OMMENT: Channelling diplomacy —Shahzad Chaudhry

We could not win Kashmir by wars and we could not realise accession of the state through other means. A territorial issue has morphed into a human issue, which essentially was an existential reality even if never stated till recently

I must admit I am not too fond of the bureaucracy. I do not know who is. Do not get me wrong, I am frequently impressed with their intellect, grooming, promise and potential; it is in their very distant and deliberately cultivated perch that they exhibit on matters all important that a cold remoteness and insufficient empathy may begin to become obvious. You see, I was exposed to this bureaucratic trait quite intimately and did not come out singing praises. They remain the all important cog, though, that keeps the machine of governance going — no doubt about that — but then that is all there is to their role. Take the cog out and the machine stops, put it back in and it is running again. The more crucial refrain though is, what is the machine producing? On that, the bureaucrats want to have no truck with. Someone else must push in material and get a product that they need. Else, the machine will keep running with only air in, air out. Bureaucrats are the masters of the ‘process’; they do not bother much with the intent, aim and objective or that illusive end-state called ‘vision’. Conversely they have this great proclivity to convert all lofty ‘visions’ to a process and practically push the excitement of idealism into extinction.

My worry is the back channel process on Kashmir and other issues plaguing relations between India and Pakistan. We have had three back channel operators with India. Niaz A Naik was one when the back channel was not really well known as an avenue. The results he produced are also fairly vague. There was not much to show or criticise. Remember, he was the epitome of a bureaucrat. The process existed, but not much or anything at all emerged as a product; air in, air out. General Musharraf, during his time, needed to desperately correct the folly of Kargil and became committed to the idea that Kashmir was an issue whose time had come. Not only did he change his approach towards our relationship with India where communication was sought on issues, he appointed his most trusted lieutenant, Tariq Aziz, to search for the framework of a solution. With another bureaucrat, of a different variety though, and with a boss who possibly was wheeling the process anyway from the shadows, things emerged. The four-point formula revolved around easing the LoC restrictions (read making borders irrelevant), cross-border trade in Kashmir, demilitarisation, and an autonomous rule of sorts jointly overseen by both India and Pakistan. Now, one may not agree with any or all of these elements, but there was something to work on. In all honesty, there is hardly anything wrong with the entire framework, if it is ultimately aimed to transfer the state of Kashmir over to the Kashmiris, and why not? Have they not suffered enough in blood and patience to win their right of self-rule?

Two difficulties emerge though. One is that of the ownership of the formula. Dictator Musharraf’s formula cannot be endorsed by a democratic government in Pakistan as a popular ruse. It is another matter though that the return of democracy itself was a product of compromise with the same dictator. The foreign minister, disassociating himself from any knowledge or information on about any such arrangement as touted by the former Foreign Minister, Khurshid Kasuri, and resolving to win back Kashmir on the basis of the UNSC resolutions, is an even more diabolic stance for a nation fed on half-truths and jingoistic idealism. The same is reinforced by the supporting cast at the Foreign Office, but for entirely different reasons. How might a non-diplomat, an income-tax official at that, be credited for having crafted a possible working methodology on Kashmir? The thought itself is liable to pitiable rebuke, hence the introduction of Riaz Mohammad Khan, a consummate diplomat and perhaps the finest in the field, who may bear the torch for resolving the Kashmir imbroglio. He may still, and more likely will, work on and around the Musharraf formula, for there is none other that is on offer, but the ownership henceforth will be kosher and bona fide.

The second dilemma that plagues the process is even more vicious. And here runs the basic fault-line in the construct. There is no ‘vision’, or the end-state that is agreed on between the two principal interlocutors, India and Pakistan. Both are playing for time, sometimes hoping time may become the final arbitrator without having to answer the most difficult question of where each wishes to see the process lead, and at another time simply wishing the inevitable away by hiding behind the façade of a time-governed process. Not only that, they fool each other and they fool themselves.

A few things are writing on the wall. The UNSC resolutions on Kashmir now only have an ornamental value — morally correct, legally debatable and practically overtaken by events. Pakistan may not stand a chance rekindling what is, essentially, now archaic. We could not win Kashmir by wars and we could not realise accession of the state through other means. A territorial issue has morphed into a human issue, which essentially was an existential reality even if never stated till recently. On India’s side the cost to them too has been huge on Kashmir. The moral cost of keeping a people under forced occupation with unrestrained brutality is now a global shame as bad as the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Their urge to realise their potential as a world player with strong moral underpinning is pushing them to seek a solution in an earlier timeframe. And, while they already may be an ascending power vis-à-vis Pakistan, with differential bound to widen in both capacities and capabilities on a much larger datum of reference than on military co-relation alone, for them too time beckons to unfetter an unsavoury legacy and build on the momentous critical mass in their global acceptability and hierarchical placement in the world order.

So what are the options then? Essentially three: a time-based social integration of Kashmir under the Musharraf formula, inevitably leading to political integration, with the unintended consequence of the state seeking an independent status. State this to either of the main interlocutors and they will balk. Two, an agreed end-state between India and Pakistan, where a restricted menu of autonomy is enabled to the Kashmiris under a joint political overhang of both India and Pakistan — an idealistic mechanism that can never withstand the backlash of historical baggage, unless a miracle occurs. And, finally, accepting the status quo as it exists with a slightly more cooperative flexibility for the Kashmiris to travel, trade and mingle. Kashmiris, unfortunately, will be the only suckers in this arrangement. But, hopefully, they will understand.

If such are the consequences of what might entail a back channel effort to dispute resolution, it only helps to share a common vision of the acceptable end-state. A process then follows to place all elements in place against an agreed time-scale. Both vision and some spine will help.

Shahzad Chaudhry is a retired air vice marshal and a former ambassador