently stalled, but we should remember that the world is seriously concerned about the situation, and it would never allow the situation to deteriorate to an extent that it may throw the entire region into turmoil”, he said.

But such optimism notwithstanding, the rapid pace with which the situation has deteriorated in the last few days has certainly proved that so far whatever gains have been made in the process to have lasting peace were certainly not irreversible. Until recently it was being said that the media in the two countries had played a great role in bringing people of the two countries close to each other. Today, a large section of the media in India and Pakistan is playing into the hands of jingoistic elements. It was being said that with the scaling down of militants’ movement across the Line of Control in Kashmir, and the return of relative normality in the disputed Himalayan state, the process of confidence-building measures started in the last few years may push the dialogue to its logical conclusion. But observers say the Mumbai episode has once again proved that even in the presence of the peace rhetoric, the establishments in the two countries continue to maintain deep suspicion about each other’s intentions. If Pakistan believes there was Indian hand in the trouble in the tribal regions of Balochistan and Fata, many in India are convinced of Pakistan’s direct or tacit involvement in the Mumbai carnage.

In such a situation perhaps what the all-party conference being chaired by PM Gilani can at best do is to prevent further deterioration in relations. And only after a prolonged cooling off period, the two countries may start to concentrate on a more serious effort to reduce the trust deficit.