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NEWS & LETTERS, January-February 2004Our Life and Times by Kevin A. BarryPakistan-India rapprochementIn a dramatic turnabout, India and Pakistan agreed to serious peace negotiations at a Jan. 6 meeting. Pakistan’s military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, promised to end support for "terrorism in any manner,” here including for the first time the "jihad” in Kashmir, where over 40,000 have died in a guerrilla campaign against Indian rule in this Muslim-majority state. For his part, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee agreed to achieve a "peaceful settlement” in Kashmir--to actually negotiate on this issue with Pakistan. Pushed by the U.S., China, and Europe, this rapprochement, if it is not derailed as has happened many times before, could mark a major turning point in global politics. Both countries, which were at the brink of war in 2001-2002, have fought wars in 1947 and 1965 and have had nuclear weapons since 1999. India today is ruled by the Bharata Janata Party (BJP). Its Hindu revivalist ideology blames Muslims and other "foreigners” for India’s problems. In 2002, BJP supporters massacred 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat. Afterwards, some of the ringleaders were slated as candidates by the BJP and went on to win Gujarat state elections by a landslide. The BJP may be looking to moderate its image, however, both at home and abroad; hence the peace diplomacy with Pakistan. Vajpayee hopes his peace diplomacy can help him to win a landslide in elections this spring. With the secular Congress Party in a shambles, the BJP hopes to win a two-thirds majority in parliament, which would allow it to rewrite India’s secular constitution. In contrast, General Musharraf is hardly riding a wave of popular support. Until September 11, 2001, he represented the most hard-line wing of Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus, both in the "jihad” in Kashmir and in supporting the Taliban and elements of Al Qaeda. In 2001, Musharraf reversed his support of the Taliban under overwhelming U.S. pressure. Since then, he has arrested a number of Al Qaeda leaders, turning them over to the U.S. On Kashmir, however, he continued to support the jihadists, claiming that this was a totally separate issue. The U.S. invasion of Iraq cut deeply into Musharraf’s already shaky popularity. After he curtailed the activities of the two main secular parties, radical Islamist parties that support the Taliban jumped into the void. In 2002, they won power in local elections in the two provinces bordering Afghanistan. They have forced women behind the veil and closed down a women’s shelter that had taken in victims of spousal abuse, forced marriage, and "exchange” of women in compensation for crimes. Many of the top leaders of the former Taliban regime live openly in these provinces. Since 2001, a large section of the military and the sinister Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has continued to support the Taliban and will not easily agree to cutting off support for the Kashmir "jihad.” Such elements were undoubtedly involved in two assassination attempts against Musharraf in December, both within 200 yards of a military barracks and at a time when his route was supposedly secret. One of the suicide bombers was Muhammad Jamil, an Islamist who had fought both in Kashmir and alongside the Taliban. Arrested and sent to Pakistan, he was interrogated and released as supposedly harmless by the ISI. All this had an eerie resemblance to the assassination of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat in 1981. This may not be a coincidence. Al Qaeda’s number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was personally involved in Sadat’s assassination, issued a call for Musharraf’s overthrow last Sept. 11. In Egypt, al-Zawahiri liked to work through fundamentalist cells within the military. The U.S. and other global powers have tied themselves closely to Musharraf, hoping he can moderate growing fundamentalist militancy in Pakistan and the region. In fact, his authoritarian and unpopular rule contributes to the growth of fundamentalism. |
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