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April 25, 2004
REVIEWS: As wide or narrow as we choose
In the atmosphere of somewhat self-conscious bonhomie that prevails at present between the two countries, it is instructive to read the more traditional view of the India-Pakistan relationship expressed in this book by two men who were responsible in their time for conducting the relationship. Diplomatic Divide is the first in an unusual new venture designed to publish, simultaneously in Pakistan and India, books in which a pair of writers, one from each country, debate the various questions at issue between them.
The first volume deals with diplomatic relations and the two authors, Humayun Khan and Gopalswami Parthasarathy, professional diplomats both, were ambassadors to each other’s countries. Their accounts combine reminiscences and anecdotes with an assessment of the India-Pakistan relationship that is as much personal as it is analytical.
Humayun Khan’s tenure in Delhi was a period of tumult within India and tension with Pakistan — the Sikh insurgency, hijacking of airliners to Pakistan, the storming of the Golden Temple, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, Operation Brass Tacks. Pakistan officially denied Indian accusations that it was supporting and inciting the Sikh movement but no doubt there was some Pakistani involvement as Humayun Khan obliquely suggests. Operation Brass Tacks was an Indian army training exercise, the scale and nature of which aroused suspicions and war fears in Pakistan.
It is interesting to note the different perspectives on the subject of the two writers. Humayun and his defence advisers were inclined to accept Brass Tacks at face value. Generally, it was a period of relative normalcy in Indo-Pakistan relations. Humayun was therefore shocked to be summoned one morning to the Indian external affairs ministry and given an ultimatum that Pakistani forces allegedly brought up to the border be withdrawn within 24 hours. Suddenly, a crisis was on hand with talk of counter-moves by Indian troops and bellicose media coverage. Then twenty-four hours later just as suddenly, the whole thing simmered down. What had happened?
In Parthasarathy’s account, India informed both Washington and Moscow of the reported Pakistani troop movement and requested them to make a satellite check. Within 24 hours both countries were able to reassure India that neither had detected any such movement. The Indian diplomat considers moreover that A.Q. Khan’s interview to Kuldip Nayyar on Pakistan’s nuclear capability given around that time was intended as a warning to India. Some years later stories appeared in the Indian press to the effect that General Sundarji, the Indian Army chief, had indeed intended, behind Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s back, to create a situation that would permit him to cross the border and strike a decisive blow at the Pakistan Army. Neither Humayun Khan nor Parthasarathy refer to this story.
On Kashmir, both writers affirm the well-known positions of their countries, Parthasarathy with rather more emphasis than Humayun Khan. But curiously Humayun falls in with Parthasarathy’s account of what happened at the Shimla conference (at which neither of them was in fact present). In the latter’s words, “Mrs Gandhi had taken the assurances given by Bhutto when they met in Shimla in July 1972 at face value and presumed that as the climate of relations improved... the Kashmir issue could be resolved by formalizing the status quo.”
Echoing this line Humayun writes, “Bhutto convincingly argued (with Indira Gandhi) that given enough time he would be able to make Pakistan accept the LoC with minor adjustments as a permanent border.” This story is not borne out by any of the Pakistanis who were present at Shimla, nor does it make sense on an objective analysis. If at a time when with 90,000 Pakistani prisoners and a chunk of its territory in Indian hands, Bhutto could not make the Pakistani people swallow the bitter pill of giving up on Kashmir, how, and why, was he going to do so once he returned home in triumph with the prisoners and territory?
Parthasarathy affirms that India lost a golden opportunity to settle the Kashmir issue in its favour by failing to understand the “Pakistani mind”. For Humayun this was another example of Bhutto’s deceitfulness for had he not dismissed the Balochistan and Frontier governments after obtaining the help of their leaders to pass the 1973 constitution? Those who have had to do with Indian negotiators know that they are not a naive and trusting lot who can be easily bamboozled and by a man whom they knew as a bitter adversary.
For Parthasarathy, Agra was a repeat of Shimla for here again Pakistan’s foreign minister the “astute Abdul Sattar” very nearly got the better of his counterpart the “inexperienced Jaswant Singh” and India came “perilously close to signing an agreement” that would have “pandered to the Kashmir-centric obsessions of General Musharraf”. He thus confirms the latter’s assertion that at Agra he had reached an agreement with Vajpayee but it was blocked by Indian hardliners.
Despite the thorny and controversial issues they deal with, both contributions make agreeable reading. It is clear that both men enjoyed their respective posts and relished the professional challenges they had to face. Even in times of tension they, and their families, felt they were living among friends. There are cameo descriptions that symbolize the state of affairs in the two countries. Parthasarathy notes that guards at private homes who used to carry old double-barreled guns, when he was consul-general at Karachi, were armed with Kalashnikovs when he returned as ambassador some years later.
Humayun describes the arrival of Indira Gandhi at a public ceremony in a small Indian-made car, alone, and without armed escort of any kind. There were cricket matches that were played in a spirit of friendly rivalry (at an official reception, in Delhi, the Indian prime minister walked up to Humayun to congratulate Pakistan on Javed Miandad’s famous sixer at Sharjah), school and college reunions at which “old boy” networks were revived. We can see that the cordiality prevailing today is not a novel or unique phenomenon. One is also made aware of the ambivalence of the relationship and how quickly and how often it can go from hate to love and back again.
According to its blurb Diplomatic Divide attempts to bridge the divide between India and Pakistan. It does not quite do this but it does indicate that the divide is as wide or narrow as we choose to make it.
Cross-Border Talks:Diplomatic Divide
By Dr Humayun Khan and G. Parthasarathy
Lotus Collection/Roli Books Available with Oxford University Press, Plot # 38, Sector 15, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi
Tel: 111-693-673
Email:
ouppak@theoffice.net
Website:
www.oup.com.pk
ISBN 81-7436-309-2
138pp. Rs350
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