State of the Union: Talk to Pak, it's not a sign of weakness

At a recent conference on regional security in South Asia, a Pakistani official made a rather startling remark: “Even if you resolve Kashmir, it does not mean terrorism would stop”. The comment — if it reflects more than an individual opinion — is pregnant with meaning for its sheer portentousness. Does it suggest a shift in the Pakistani deep state’s basic philosophy of how it would now use the network of its semi-state actors? There are two fundamental impulses that drive the Pakistani strategy of bleeding India with a thousand cuts. The first is revenge for the humiliation of Bangladesh and the second is Kashmir. From 1990 onwards, Pakistan has perpetrated this myth that Indian oppression in Kashmir was motivating young men to wage a proxy war in India. There were a host of unemployed fighters from the days of the Afghan jihad against the erstwhile Soviet Union who needed to be redeployed for their presence in Pakistan was creating problems for social stability within that country and thus Kashmir became the cause of choice.

While Gen. Zia-ul Haq is credited with evolving the “bleed India with a thousand cuts” policy and operationalising it with Punjab as the target in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it was taken to the next level by the powerful director-general of the ISI the late Hamid Gul. Gul led the Inter-Service’s Intelligence (ISI) in 1987-1989 and laid the foundations of the violence that hit the Kashmir Valley in the ’90s. Subsequently, Pakistan stepped up the scale of its operations and brought the proxy war to the Indian mainland by the turn of the millennium. However, Kashmir continued to remain the permanent excuse. What has then changed? Is it that the publicly-acknowledged operations along the LoC on September 29 is making the Pakistanis drop the pretence of Kashmir being the alibi for their depredations? How should India respond to such a situation? There is no difficulty with a tit-for-tat, however intrinsic being the risk of uncalibrated escalation that may come about due to situations that may have nothing to do with India but can become a trigger.

For instance, the attack on the police academy outside Quetta on October 25 in the restive province of Balochistan. Quetta is also where the Taliban Shura is based. India or its instrumentalities would have had nothing to do with the attack. For the entire high-decibel rhetoric that has been emanating out of India about the situation in Balochistan, India does not believe in fomenting terror; it is not a part of the intrinsic DNA of the Indian state. However, the statements that have emanated out of responsible establishment figures and the almost hysterical and jingoistic discourse in our media make India a convenient whipping boy.

Inspector-general of Frontier Corps Maj. Gen. Sher Afghan informed the press that the attackers acted on directions from Afghanistan and the initial investigation suggests the terrorists were affiliated with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Almi, a terror group known to be supported by the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency. Earlier too on August 8, the chief minister of the provincial government of Balochistan, Sanaullah Zehri, was quick to blame India for a bomb blast in a Quetta hospital that killed 93 people even before the police could say who was responsible for that horrific attack. Therefore, even a non-existent tit-for-tat syndrome could cause an intensification that could quickly spin out of control. Contrary to what some strategic thinkers may believe there is no space for a limited war between the two countries under a nuclear overhang.

Under such circumstances, talking to each other rather than talking at each other is a sensible strategy. History is replete with examples of nations at war continuing to talk to each other concurrently. It is not a sign of weakness; it is, in fact, a sign of strength. The most classical example of this perhaps is the talks between the United States and North Vietnam. The war began in 1954. The first major peace proposal from North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong came only 11 years later in April 1965. Even then there wasn’t any significant progress in the negotiations until an informal meeting between Averell Harriman and Xuan Thuy — the US and North Vietnamese emissaries respectively — took place on May 10, 1968 in Paris.

Even then peace talks remained frozen for the next four years. South Vietnam at first refused to recognise the sovereignty of the National Liberation Front (NLF) and North Vietnam and vice-versa. Once the talks began, each party stated their positions over and over again. The North Vietnamese demanded the US to withdraw its troops, dissolve the Saigon government and return to the principles of the Geneva Accords. On the other side, the US insisted on Hanoi recognising the legitimacy of South Vietnam. Every round of negotiations ended in a stalemate almost as soon as they started. To deal with this seemingly impossible situation in Paris in August 1969, Nixon directed Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser, to start secret one-on-one meetings with Le Duc Tho, a member of North Vietnamese politburo. Three years passed by with little progress from both sides. A major breakthrough came on October 8, 1972, when Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger reached an agreement to end the conflict. In late October 1972, Kissinger unveiled a draft of the treaty. Finally, on January 27, 1973 the Paris Peace accord was signed by the US, South and North Vietnam and the NLF.

A full-scale war raged concurrent with the negotiations that killed millions of people and saw the extensive use of napalm bombs and other deadly chemical weapons. Ultimately the war ended, Vietnam was unified in 1975 and barely 27 years later, it rolled out the red carpet for President Bill Clinton in 2000. If history is any guide then the various European powers and Great Britain should never be at peace with each other given that they had spent centuries going for each other’s throats. Most generals would tell you very few conflicts end in victories on the battlefield and most end up on the negotiating table in armistices. It is, therefore, a wrong notion that we have in India that talking to Pakistan is a sign of weakness.