The Filter Coffee  

In December’s Pragati, I caution against any attempt to substantially alter the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) between India and Pakistan.  The framework provided by the treaty has stood the test of time and has withstood the pressures of three wars.  While there is no doubt that Pakistan faces a water crisis, we in India need to tread carefully when it comes to altering aspects of IWT to accommodate Pakistan’s problems.  India’s national interest should be the only consideration in determining where we go with IWT in the future. Magnanimity is not always a virtue.

Unfortunately, the undeniable benefits of the treaty to Pakistan have been obscured by misplaced apprehension and aggression.  Ayub Khan’s fears of Pakistan’s water insecurity did not prevent him from waging war against India in 1965. Since then, Pakistan has imposed war on India twice and provokedIndia through insurgencies and terror. Yet, India continues to respect the IWT in letter and spirit, not denying Pakistan its share of water even during times of war.

Certainly, transnational water sharing is a complicated subject. In our own region, the sharing of water between states and provinces has been an emotive issue, as evidenced by the disputes over the Kalabagh dam between the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Sindh, and the Kaveri dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. There is no denying that Pakistan’s water challenges are real, notwithstanding the dubious causes suggested. And it behooves India, as a neighbour, to help Pakistan address some of these challenges, where possible.

However, one must recognise that Pakistan’s water problems are its own and that to a great extent, the solutions to these problems lie in Pakistan. India cannot be expected to display magnanimity towards Pakistan when Pakistan itself has not demonstrated a basic desire to tackle structural and governance issues in water management. [Pragati]

Read the article in its entireity in Pragati ( PDF; Web page).

Gen. Kayani finds himself in a very unenviable position.

There is palpable anger in the streets of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi over U.S. airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani troops last Saturday.  The most powerful man in Pakistan, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani has been forced to swing into damage control mode.  Pakistan’s first haphazard response to the attacks involved closing NATO supply lines and demanding  that the U.S. vacate Shamsi airbase (allegedly used to conduct drone strikes in K-P).  It then withdrew itself from the Bonn conference on Afghanistan.  Then there was a vague attempt to block the BBC and other “Western channels” from broadcasting in Pakistan — a strange threat at best, and one that is unlikely to hurt anyone, except possibly, listeners of the BBC in Pakistan.

Today, Gen Kayani apparently “upped the ante” by declaring that his troops would respond with “full force” to any future aggression by NATO or the U.S.:

“Be assured that we will not let the aggressor walk away easily,” the army chief said in a message for the troops and added that he had “clearly directed that any act of aggression will be responded with full force, regardless of the cost and consequences”.

He believed that the attack could have been retaliated effectively had the communications network not broken down. “Timely decision could not be taken due to breakdown of communication with the affected posts and therefore lack of clarity of situation at various levels, including corps HQ and GHQ.”

Gen Kayani further clarified that the troops could respond on their own, when attacked, without waiting for orders from the command. “I have full trust in your capabilities and resolve,” he stressed. [Dawn]

But this is all meaningless rhetoric for several reasons.  First, Pakistan is not the victim that it is claiming to be, but in fact the aggressor.  It has been reliably reported that it was Pakistan, not the U.S., that fired first, presumably in an attempt to aid the Taliban, which had come under siege from U.S. Special Forces.  This, of course, is not a new occurrence.  The Long War Journal catalogs at least eight occasions of unprovoked cross-border shelling by Pakistani troops in Mohmand Agency since September 2011.

Second, if the Pakistanis could have hit back at NATO or U.S. forces, they would have.  The fact that they didn’t indicates that they couldn’t.  Upon being initially challenged by the Pakistanis, U.S. Special Forces called in close air support from NATO, which proceeded to decimate the aggressors.  This is not an issue of a breakdown in communication between corps HQ and GHQ.  When you’re under attack and taking casualties, you don’t need “permission” from your Chief of Army Staff to defend yourself.

Third, bravado notwithstanding, how can the Pakistani army realistically “respond with full force, regardless of the cost or consequences?” Does Gen. Kayani not expect the U.S. to respond in kind to Pakistani military action? Is Pakistan really that stupid to get into a fight with the U.S. or NATO and trigger an uncontrollable chain of events?

The truth of the matter is that the proverbial noose around the neck of the current Chief of Army Staff is tightening since the humiliation of the Abbottabad raid in May.  Pakistan’s inability to respond to the recent “act of aggression” puts Gen. Kayani in a very unenviable position.  And the more that noose tightens, the more erratic Gen. Kayani’s actions will get.  There are already many Yahyas in Rawalpindi to Kayani’s Ayub. And as a restless nation bays for blood, Kayani is capable of attempting to placate them with little else than bellicose rhetoric.

Given the rather delicate situation that he finds himself in, Gen. Kayani in actuality should be praying for zero confrontation with NATO or U.S. forces in the short-term, rather than welcoming it. For should he find himself in a Salala-like situation in the near future, he might discover that the cost of backing down from another military confrontation with the U.S. outweighs its apparent benefits.

Forget Pakistan and move on.

I came across this article in Foreign Policy by Teresita and Howard Schaffer entitled “Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir: A grand bargain?“  Ambassadors Teresita and Howard Schaffer are true paragons of the U.S. foreign policy community and have extensive experience in the subcontinent (indeed, Mrs. Schaffer is fluent in Hindi and Urdu).  However, and as someone with tremendous respect for their contributions, I found some of  the recommendations in the article surprising.

The article calls for a review of U.S. strategic options with Pakistan and postulates a “grand bargain,” which essentially involves “giving” Pakistan what it wants in Afghanistan, but on two pre-conditions: first, making Pakistan responsible for preventing terrorism emanating from Afghanistan (yes, only Afghanistan), and second, getting Pakistan to agree on a settlement on Kashmir on the present geopolitical lines.  In all fairness, the article both recognizes the challenges inherent in such a plan, and accepts that the likelihood  of such a bargain coming to fruition is rather low.  However, there are elements in this “grand bargain” that I find either disturbing or infeasible.

The first element of this “grand bargain” involves accepting Pakistani hegemony in Afghanistan. Pakistan, not the civil administration in Afghanistan, will be empowered to undertake negotiations between Kabul and “whatever elements of the Taliban” to work towards a post-war settlement.  The article also envisages the U.S. accepting Pakistan’s demand of eliminating Indian involvement in Afghanistan.  Such logic should greatly concern New Delhi, which recently signed a “strategic partnership” with Afghanistan involving an enhancement of bilateral ties in education, economics and security. This article fails to explain why Afghanistan or India would ever entertain this, and how the U.S. and Pakistan feel they are in a position to transact such an arrangement without resistance from India and Afghanistan.

Next, in return for this “grand bargain,” the article recommends that the U.S. warn Pakistan that it would be held responsible for any act of terror originating from Afghanistan or Pakistan. The article doesn’t delve any further into how this fete is to be accomplished.  The Pakistanis have acted with an ascending sense of impunity in conducting sub-conventional operations in a region already dominated by U.S. forces.  If the U.S.’s strategy with respect to Pakistan’s proclivity for terror has failed to yield tangible results thus far, what other tools does the U.S. suppose it has to force Rawalpindi into compliance? And by the way, has the U.S. held anyone responsible for the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan this past May?

The third component of this bargain pertains to Kashmir. According to the article, the U.S. would “tell” Pakistan that it would publicly call for a settlement on Kashmir based on existing demarcations along the LoC and “give India advance notice” of the announcement.

Advance notice! One wonders if the U.S. thinks that it is in a position to orchestrate such a grand settlement especially at a time when its own power is fading relative to other actors on the global stage.  The U.S. would do well to  imbibe an espresso shot of reality here.  Where is the appetite for such an arrangement in a rabidly anti-India Pakistan?  Pakistan’s political parties created an uproar just last week in  response to the inconsequential issue of granting India the status of “Most Favored Nation.”  For a nation bred on the notion that Kashmir is rightfully theirs, any compromise on the issue will elicit a response that Rawalpindi and Islamabad will be incapable of dealing with.

And while India in very broad terms would like a settlement based on turning the LoC into a permanent border, it is in no particular hurry to make the move.  India today is focused on restoring relative peace to Jammu & Kashmir; to that end, it has encouraged dialog between the Centre and political parties of all hues in the Valley.  However, an external reconciliation of Jammu & Kashmir is just not a priority.

The weak coalition in New Delhi does not have the political capital necessary to conclude on such a significant transaction, even if it wanted to.  Simply, Kashmir is a “core issue” for India, and as the U.S. has already realized, is one where India is demonstratively inflexible. If an impoverished India of the past managed to stave off U.S. pressure on Kashmir, what makes the U.S. think that an ascending India will do otherwise?  Any expectation that India will march to the U.S.’s tune merely on being told to do so, is very far removed from reality indeed.

In the end, if the U.S. hopes to move on from its engagement in Afghanistan and ensure that the country does not return to a pre-9/11 jihadi haven, it must stop encouraging Pakistan’s institutional irrationality.  This involves recognizing that U.S. and Pakistan’s interests are divergent, and that Pakistan isn’t the solution, but the problem.  Further, it must realize that even assuming Kashmir is resolved  by some miracle, this will not necessarily mean an end to Pakistan’s obsession with India.

Pakistan’s problem is not Kashmir, it is India and India’s existence.  Pakistan’s quest for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan — an agenda duly entertained in the article — is directly tied to its preoccupation with India. If there were no India, there would be no need for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan.  Therefore, how does India attain peace with Pakistan, when Pakistan’s definition of peace involves India’s dismemberment?  Questions for the Schaffers and the U.S. to ponder over.

In the October 2011 issue of Pragati, I make the case for greater Indian awareness and engagement with a rapidly changing Middle East.  India has historically walked the tightrope, balancing its relations with often warring actors in the Middle East; but India’s growing stature in the world will attract more vocal criticism of what some might see as New Delhi’s duplicitous positions.

While India must no doubt protect and promote its national interests in this turbulent region, it must also use its goodwill to promote ideals that it holds dear.  The recent killing of Col. Qaddafi, the brutality of the al-Assad regime in Syria and troubling actions of the Egyptian army post-Mubarak all indicate that “popular” uprisings are not a sufficient condition for the emergence of democracy in the Middle East.

Real democracy can only come in the Middle East through the slow, and sometimes frustrating process of legislative reform that allows greater participation of citizenry in deciding their future with the support (and urging) of democracies in the West, and indeed, India.  India must learn to embrace this role as its global visibility grows.

India’s growing ties with Middle Eastern countries are a reflection of its growing stature on the world stage. How India chooses to engage with these and other countries will help define what sort of power India will be. In the past, India avoided criticism of Middle Eastern countries for a myriad of reasons. While this has proven to be a successful strategy, an emerging India will increasingly be challenged on what some might perceive as duplicitous positions.

For example, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh criticized the West for using force to bring about regime change in his speech at the UN General Assembly, he chose not to draw attention to the brutal suppression of human rights by regimes in the Middle East. While he steadfastly supported the right of the Palestinians to statehood, he refrained from drawing attention to the sub-conventional war imposed on Israel by state and non-state actors.

Worse, while India chose to abstain from a UNSC vote condemning Syria’s human rights record, its ambassador, in an interview with CNN-IBN, virtually endorsed the al-Assad regime’s brutality by dismissing reports of the number of Syrians killed during the protests as “exaggerated.” India has an interest in ensuring not only a stable Middle East, but also one where citizens have a stake in deciding their own future.

As India emerges as an important actor on the world stage, it must use its goodwill and growing power to influence its friends in the Middle East, and must work with other countries in promoting shared ideals in the region. In this regard, the India-U.S. “West Asia Dialogue” launched in July
2011 is a welcome sign.

Read the entire article in this month’s Pragati. (Web link; PDF; 2.2 MB;)