COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
ELECTIONS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
THE STATES
ARCHIVES
SEARCH REDIFF

Search the Internet          Tips

Recent Columns

More rope, General? Thus goes the Congress The silence of Dr Singh Left behind The price of idiocy It's sloth once again

No war on our cards

Will there be war between India and Pakistan? In the long run: who knows? In the immediate future: unlikely!

Before going on, I should define some terms. By 'war' I speak of major conflicts as in 1965 and 1971. (The undeclared war consisting of terrorist attacks and firing across the Line of Control is decades old.) And when I refer to the time -- long- or short-term -- I am not looking beyond the next month or so; it would be folly to predict where we shall be next Christmas.

So how can I be reasonably sure no offensive action is planned from India's end? Well, take a look at the schedules of the men who must take the decisions.

The prime minister took time off last week to release a stamp in honour of the late Vijayaraje Scindia in Gwalior -- a highly emotional occasion but scarcely one of earthshaking importance. More recently, the Union home minister and defence minister have accepted invitations from their counterparts in Washington. One does not leave the capital if war is in the air.

An American friend says these visits will decide whether there shall be war or peace on the subcontinent. He exaggerated, but there are many in Delhi who agree the United States has a role to play -- by putting pressure on poor General Musharraf to rein in the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and other militant outfits.

The United States will first make its case to L K Advani, the first of the two Indian ministers visiting Washington in January. The home minister is not a member of the frequent-flyer club. His last visit to the United States was a decade ago. He has made only two tours abroad after taking over the home ministry, the first to Israel, France, and Britain, the second to Germany, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. (Even the coming visit to the United States has been clubbed with an official trip to Spain.)

This makes the home minister something of a rare bird in the political zoo; I have known several politicians to fly off on the most frivolous excuse -- say, to investigate Singapore's subways! But it also underscores the importance he attaches to each visit.

In Washington, I hope the home minister gives a friendly geography lesson to his American interlocutors. President Bush inadvertently referred to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba as an organisation from Kashmir; its headquarters is near Lahore, a Punjabi city for millennia. Beyond that, I am not quite sure what kind of a case the Americans will put forward.

The waters were muddied by an undiplomatic remark; in an off-the-cuff reaction on television, Secretary of State Powell asked both India and Pakistan to exercise restraint. Coming on the heels of the attack on Parliament House, nothing could have been better suited to needle Delhi! President Bush's subsequent fulsome praise for Indian democracy was probably calculated to smoothen feathers all round.

He succeeded, but the basic problem remains: the United States wants to devise some kind of a face-saving device for the beleaguered Musharraf, but can it can do so in a timeframe and to an extent that will satisfy India?

Pakistan hasn't helped. General Musharraf began well enough, condemning the attack on Parliament. Subsequently, however, his lackeys infuriated India by speculating wildly that it was all a smokescreen pulled off by Indian intelligence to discredit Pakistan. And then Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar came out with the chestnut of "not dubbing the freedom struggle in Kashmir with terrorism".

The foreign minister should have known better. He was sharply contradicted by President Bush in his Rose Garden remarks. And honestly, Mr Sattar, it doesn't make any sense to speak of a 'freedom struggle' when the five terrorists involved were all foreigners!

The Americans know this, of course, which is why they have dubbed the Lashkar-e-Tayiba a terrorist outfit. But they need General Musharraf when the hunt for Osama bin Laden is reaching a climax. And so the American spin on the affair is that Lashkar-e-Tayiba is an anti-Musharraf outfit, which means India must do nothing to weaken him.

It is a triangular relationship, one India is watching in some amusement. One corner is occupied by the militants fostered by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence. Following the attacks on the World Trade Centre, these groups -- Taliban, Lashkar-e-Tayiba, whatever -- are upset with General Musharraf's decision to back the United States.

A second corner is occupied by the Pakistani elite. Having made one U-turn on September 11, they are forced to consider another. This group, led today by General Musharraf, failed to convince the world of any difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, nor of any variance between the Taliban and the 'moderate' Taliban. Now, it is time for a third attempt -- to distinguish between 'freedom fighters' and militants. Fail, and these Pakistanis become the target of the militants.

And in the third corner is the United States -- convinced it requires General Musharraf just now. But it is also hamstrung by President Bush's statement that "those who harbour terrorism will meet the same fate as the terrorists themselves". Especially since the Lashkar-e-Tayiba is based near Lahore!

India's request that Pakistan rein in militancy and hand over criminals such as Dawood Ibrahim is analogous to the American demands on Mullah Omar and Yasser Arafat. With logic and morality on the Indian side, the Americans will fall back on a familiar argument -- "Don't upset Musharraf, or his successor will be worse!" To which the Indian riposte is: "Militants have attacked Parliament with RDX; must we wait till they get Cruise missiles?"

But India's reactions will be restrained and calibrated. It wants the United States to force General Musharraf to do the dirty work. Returning where I began: will there be war? Not yet!

T V R Shenoy