Pervez Musharraf and India Pakistan Rapproachment

#148 Eklavya: I dont have a problem studying history on chowk - but we need to do that as friends trying to understand the picture. Too many posters end up merely sticking to their respective government "party lines". Example:

You mention in your post that "With Pakistan acquiring the bomb, fears of being run over by India should have subsided."
I wrote, e.g., in #147 below on the same issue "I present to you the BJP government that within an year of the demonstration of Pakistani nuclear capability did a 180 degree volte face from bullying to talking peace (with AVP making what must have seemed to him to be a major statement when he said that Pakistan was here to stay before the Pakistan memorial). "

There is no doubt truth to what you say, but there is also truth to what I say (unless you see something incorrect in the basis i provide above). We can still be proud of our identities as Indians and Pakistanis while acknowledging that we may may be looking at a partial (as in this case) picture only.

yes prophetboy..kashmir isn't the core issue..

which is why you'll never find musharraf, shaukat aziz or any other paki government official say it is..

right...

#146 Posted by HP on February 27, 2008 3:24:31 pm

nice try...but the answer is still NO...you can't have indian kashmir...

get over it..

HP, tahmedi, that's why we shouldn't spend so much time discussing 'history,' and focus as much as possible, if possible, on the future. Think of it this way. Rightly or wrongly, India will ALWAYS have the kind of territorial claim that HP highlighted, which understandably and quite rightly, upsets him in a 'national sense.'

Even so, Tahmedji is right. With Pakistan acquiring the bomb, fears of being run over by India should have subsided.

HP: Agreed that too many Indians see Pakistan as being "their" territory and thus harbor resentments. Certainly obvious on chowk. But I think at the policy level things are different - the nuclear capability has forced Indian leadership to shelve thoughts of overrunning Pakistan. And as proof, I present to you the BJP government that within an year of the demonstration of Pakistani nuclear capability did a 180 degree volte face from bullying to talking peace (with AVP making what must have seemed to him to be a major statement when he said that Pakistan was here to stay before the Pakistan memorial). Whenever I have brought up this bit of reality, the reactions of our indian cousins on chowk have varied from disbelief (in case of the more respected gentlemen) to severe mental anguish.. :-)

Giani sounds like a usual extremist from the wrong side of the border but the gist of the whole issue as I understand it from his post is that Pak-India relations carry so much baggage that it is hard to even weigh them properly, what to talk of rapprochement.

The Indians have falsely assumed that Kashmir is the core issue and often Pakistan officials, especially the military analysts and negotiators encourage this approach to hoodwink the Pakistani as well as the Indian politicians.

This Kashmir bogey has been kept up afloat for so many years that often the naive political analysts spend their whole existence in proving Indian pov or the Pakistani pov wrong or right.

The real issue and which the Indians attempt to always ignore/avoid is the territorial claims that India has over Pakistan. Which some Pakistani commentators bring up for discussion but they are shot down by not only their own government but are ignored by the Indian government too.

Until that issue is resolved the Indian-Pak relations cannot go beyond some feel good measures.

ABV made a half hearted attempt to deal with that issue in 1999 and then again Advani made another attempt to deal with that in his typical round about way. Both were roundly criticized and punished for making those gestures. ABV by the Pak army in Kargil and Advani by the Indian media.

Until Indians finally come to grips with the Pakistan’s existence, the Pak-India relations would never proceed in a smooth manner. Indians in the last 60 years have failed to assure the Pakistanis that India has no claim over any part of Pakistan in any manner, cultural, social and geographical.

Every time some progress is made in relations, even some well-meaning Indians start talking about the similarities between the people or how meaningless the partition was. The minute this talk starts from the Indian side, things began to cool up quickly.

We can witness this behavior on this site too. Most of the Pakistan haters are such not because Pakistan interferes in Kashmir. They hate Pakistan because Pakistan is in a territory which was formerly called India! It is the partition syndrome which drives these nutcases crazier every day!

I am not going to go any further on this as I have no intention to derail this simplistic article and even more simplistic discussion that is taking place here. I wrote this only to endorse what Giani said. Though I doubt, he was clear in his head as to what he is writing. It would take couple of more Indian generations to reconcile with the reality that Pakistan does not sit on some Indian territory.

Pakistan exists in areas where the current Pakistanis have always lived and they exercised their right of self determination in 1947!

Dost Mittar Sahib,

I took your advice to tahmed32 and read your article and posts multiple times.

I think your article is more a reflection of what you would like to see as opposed to what is reality. That is, it is an idealism disconnected from reality.

Just take the posts for this article. It shatters genisis of your article to smittereens.

If you think more interactions could lead to us hugging hamiddumdum or tahmed32 or vice versa, then at least the posts would have indicate some desire for it. In fact, the posts validate that TNT was wise, Jinnah screwed up by not taking the rest of his kin with him, etc, etc.

Secondly, the factual aspect of Mush being a good boy and wanting to kiss and make up, I think when you have a Big brother sitting on your doorstep, feeding you and fattening your wallet, anything he wants - you will do.

Thirdly, this big brother would rather have the Indians focus more on new bully arriving on the scene - china. Since the big brother cannot handle this new bully by himself. So he prevents the distractions by managing the leash, while pushing the indians to focus more on the strategic ie the new big bully.

I hope you get my drift. Indians and pakistanis whether rightly or wrongly shall not co mingle in a friendly manner in the foreseeable future. Maybe for another 50 to 100 generations. There are too many grievious wrongs in the recent past for any friendship other than superficial to happen. SO this idea of more interactions is a good thing, well, I always believed in distance lending more enchanment to the view.

The only concession i am willing to make is in their own way both sides are right.

with lots of respect and admiration

giani

"I think that these conditions have never existed in Pakistan since mid-fifties in the previous century and one cannot blame Musharraf for destroying institutions which were not there to start with."


Wonderful. So, there is an entity whose survival depends on:
1 - keeping the stranglehold on 'a' people by brute force,
2 - superimposing a militarist posture on 'a' society
3 - keeping the conflict with india low/high intensity going

... and this entity's head Musharraf/guy'X' is to be expected to respond in a self-destructive manner by signing on to a definitive pak/india resolution of the so-called "conflicts"?

DM: Did you support Indira Gandhi's "emergency" or came up with explanations for it?

Re: # 139 Dost

Yes, but you can blame him for destroying what little there was and for not cultivating any civil institutions. He did remove an elected government after all. Far better for the Pakistani voter to vote them out than through a coup d'etat. Improved ties with India will not come through the whims of one man, but through an organic process starting at the grassroots.

#138 Posted by dost_mittar on February 27, 2008 8:01:11 am



I do not have a solution; that is not to say that solutions have not been proposed.


What solution has been proposed?


But any resolution would require some movement from both sides.


yes..I think India should STFU about the whole of kashmir, turn the LoC into the border and let Indians buy property in kashmir...that's the best the pakis can get..whether they like it or not has no bearing..it's their ability , or the lack thereof, to affect the situation on the ground that matters..even that would take a resolution in the indian parliament


I think that you would agree that the Pakistani side has moved significantly from its former position - for whatever reason.


Two things.. It's the reason that's the most important..If the situation gets better than the current civil war, they'll move away from that. And movement away from a position of demanding the whole of indian kashmir to only demanding the valley isn't a concession...my toddler tries to pull that kind of shit..demands the whole jar of candy and then says he'll be fine with 2..doesn't work in either case..


So unless you have a solution, we're back to square one..india has something..pakis want it..pakis can't do anything about it..

and another thing...it's the kuldip nayyar types who told india in the late 90s that india couldn't progress if it didn't "compromise" on kashmir...turns out india has done quite well without giving up anything..to the point where it's in a completely different league now..

Dost Mittar,

I read your article but found time to respond only now. You have characterised the improvement in relations between the two nations and all the related events very well. But as some have already pointed out that this rapproachment was perhaps more due to forced circumstances than Pervez Musharraf. The official stance of GOI after emergency spoke very well about the reasonable response to their situation and our improvements with them. I think it went something like "It does not matter who rules pakistan as far as policies towards India is concerned. Whether army or civilian rules, they have consistently been the same."
I believe you are giving more credit to mushy than he deserves. Yes he is decisive, but that does not mean his decisions were always good. He was forced to bring about this rapproachment decisively only due to external circumstances. He is thorough bred army walla who puffs his chest up at the mere mention of India.
In general on the policy of rapproachment with Pakistan I think the cautious line taken by the GOI in my opinion is reasonable. There is a lot of bon homie between the two peoples today. But it is best not to forget times like Kargil also. If you would like, check the posts of some of our 'friends' who are ridiculing musharraf today. They were in absolute glee when musharraf came to power dislodging the same man who has been elected today. They were praising him to heavens for his brilliant move in kargil.
I think that if the new leadership of pakistan can manage to stop this jehadi buisness at their homes we can talk of rapproachment. Until then let them blow each other up. We have got enough problems of our own to take care of.
I don't believe I'm a hardliner, but do think of the Indian jawans who laid down their lives fighting the jehadi maniacs over the years. That too is a reailty and should be considered before any rapproachment.
Adios

Kamath#133:

Thanks.

Although I have not stayed in Pakistan for a long time, I was there for two weeks (more time than most Indians are allowed visa for) and have travelled there extensively and have perhaps seen more of that country than most Pakistani chowkies.

Pew_Research:

"I should have put additional qualifiers. Namely, 'it is highly unlikely that a freely elected parliament with no pressure from the Army/ISI on its foreign policy and relations with Indiain Pakistan will support a Kashmiri Jehad when it know that the consequence will be unremitting hostility with India. ':

I think that these conditions have never existed in Pakistan since mid-fifties in the previous century and one cannot blame Musharraf for destroying institutions which were not there to start with.

arjun_5:

I do not have a solution; that is not to say that solutions have not been proposed. But any resolution would require some movement from both sides. I think that you would agree that the Pakistani side has moved significantly from its former position - for whatever reason. The same is not true of the Indian side although Manmohan Singh's statement of making line of control irrelevant does seem to indicate some implicit willingness for adjustments.

jayp#various:

One needs to make a distinction between the values represented by the state and the values held by the individuals. I would completely agree with you that the values of the Indian state embodied in her constitution and laws are very different from those of the Pakistani state.

Does the same apply to the people of the two societies? Here, the answer is not that simple. First, the values of South Indians, in my opinion, are somewhat different from the values of the North. For example, the south seems to give more importance to women, there is no tradition of purdah or ghoonghat, no concept of "honour" associated with female sexuality and no female infanticide. However, there is a lot of commonality between the culture and values of the two Punjabs, especially in the rural society, although there has been steady divergence as Indian Punjabis seem to be getting more swept off their feet by western influences than their Pakistani counterparts. Still, there are enough similarities in terms of language, cuisine, tastes, etc. that a Pakistani visiting India would feel more at home here than perhaps anywhere else in the world, including islamic countries. The same is true of a North Indian visiting Pakistan.

sadna#115:

Your analogy is too tedious for my feeble mind. But let me try to respond anyway. I do hold the entire Pakistani establishment, including the civil society which had until recently actively or passively supported terrorist activity directed against India. And since Musharraf was presiding over that establishment during this period, he certainly has to bear responsibility for it.

PS: I am surprised by your posts, it is quite unlike you to use personal pain to make a point.