Relax, Let Miyan Nawaz Sort Himself Out First!

AS is its wont, Indian media – particularly the news television – is going bonkers over victory of Miyan Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan, with a commensurate starry eyed pitch for improved Indo-Pak relations. There is already clamour that the low hanging fruit of MFN status to India be served by Pakistan ASAP. The euphoria could be misplaced if we take all tenses – past, present and future – into account.

Let’s take history first. I have not been able to successfully google the famous half-hug that Sharif gave to Atal Bihari Vajpayee at Wagah, but the baggage he brings has been tweeted by former top IB hand and strategic analyst B Raman. It was under Sharif’s watch in 1993 that the Lashkar-e-Toiba infiltrated into Jammu and Kashmir. Fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim was given sanctuary in Pakistan following March 1993 Mumbai serial blasts the same time. And, it was Sharif government that became first in the world to recognize the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and start doing business with them.

Now to the present: Sharif has come to power on the back of a heavy doze of Islamist rhetoric. In a sense his victory is manufactured given the fact that all secular parties by Pakistani standards – PPP, ANP, and MQM – were hounded out by the Pakistani Taliban out of the campaign itself. Their leaders in fact were forced to address rallies via mobile phones and video even as the Sharifs went street-by-street, circus Lions in toe. Much as the Indian establishment would hope that justice comes to Hafiz Saed and the likes of him, Miyan Nawaz is in gratitude of the same men. So our expectations could be misplaced.

That brings me to the future. Sharif would need to triangulate his dynamics with both the Mullahs and the Military afresh. With the former he would need to evolve a relationship in which his policies are not unduly influenced by the religious frenzy that presently engulfs Pakistan. It is going to be a long road for the new Prime Minister to disengage from this embrace which has strong foreign policy consequences in both Afghanistan and India, particularly post American withdrawal in 2014.

So far as the latter is concerned the relationship begins with a level of mistrust given the Kargil backdrop. Thus it might be longer still before a working relationship with Rawalpindi develops, unhinged from recent history. His comment of inquiry into Kargil episode might just prove to be good sound byte for Indian television. It would be easier said than done given that there is no proof that Pak Army has become any less touchy, even in post-Musharraf era, over the issue of civilian control. Ayub protege Z A Bhutto had famously promoted Zia over four generals, as had Zia protege Sharif in case of Musharraf. Yet, we know the history.

Thus, India should wait to see durability of Pakistani transition. After all a change of government is essentially an internal affair of a country and we should let Sharif sort himself out over the next six months, or even a year. Meanwhile, for our strategic and intelligence community, the biggest take away from the just concluded democratic exercise in Pakistan should be Baluchistan. The overall turnout was less than 20 per cent against Pak average of sixty. Average winners have bagged over 100,000 votes in Punjab, 50,000 in Sindh, and a measly 10,000 in Baluchistan.  So as they would say in Punjabi: Thaand Rakh Yaar (take it easy), as also a hawk’s eye on Baluchistan.

Foreign Policy No Mushaira. Bunk Gujral Doctrine

A 2001 novel by then BBC Asia correspondent Humphery Hawksley pictured third world war engendered by a covert Indian army operation deep inside Tibet. China retaliates with its full might, and even for fiction, results are not difficult to guess. I would review the book sometime later. But, here we have a reverse scenario. A deep incision by the Chinese inside Indian territory, and forget war or world war, we talked of pimples, acne, and clearsil! On the western front Pakistan has delivered an Indian spy in body bag for not having a strong enough case to eliminate him judicially. Sri Lanka is routinely lifting Indian fishermen around Adam’s bridge, and Maldives just cocked a snook by jailing its India backed president. And all smaller SAARC countries play the China card rather up our nose. Theek hai? The crux is that India suffers from a Gulliverian image crisis in the neighbourhood. Why?

After the 1962 debacle the intelligence community had realized the importance of the capacity to keep tabs on (and to occasionally finger) the neighbourhood. Thus was born the Special Frontier Force – Establishment 22 in common parlance. The benefits became visible soon in the form of Chittagong (1971) and Siachen (1986) operations that have given India everlasting strategic depth and strength. Then came Inder Kumar Gujral on the foreign policy horizon in mid-1990s and all the good, hard nosed choices made by India came undone.

Gujral’s Faiz poetry influenced mind brought a doctrine the ill effects of which are now becoming starkly visible. The Gujral doctrine, with its premise that India with its intimidating size could be avuncular to its smaller neighbours with unilateral concessions, was per se not wrong. But the problem lay in the way it was interpreted by those it was meant for. With the exception of Bhutan, everyone has cocked a snook at us. Gujral put stifling restrictions on covert operations by RAW and IB in the neighbourhood and reduced the Establishment-22 into an uncertain existence. His successor, another poet Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, continued with sham covert ops and gave it in writing that Tibet was an integral part of the Chinese republic. Just makes it clear that foreign policy is best left to minds that only understand prose.

A Mexican dictator once famously lamented, “So far from God, so near to the United States,” – such is the impression of their big neighbour. It is a view in Lat-Am that USA is like a big dog in a small room. Even if it wags its tail in love, it knocks down a chair or two. China is attaining similar proportions in its neighbourhood. That seems like a legitimate target for India: not to be an indulgent uncle of the neighbourhood but to be a no nonsense keeper of calm.

In another context, on the eve of India’s 1998 nuclear tests George Fernandez branded China, not Pakistan, as India’s enemy no. 1. Another Lohiaite Mulayam Singh Yadav has recently shown the sense to repeat the charge. Let us have an eternal clarity on this – it is China we need to focus on. Pakistan and the rest would be taken care off from that capacity building. After the DBO fiasco the strategic community would hopefully chart out a course with clear cut goals. But in the short term, India needs to immediately roll back the Gujral doctrine and start all covert operations. More specifically, recharge the Establishment-22. In the longer term we need to bury it for ever, for, foreign policy is no Kavi Sammelan, even with smaller neighbours as we have realized.