Musharraf India’s best bet for peace, says academic

WASHINGTON: General Pervez Musharraf “may not be the right person, but he is India’s best bet in Pakistan and until another secular, military or religious leader emerges in Pakistan, it would be in India’s interest to engage Musharraf, because whether trustworthy or not, he is the only person who could deliver on the peace, according to an Indian academic.

Suba Chandran, currently abroad on a fellowship, argues in an analysis contributed to the Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, that for India there are major security interests in Pakistan: a peace process that could be sustained, an understanding on Kashmir to keep cross border terrorism below the threshold, if not total elimination, and a stable and secular Pakistan. “If General Musharraf could deliver India on these three counts, it would be in India’s interests to engage him. The question that India needs to address is whether he is the best bet given the present political and military situation in Pakistan,” he maintains.

According to Chandran, neither the political parties nor its leaders in Pakistan instil confidence. Neither Benazir Bhutto nor Nawaz Sharif can be counted upon, “as they have been thoroughly discredited by the people.” They may be easier to deal with from an Indian perspective, but it is doubtful if they would be able to deliver. Given the internal power dynamics between the various institutions, a Pakistani Prime Minister cannot act on his own independent of the military’s influence. “The unfortunate fact is that only Gen Musharraf can convey and impose an understanding in Pakistan agreed upon with India,” he adds.

He argues that the political leadership in Pakistan is weak and would remain so in the near-term future. Gen Musharraf is the only person who can implement what has been agreed upon at bilateral levels. Nawaz Sharif, despite his massive majority in the Parliament after the 1997 elections was unable to carry forward the Lahore process. “If this is a reality, then it would be in India’s interests to engage the military directly; if Gen Musharraf controls it today, India should engage him,” he recommends. The General, he adds, remains the only leader who “had the courage to acknowledge that the UN resolutions are irrelevant and that a soft border could be considered as a temporary solution.” In his view, no political leader could have made such statements and escaped “public wrath.” Musharraf has also been proposing various formulas and is willing to initiate a process to resolve the Kashmir conflict, thus not insisting on an immediate or time-bound solution. “The fact that he has advocated so many options would reveal his willingness to compromise,” he concludes.

Chandran believes that it would be in India’s interest to engage with a leader having a flexible mind willing to explore what would be acceptable to both sides. Besides this, he would be the only person who can keep the “cross-border terrorism” under control. He is aware that India may not negotiate if there is no militancy or if its level goes beyond India’s threshold level. It would be in India’s interests to keep the militancy under threshold so that it could initiate a process between New Delhi and Srinagar and complete fencing the LoC. The analyst finds it “unfortunate” that Musharraf seems to be the only person who could provide stability or semblance of it to Pakistan, “at least for the next few years. “

Chandran finds no institutional challenge, either from the political parties or the judiciary to the military’s control. Civil society may not like the military’s political rule, he points out, but it is unprepared to welcome a political dispensation led by either Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif. The religious parties may have street power, but cannot provide a stable Pakistan. The jihadi and sectarian backlash the military needs to control because the challenges facing Pakistan’s internal security are immense, though none of the political leaders instil confidence that they can deal with them. khalid hasan

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