Normalisation?
Having spent 18 months on the knife-edge of a nuclear war, the result of a unilateral decision by India, for reasons that are still mind boggling, to put almost its entire Armed Forces on our doorstep, and only a week or so after Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha was advocating a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan a la Iraq, Atal Behari Vajpayee offered unconditional talks on all issues including Jammu and Kashmir. There is a “blow-hot blow-cold” situation here since Sinha’s tone and tenor remains aggressively anti-Pakistan despite the peace moves, one is rather skeptical about the very sudden sea-change of heart.
Minding his political back by neither accepting Jamali’s spontaneous invitation or rejecting it, the Indian PM reciprocated Jamali’s further initiatives by announcing resumption of full diplomatic relations (by appointment of a permanent High Commissioner) and allowing of overflights. An Indian Foreign Office spokesman went to great lengths to emphasize that “overflights” was a part and parcel of any air transit agreement. A suspicion therefore arises, could the whole objective of the Indian diplomatic overdrive be only to re-open “overflights”? The Indians had themselves suspended “overflights” in the first place, and have been economically repenting ever since. The westward operations of Air India were seriously disrupted, devastating the Indian aviation industry. SARS has caused all Air India flights to the East to now cease, a few more weeks without overflights permission from Pakistan would bankrupt the prime Indian air carrier. Indians have a habit of camouflaging their faux pas by grand gestures, can anyone forget their “generosity” last year in recalling the Indian Navy as a “goodwill measure” from the Indian Ocean where it was positioned to blockade Karachi in case of war, this had been coupled with loud talk of “quarantining” Pakistan during peace, i.e. not allowing any sea traffic to and fro our ports. The badly maintained Indian Navy took a massive beating during the storm-ridden Arabian Sea’s summer months, it takes no genius to work out why the Indians needed to get their seasick sailors (and their ships) to the relative safety and comfort of their home ports. That is why the focus on overflights in supercession to everything else among confidence-building measures (CBMs) is rather suspicious. If the Indians are serious, call their bluff by requesting Vajpayee’s presence at an overdue SAARC “Heads of State” Meeting in Islamabad.
Without Bloodying Swords
Using the pretext of the Dec 13, 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, India started moving the bulk of its Armed Forces within a fortnight thereafter to forward locations bordering Pakistan. Whatever part of its vast navy was in sea-worthy condition, our neighbour put out to sea in a posture menacing Pakistan’s coastline and sea-lanes. The Indian primary aim was far more camouflaged and far-reaching i.e. destroy Pakistan as a responsible, sovereign entity in the comity of nations, the rhetoric emanating from both Indian political and military leadership were in unison about the stated public objective, Pakistan would have to stop “cross-border terrorism” or India would take military action to force Pakistan to do so. To back up its threat, India arraigned its land and air forces in an attack mode all along Pakistan’s eastern borders. The moot point was whether India would confine adventure only across the Line of Control (LOC) in Kashmir only or whether it would launch an all-out war across the international border.