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SURELY India does not need the blood of Pakistanis to cement its own unity? Yet it would appear that it still does.
There could be no greater nor more tragic an indictment of India’s foreign policy than that even 69 years after independence India’s 14th prime minister, Mr Modi, should succumb to the temptation of whipping up anti-Pakistan hysteria to coagulate domestic support.
The latest spat between these two one-armed wrestlers (their other hands are on the nuclear button) is another round in a tournament that — if common sense had prevailed — should have ended decades ago. One can think of no two countries since the end of the Second World War in 1945 that have maintained such a state of contest, such a war of words spewing from “the brazen throats of war”.
Two generations on either side of the fractious border have seen 14 Indian prime ministers and 17 elected ones in Pakistan (not counting the interregnums of military opportunists). And yet, both neighbours today stand as far apart as they were on August 1947, when history created what geography deplored.
During all this time, the only link between them that has endured has not been the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, nor the Vajpayee peace initiatives following his bus yatra in 1999, nor the furtive back channels, but UNMOGIP, a cumbersome acronym for the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan. Had that body, established in January 1949, been a human, it would have qualified for old-age pension. Instead, it sees itself as a benign, avuncular presence with (like some Pahari raja) a summer home in Srinagar and a winter one in the plains of Islamabad.
Had the UNMOGIP been a human it would have qualified for pension.
Secondment to UNMOGIP must rank as one of the most comfortable sinecures in the UN. It is certainly the safest. Since its creation, UNMOGIP has suffered only 11 casualties — nine through accidents, two from illness. Its mandate is “to observe and report, investigate complaints of ceasefire violations and submit its finding to each party and to the secretary general”. Such oversight is not cheap. UNMOGIP’s budget for 2016-17 is $21 million.
The recent exchange of fire across the Line of Control roused UNMOGIP from its hibernation. A spokesperson for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon disclosed that UNMOGIP, despite the Indian government’s claims of surgical strikes in Pakistan, “has not directly observed any firing across the LoC related to the latest incident”.
That is intriguing. If surgical strikes did take place, then why could UNMOGIP find no trace of them? Or was it relying, like the Ruet-i-Hilal Committee searching the skies for the Eid moon, for “directly observed” evidence?
A week ago, war seemed inevitable; today, it is receding into improbability. War, of course, can never be ruled out as an option, for as Georges Clemenceau observed and A.B. Vajpayee demonstrated, “it is easier to make war than peace.”
Perhaps it is not accidental that the prime minister who received Mr Vajpayee in 1999 was the man who is the current prime minister of Pakistan, Mian Nawaz Sharif. Even his detractors will concede that he has reacted to Mr Modi’s provocations with mature restraint. He could have retaliated with equally bombastic rhetoric, but he chose not to. He has been prime minister thrice already. Unlike Mr Modi, he does not need to court re-election. He knows Pakistan’s nuclear capability. He was the man who authorised the first test at Chagai.
Even naïve political pundits must have recognised the palpable difference between political attitudes in India and in Pakistan. In India, all the parties (particularly the Congress) sank their differences and pledged their support to the BJP government. In Pakistan, Mr Imran Khan again reiterated his determination to sink Mr Nawaz Sharif.
Even at the multiparty meeting convened on Oct 3 by the prime minister in a call for national unity, Imran Khan sent Shah Mehmood Qureshi to field for the PTI. Mr Qureshi’s declaration would have been more convincing had Mr Khan not himself decamped for a quick holiday to Nathiagali, and certainly more plausible had Ms Shireen Mazari (the PTI’s feisty spokesperson) not diluted Mr Qureshi’s “faint praise” for Mr Sharif with a damning modification.
What does the future hold for India and Pakistan? One cannot speak for the Indians. It is clear they regard their prime minister as a Pandava — not Arjuna (who avoided unjust acts), or his elder brother Yudhishthira (steadfast even in war), but Bhima, the most aggressive of the five.
One can, however, speak for Pakistan. The Indians must realise that we are not overripe for decimation. Balochistan is not East Pakistan. We are not a troupe of musicians and artistes who can be expelled on a whim. We are a sovereign nation of 200m, capable of more than simple arm-wrestling.
The writer is an art historian.
Published in Dawn October6th, 2016
