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| India-Pakistan |
| Delhi braces for a Pak army with more say |
| 2008-08-19 |
| In the warren of offices in South Block from where Indian foreign policy is spun out, three bureaucrats sat in a room this morning listening intently to Pervez Musharraf’s 75-minute speech that was telecast live. “He has not really talked about Kashmir,” said one of the officers in an immediate response after Musharraf announced his resignation. “In fact, I don’t think he even mentioned it, it has been mostly about what is happening in Pakistan.” India’s official position — as stated by foreign affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee in Calcutta — is that it will not comment on developments inside Pakistan. But South Block has been agonising with a post-Musharraf Pakistan policy for nearly a month now. National security adviser M.K. Narayanan voiced the quandary in the Indian establishment only last week. Musharraf’s possible departure did not concern India so much, he told The Straits Times of Singapore, “but it leaves a big vacuum and we are deeply concerned about this vacuum because it leaves the radical extremist outfits with freedom to do what they like, not merely on the Pak-Afghan border but clearly (on) our side of the border too”. The biggest positive in the turn of the wheel in Pakistan today, Indian diplomats, bureaucrats and military officials quickly note, is that India has figured only in the margins. Neither in the February elections that threw up a fractious mandate and led to the tenuous coalition between Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, nor in the run-up to Musharraf’s departure in the past month has India figured in the mainstream of Pakistan public discourse. Only since August, after the unrest in Jammu and the wave of protests in Kashmir, has the Pakistan National Assembly passed resolutions condemning alleged Indian high-handedness — a position every Pakistani ruler, civilian or military, has taken during comparable events in the past. There was little evidence of a competition on who shouts loudest on Kashmir between the presidency of Musharraf and the prime ministership of Yusaf Raza Gilani. “Zardari had said that the Kashmir problem could be left for future generations and we could make progress on issues that are confronting us right now,” said Captain Alok Bansal, naval fellow at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis. “But with Musharraf’s exit, the army and the ISI are going to be more autonomous in their actions.” This view was reflected in the defence headquarters here, too. “For nearly a year now, Musharraf has relinquished control of the army but the anti-Indian instruments of the Pakistani state have been active,” said a general-rank officer in a military analysis cell. “I would say that the Zardari-Nawaz arrangement will last for anything between six to 18 months,” said G. Parthasarathi, former Indian high commissioner to Islamabad and Pakistan-watcher. “The moment either of them gets adequate support from the PML(Q) to form a government in Punjab, things could come apart.” In February, Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani said the military would support a civilian government. In March, he directed senior military officers to hand over charge to civilian counterparts in more than 20 government departments, apparently to help in the transition to a democratic administration. But that in itself may present a problem which will tell on relations with India. “Two things will remain constant. The ISI will continue to support the Taliban on the western border (with Afghanistan) in a war the Pakistan army does not want to fight but on the eastern border (with India), the army will call the shots. In effect, the army will have the power and the civilian government the responsibility,” said Parthasarathi. A dangerous trend now taking shape, he warned, is that the army is once again getting close to the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan that was dead opposed to Musharraf after he allied with the US. The closer this relationship gets, the greater the chances that Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Kashmir’s most strident pro-Pakistan leader, will gain in prominence. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #1 Pak army not have enough say when running the country? |
| Posted by: ed 2008-08-19 23:56 |