WASHINGTON, Aug 1: The situation along the Afghan border will revive the Pushtunistan issue, warns former army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg. Kashmir is more of a problem for India than Pakistan, says the general who also believes that democracy in Pakistan is “hostage to men in khaki”.

The retired-general-turned politician expressed these views at a seminar at Washington’s think-tank, the Brookings Institution, organized by the Pakistan American League.

Gerry Fierstein, a Stat Department official said: “ Our vision of Pakistan is of a country that is confident, strong, democratic - having a vibrant economy, and moving ahead with a future of hope and prosperity.”

Another key speaker, Marvin Weinbaum, a former adviser to the State Department who now works for Washington’s Middle East Institute, described Maulana Fazlur Rahman as a politician who “shoots from the hip” and Stephen Cohen, the prominent South Asian scholar, reminded Pakistanis that “democracy is also about protecting minority’s rights.”

But Gen Beg stole the show with his forthright and frank remarks that seem to have become the hallmark of retired generals and bureaucrats in Pakistan. When a journalist asked him to comment on the perception that it suits the army to keep the Kashmir dispute alive, the general said India had to deploy “210 battalions in Kashmir compared to Pakistan’s 55,000 troops.”

India, he said, was spending $100 million a month in Kashmir while Pakistan spent one-tenth of that.

Democracy in Pakistan, he said, was “hostage to men in khaki” but the army never came unsolicited.

He explained in detail how from “Ayub to Musharraf” politicians “not in power” had been beseeching generals to topple elected governments. In 1998, he said, India tried to call Pakistan’s bluff by testing its nuclear devices and Pakistan was able to meet the challenge.

Afghanistan, Gen Beg said, has a minority government unacceptable to the Pushtuns. During the Afghan war, he said, about 60,000 volunteers from various Islamic countries were trained to fight the Russians.

Since the 9/11 attacks in the United States, only 2,000 of these trained men had been arrested. “The rest are at large and are ready to fight the US and its allies. The Pushtuns, the Northern Alliance and the Muslim volunteers are all against Pakistan and there’s a strong possibility that the current situation would allow Afghanistan to revive the Pushtunistan issue,” the general said.

Gen Beg said that after the Afghan war, many of the Muslim volunteers, particularly those from Kashmir, went to the Indian-occupied territories to fight India.

About 80 per cent of those fighting in Kashmir, he said, are from Indian occupied Kashmir. “And they will not give up their weapons no matter what India and Pakistan decide.”

Kashmir, he said, will continue to be “ a festering wound” until the people of Kashmir were taken into confidence.