Pakistan - India Relations in Recent Years

On 20th February 1999, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Pakistan. He came via bus from Amritsar to Lahore (Sattar, 229). This was only the second time that an Indian Prime Minister came to Lahore; Jawaharlal Nehru had visited Lahore in 1960 for the Indus Water Treaty (Singh, 197). The cities of Amritsar and Lahore had felt the Partition of 1947 most deeply as they are so close geographically and people still remembered how they used to often travel between the two cities before 1947 (Singh, 197). Coming to Pakistan via the Wagah border by bus, that too on the inaugural run of the new Lahore - Delhi bus service, was a remarkable message to the world that India wished to improve its relations with Pakistan (Singh, 198; Sattar, 229).

Prime Minister Vajpayee gave a speech in front of the Minar-e-Pakistan. He said that the members of his delegation who were sitting behind him had requested him not to visit the Minar-e-Pakistan which is a symbol of the Partition of the Subcontinent and the ideology of Pakistan, a celebration of the separation of the two countries in 1947. Yet, despite their repeated requests, he had chosen to visit the place and give a speech to show his sincerity and commitment to the cause of establishing peace between India and Pakistan. A lot of protests were staged in Pakistan by the Jamaat-e-Islami, terrorists activities took place in Kashmir, and the All-Party Hurriyat Conference announced a strike in Kashmir (Singh, 199). All this was aimed at destabilizing the peace process but these attempts proved to be futile (Singh, 199). Prime Minister Vajpayee and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif signed the Lahore Declaration which was aimed at speeding up the process of the resolution of all disputes and outstanding issues, including the Jammu and Kashmir problem which had proved to be a bone of contention between the two countries ever since their inception (Singh, 199). The countries also condemned terrorism and agreed to take measures to avoid the risk of nuclear war between them, and pledged to inform each other beforehand when testing missiles (Sattar, 230). The move was much appreciated all over the globe, including in India (Singh, 199).

Then came an unfortunate twist of fate and the Kargil conflict happened between the two countries. Soon after the Lahore Declaration, Pakistan started shelling across the Line of Control as it had been doing for years to give cover to infiltrators to enter into Kashmir (Singh, 201). That year, the shelling started much earlier and with much greater intensity than usual in winter (Singh, 201). Reports came to the Indians that infiltrators had entered into Batalik, a village on the Line of Control (Singh, 202). Patrols sent to the area were attacked by the infiltrators, starting the Fifth Battle of Ladakh (Singh, 202). On 8th May 1999, the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf, made an unannounced tour of the area opposite Kargil (Singh, 202). On 9th May, Pakistan Army shelling blew apart 5,000 tonnes of ammunition on the Indian side (Singh, 202). A few days later, Indian Army launched the Operation Vijay in Batalik (Singh, 202). Till now, the Indians were focusing on the infiltrators but by middle of May, indications started coming about the involvement of the Pakistani Army in the conflict in Kargil.

The Indians debated about the use of Air Force in the conflict since the geographical area of the conflict was limited in size and the casualties would have been greater, particularly as there was also a risk of loss of aircrafts which in turn could attract public condemnation (Singh, 203-204). Then there was the factor that aircrafts would have difficulty in determining the area of the Line of Control, since the Line of Control is not a visibly marked line (Singh, 204).

By now it was clear that the infiltrators were not regular terrorists who had come to destabilize Indian-held Kashmir, but were soldiers of the Pakistan Army (Singh, 204). Their skill, numbers, and equipment made this evident (Singh, 204) . They had come with the mission to block the Siachen glacier from Srinagar (Singh, 204). Any party which was in control of the strategic high altitude posts of Kargil would be able to observe the activity on the highway which connected the Indian troops of Ladakh (Singh, 205). This highway was used in transportation of seventy percent of the supplies used by the Indian soldiers of the area (Singh, 205). Prime Minister Vajpayee spoke to Nawaz Sharif, “We are aware that this intrusion in Kargil involved the use of regular troops from the Pakistan Army.” (Singh, 205) India let it be clear to Pakistan that this would not be tolerated at any cost and India would have to retaliate.

International community had now started issuing statements about the conflict, including the United Nations and the United States of America (Singh, 205). Pakistan and India had both become nuclear states the previous year, hence international concern was automatically on the rise about the ongoing conflict between the two states. Indian Air Force had started taking actions in Kargil and the first aircrafts, a MiG-27 and a MiG-21, were lost on 27th May (Singh, 206). To control the situation, Pakistan called for ‘meaningful international engagement’ and Nawaz Sharif spoke to Vajpayee again, offering to send the Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz to Delhi to ‘diffuse the current situation and to pave the way for a peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir issue’, stating that the Pakistan Army was not involved in the conflict in ‘any fashion’ (Singh, 206). Vajpayee then had to inform Sharif that the Indians had got hold of the dead body of a Pakistani soldier - along with his army documents (Singh, 206). Pakistan’s ambassador to USA, Riaz Khokhar, gave statements that the Line of Control was “vague or undefined in some manner”, while Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Sartaj Aziz said that the “fighters” in Kargil could be from “Afghanistan who may have crossed the LOC in support of the local mujahideen forces” (Singh, 208)

Jaswant Singh, who at that time was the Indian Minister for External Affairs, states that Madeleine Albright, the then-Secretary of State of USA, spoke to him about the developments in Kargil and that the USA had spoken to Pakistan about it, suggesting a cease-fire and that India and Pakistan should start a dialogue at the earliest in order to prevent the situation from getting out of hand (Singh, 206-207).

By mid-June, the Indian Army had re-established itself well in the region and the clearance of the region from the Pakistani soldiers continued till July (Singh, 209). The tides were turned. Pakistan hurriedly sent its Foreign Secretary to Delhi on 12th June 1999 (Singh, 220). The meeting was fruitless as India and the Vajpayee establishment felt stabbed in the back by Pakistan’s aggression into Indian-held Kashmir, immediately after the Lahore Declaration had been signed by the two countries (Singh, 221, 228). Sartaj Aziz was given the following conditions by India:
“1) immediate vacation of the aggression,
2) reaffirmation of the validity of the LOC,
3) abandoning of cross-border terrorism,
4) dismantling the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir,
5) reaffirmation of the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration.” (Singh, 226)

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hurried on an uninvited visit to Washington to have an emergency meeting with President Clinton on 4th July 1999 – US Independence Day - to get US help in negotiations with India (Sattar, 232). President Clinton kept in touch with Vajpayee about the meetings with Sharif, even inviting Vajpayee to the meetings, but Vajpayee refused (Singh; Sattar, 232). On 11th July, the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) of India and Pakistan met at Attari on the Indian side of the border to discuss the procedure of the withdrawal of Pakistani soldiers from Kargil in less than a week’s time. (Singh, 226) The conflict was over by 16th July, claiming the lives of between eleven to twelve thousand Pakistanis and Indians (Sattar, 232; Hagerty, 40).

In 2001, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his government invited Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to a dialogue in Agra in relation to solving the Kashmir dispute (Sattar, 236). This was inspite of the fact that Pervez Musharraf was the very man who had conceived of the Kargil invasion into Indian-held Kashmir.

The Agra Summit took place on 15th and 16th July 2001. The two leaders, Vajpayee and Musharraf, met each other and reached a settlement between them, and then on 16th they informed their foreign ministers of the points agreed upon which should be used to form a declaration to be finalized that day (Sattar, 236). The foreign ministers of the two countries then formed a draft of the declaration and took them to their respective authorities for approval. President Musharraf approved this document (Sattar, 236). However, the draft was not approved by the Indian cabinet committee on political affairs. Indian Minister of External Affairs, Jaswant Singh, discussed a slight amendment on the point about Kashmir with his Pakistani counterpart, Abdul Sattar, as the Indians felt that enough emphasis had not yet been put on the issue of terrorism (Sattar, 236). The Pakistani minister agreed to the amendment and preparations for the ceremony for signing of the declaration commenced (Sattar, 236). Jaswant Singh hoped to get this amended draft approved by the Indian authorities but this did not happen. The Pakistanis were informed that the document would not be signed at that time due to certain disagreements in the Indian cabinet committee about the declaration, and that the Indian Prime Minister would visit Pakistan later to sign the final agreement (Sattar, 237). Musharraf felt offended and stormed off from India without even visiting the Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti shrine in Ajmer Sharif, as was scheduled (Singh, 257, 260). Vaypayee was livid.

Jaswant Singh in his book “A Call to Honour” states that Musharraf had a rather grandstanding attitude during the Summit’s initial press conference with the media: “he refused to accept the presence of terrorism as an issue; continued to emphasize only the centrality of Jammu and Kashmir; was almost desmissive of Lahore; would not at all accept the reality of what Kargil was, what he had done; and he seemed almost to dismiss the Shimla Agreement… He wanted to carry back a victory, to be able to say: ‘We straightforward, direct-dealing military men achieve results, we do not beat about the bush etc.’” (Singh, 255) According to Singh, this meeting with the media shaped the atmosphere and subsequently shaped Musharraf’s attitude for the rest of the Summit duration. (Singh, 255) Apart from that, Musharraf had been refusing so far from setting an agenda for the talks to be held in the Summit, despite Indian officials repeated emphasis on its significance. Thus there was no agenda when the representatives of the two countries assembled at Agra (Singh, 256).

The Agra Summit ended without any agreement being reached upon. Only the prospect of another summit was a silver lining in the gloom. President Musharraf said, “I came back empty-handed but the Summit was not a failure”, while Jaswant Singh said, “We will pick up threads from the visit of the President of Pakistan.” (Abdul Sattar, 237) This optimism soon died down. Indian Ministry of External Affairs stated that “No agreement was reached. There was no closure of an agreement and no subscription by signature.” (Abdul Sattar, 237) President Musharraf blamed Indian deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani for preventing the Indian cabinet committee from approving the draft of the declaration, while Advani said that the failure was due to Pakistan not agreeing “to the clauses on terrorism in the draft suggested by India.” (Abdul Sattar, 238) Thus, India and Pakistan let go of another opportunity to solve their disputes as a result of their internal disagreements.

The 2001 Agra Summit was an ideal time for the resolution of the decades old Jammu and Kashmir dispute. At that time, Pakistan was being represented by the Army which are the hardliners in Pakistan, while India was being represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which are the Hindu hardliners in India. A lasting settlement of disputes can only be reached if the powerful hardliners of the two countries sat down for talks towards the settlement of all long-standing disputes. This was the case in Agra as both hardliners were assembled at one place for negotiations and the constellations were ripe and propitious for the two countries to make decisions for peace and progress. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Indian Prime Minister, was very sincere towards the cause of establishing good relations with Pakistan. He had also devised the Chenab Formula, whereby a part of Indian-held land in Kashmir along the River Chenab could be handed over to Pakistan in the settlement of the Kashmir dispute. No other Indian government could ever have even thought about giving away even an inch of Indian land which Vajpayee was prepared to do for this cause. Pakistanis, unfortunately, did not avail this opportunity. Vajpayee was around his 80s, there may never be another person like Vajpayee on the Prime Minister’s post in India. There is now no more a Chenab Formula which Pakistan could have availed at that time.

Musharraf was a military man and had the mentality of how he could conquer Kashmir for Pakistan by warfare. Plus, the Pakistan Army belonged to a Muslim nation and Muslims had traditionally ruled the Subcontinent, for a thousand years before the British arrived. The Pakistan Army had also not been able to absorb the humiliations of 1971 at the hands of a Hindu people. Musharraf’s attempts proved futile and near the end of his regime he was forced to reconsider his take on the issue. He resorted to diplomatic means towards the settlement of the Kashmir dispute. To this end, the Musharraf government held negotiations with the Man Mohan Singh establishment in India for the resolution of the Kashmir problem. Rumor has it that it was decided in 2007 that the Muslim areas of Kashmir were to go under Pakistan’s administration while the non-Muslim regions were to come under Indian administration, and there was supposed to be a relaxed border in Kashmir. This formula was based on (a) a soft border along the Line of Control, (b) a joint mechanism, (c) demilitarization in Kashmir and (d) easing of trade and cross border human contact in Kashmir. Indian Prime Minister was supposed to come over to Islamabad to sign the new declaration, and was waiting for his invitation and other formalities to be completed. Unfortunately, the invitation never came. The Chief Justice controversy brewed up in Pakistan in 2007 and President Musharraf got increasing forced into this new front, eventually resigning from his post in August 2008 due to the political developments in Pakistan. Hence, once more the fate of Kashmir could not change. The present government of Pakistan denies that any formula was devised between the Musharraf and Man Mohan Singh governments, whereas Musharraf continues to reiterate about the formula.

Kashmir is a region with no access to the sea, it is a landlocked region. For it to prosper, any formula agreed upon would need to consider that its economy would have to be inevitably linked with either Pakistan or with India, or with both (Hannum, 22). Autonomy given to Kashmir in most areas of government except defense and foreign affairs would also have various obligations for both India and Pakistan, particularly in the field of economy and finance (Hannum, 21). Also, before giving autonomy to Kashmir in crucial areas of government, one should consider “(1) those areas in which Kashmiris believe that self-government is essential; (2) areas in which continued linkages and cooperation with India and/or Pakistan are desirable; and (3) symbolic issues which may not have great practical impact on daily Kashmiri life but which would strengthen Kashmiri identity and culture.” (Hannum, 21)

Today, there are a few states of the world which have self-government in all areas except defense and foreign affairs. For example, the Cook Islands and Niue have autonomy and yet their people continue to have New Zealand nationality (Hannum, 18). Andorra is a sovereign member of the United Nations but its defense comes under the combined jurisdiction of Spain and France (Hannum, 17). The possibility of Kashmir having a similar successful political structure is there in the light that similar arrangements do exist with success and peace in a few other parts of the world.

Pakistan and India have fought several wars over the Kashmir dispute during the past six decades, losing thousands of lives and destroying their infrastructures in wars of 1965, 1971, and 1999, spending millions of dollars in these conflicts and to keep themselves armed for possibilities of any military clashes at the cost of cutting down their expenditures on other important areas for development, such as education and health, ruining regional peace conditions. It would not be feasible now for them to let go of Kashmir by giving it complete independence. On the other hand, if something is not done soon, these conditions and these losses would continue and Kashmir will remain the bone of contention between the two regional countries. In the long run, therefore, a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir problem is to the benefit for all the three parties concerned, to wit, India, Pakistan, and the Kashmiris.

The proposed Man Mohan – Musharraf formula of 2007 was good because it evidently took into consideration the convenience and welfare of all the three concerned parties. The soft border would have enhanced people to people contact amongst the Kashmiri families who were divided because of the Line of Control. It would also have enhanced trade as trade would have become much easier and efficient, which could have brought prosperity and progress. People on the two sides of the Line of Control could have helped each other in time of need, as the need arose in the 2005 earthquake in Azad Kashmir. An issue here would have been of terrorist training camps in Azad Kashmir, but then again, these Jihadist camps would not exist if the Kashmir dispute was peacefully resolved as the Pakistani intelligence agencies would not facilitate them. Plus there was to be a joint mechanism between India and Pakistan which could have been very fruitful in maintaining peace since the two armies would have been cooperating. Demilitarization of the region would have reduced tension between the two countries as well as saved the already meager financial resources of Pakistan. Hence, overall the formula was beneficial for the two countries so there is a high possibility that it would have been viable, since the interests of the stakeholders would have been well served by it.

Bibliography
Research included readings of books from course-packs of courses taught by Ambassador Shaharyar Khan at LUMS.
1) “A Call to Honour” by Jaswant Singh
2) “Pakistan’s Foreign Policy” by Abdul Sattar
3) “South Asia in World Politics” by Devin T. Hagerty
4) “Kashmir – A Way Forward” by Hurst Hannum