Kashmir And Peace (2)

Jawaharlal Nehru 1949 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Kashmir And Peace
How To Make Peace With Pakistan
Making Peace With Pakistan
Pathankot Attack: Response To Modi Visit?
Peace In Kashmir
Nehru, Tibet, Aur Britain Ka Pret
पाकिस्तान को ४० बिलियन का ऐड
पाकिस्तान को ४० बिलियन का ऐड (2)
बुश का बघदाद
पहली बार मोदी नवाज Body Language पॉजिटिव है
काश्मीर: एक समस्या
Silicon Boomerang? Silicon Crescent?
पीके और अब बजरंगी भाईजान
भारतका २४० ट्रिलियन डॉलर वाला अर्थतंत्र बनने का फोर्मुला इजराइल के पास है
Owaisi, Like Atal, Is A Great Parliamentarian

Pathankot Attack: Response To Modi Visit?

The ISI and the Pakistan Army do not call Nawaz Sharif boss. I am not giving Nawaz a clean chit. But those are parallel centers. It is less about Kashmir or any other real or imagined issue. It is about the unchallenged power, money and prestige they enjoy now. So when Modi engages in diplomatic innovation and drops by to say Happy Birthday to Nawaz, he is threatening to those organizations. They don't like it. You are eating their cake. Peace does not work for them. They are not driven by what's best for the people of Pakistan. It is much narrower self-interest that drives them. So how do you deal with them?

Be realistic, and keep expectations low. Unless the Pakistani Army and the ISI are brought 100% under the Pakistani parliament, no real progress is possible on any issue. Then basically it is a counter terrorism operation that the Israelis are really, really good at. They know to make deep intelligence penetrations. They know to make surgical strikes. They know to strike their operatives globally. This is not traditional war. You are not fighting the state of Pakistan. You are not fighting Nawaz Sharif.

Good photo shoots with Nawaz in the public venues of the world is as far as it might go in the short run.

Or maybe this is not the handiwork of the ISI, or any group it sponsors. There is no dearth of freelancers in Pakistan who will happily attack both Indian and Pakistani targets. They will as happily attack ordinary Pakistani citizens.

Pathankot terror attack: PM Narendra Modi chairs high-level meeting

Pathankot air base is under terror attack since Saturday. The security forces have already killed four terrorists and two more are believed to be still holed-up inside the base, and an operation is underway to flush them out.

Pathankot terror attack: India exercises restraint, avoids direct anti-Pakistan comments

Unidentified terrorists attacked the IAF base in Punjab's Pathankot town early on Saturday, leaving three IAF personnel and five terrorists dead. ..... Meanwhile, Pakistan has condemned the Pathankot attack.

Pakistan strongly condemns Pathankot terror attack

Building on the goodwill created during the recent high level contacts between the two countries, Pakistan remains committed to partner with India to completely eradicate the menace of terrorism afflicting South Asian region, the statement said. ...... Terrorists from Pakistan had launched a terror attack on Dinanagar town in Punjab's Gurdaspur district on July 27, 2015, leaving seven people dead, including a senior police official.

Battle for Pathankot Indian airbase enters second night

The attack is being seen as a blow to an apparent Indo-Pakistani peace initiative launched just days ago. ..... Pakistan's foreign ministry and the US State Department have condemned the attack. ..... The attack started before dawn on Saturday, when a group of gunmen - wearing Indian army uniforms - entered the residential quarters on the base. ..... The identity of the attackers is not clear. Some Indian security officials suggested the Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed was to blame. India says the group is backed by Pakistan, but Islamabad denies this.

Pathankot attack: Terrorist called mother, said ‘I am going to be a martyr’
In one of the phone calls, a Home Ministry official familiar with tape-recordings made by the Intelligence Bureau, said a man with a southern Punjab accent repeatedly tells his mother that he is heading towards martyrdom.

Intelligence officials attribute the Pathankot airbase attack to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad on the basis of intercepted phone calls made late Friday by a member of the assault team. ..... a man with a southern Punjab accent repeatedly tells his mother that he is heading towards martyrdom. The mother can be heard crying in the background, at one point gathering herself to ask her son if he has eaten. ..... the men seemed to be hysterical, and not very well-trained”. ..... The conversations, he said, reminded him of Naved Yakub, a Lashkar-e-Taiba jihadist held in Udhampur last year, who dropped out of school to escape a life of poverty by joining the jihadist group. ...... Based on the phone calls, investigators believe the men crossed one of the streams running across the India-Pakistan border in Gurdaspur — the same route used by a group of Lashkar terrorists who attacked a police station in Gurdaspur last year, killing nine. ..... Punjab Police investigators believe the four terrorists first hijacked an Innova van, after crossing the border early Friday morning. The car stalled on the Pathankot-Jammu highway with a flat tyre, after which the terrorists are thought to have executed its driver, Ikagar Singh. ..... The terrorists then hijacked a vehicle used by Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh, who was travelling home from a religious leader’s Dera, along with his friend Rajesh Verma, a jeweller, and Verma’s cook Madan Gopal. From testimony given by Verma to the Punjab Police, the men were carrying a large bag, possibly filled with food, assault rifles, a global positioning set and a cellphone. ..... there was no official account of how the terrorists succeeded in penetrating its 10-foot outer perimeter walls, topped with razor-sharp cobra wire, and this in spite of specialist warnings. Early investigations suggest that the men walked along the National Highway to the Air Force base undetected, from the location where they abandoned their car.

Pathankot operations a national embarrassment, who will take the responsibility?

All this happened near one of the most heavily guarded international borders in the world. Not in a far away place not used to terror attacks. .... The Pakistan backed Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists easily gained access into a vital Indian Air Force Station at Pathankot. They managed to cause the intended damage and instill fear across India..... The inefficient handling of the operation cost us the lives of seven soldiers and also damaged the reputation of our elite security forces....... After Saturday's operations, the Centre even declared that the entire operation was over and all the terrorists have been killed. On Sunday, the firing once again began causing fear and embarrassment at the same time.

Two terrorists actually stayed inside the IAF Station undetected the entire Saturday night.

...... Local media reports suggest that the Punjab Police and other security agencies initially refused to take the words of the abducted SP seriously. They wasted a lot of precious time. ...... After watching the botched up Pathankot security operations, the masters of the terrorists in Pakistan must be smiling. ..... A good 24 hour lead was wasted and the terrorists had easy access to a top IAF base.

Two terror teams may have attacked Pathankot using different vehicles

all the phone calls made by the terrorists to Pakistan were on numbers identified as that of JeM by the security establishment for a long time now.

‘Militants were heavily armed, began spraying us with bullets’

“The militants were heavily armed. They began spraying bullets as soon as they spotted our men near the mess.”

पहली बार मोदी नवाज Body Language पॉजिटिव है

Modi's Lahore stopover nothing more than an adventure, says Congress
"It is unfortunate that we get to know about prime minister's visit through a tweet... India and Pakistan relations are not so good as yet that he stops over there on his way back from another country," Congress spokesperson Ajoy Kumar said.

काश्मीर: एक समस्या

लोग कहते हैं सबसे कठिन मसला है पलेस्टाइन का। गलत कहते हैं। दुनिया में सबसे कठिन मसला है कश्मीर का। कमसेकम पलेस्तिनियों के पास एटम बम तो नहीं।

तो इसको सुलझाया कैसे जा सकता है?

बहुतों ने दिमाग लगाया है। मेरे पास भी एक है। मैं भी कुछ बोल देता हुँ।

The solution is democracy. जब तक पाकिस्तान एक पुर्ण लोकतंत्र ना बन जाए तब तक कश्मीर समस्या ही रहेगा। पाकिस्तानी आर्मी और ISI को पुर्ण रूप से पाकिस्तानी संसद के तहत जब तक नहीं लाया जाएगा तब तक समस्या समाधान नहीं होगा।

इसका मतलब मैं ये नहीं कह रहा कि कश्मीर भारत का है या पाकिस्तान का। मैं कुछ कह ही नहीं रहा। मैं कह रहा वो बात बाद में करेंगे। पहला काम करो पाकिस्तान को एक पुर्ण लोकतंत्र बनाओ।

दो जन निर्वाचित सरकार जिसका पुरे गवर्नमेंट मशीनरी पर कब्जा है वो ये मसला आसानी से हल कर सकेंगे। अंततः कहेंगे जो हुवा सो हुवा इतिहास को भुलो आगे कि सोंचो line of control को बॉर्डर मान जाओ और ट्रेड पर फोकस करो पर्यटन पर फोकस करो people to people contact पर फोकस करो।

अंततः सारे दक्षिण एशिया को एक ही अर्थतंत्र बनना है। उसी में आम आदमी की भलाई है और ये आम आदमी का जमाना है।

तो पाकिस्तानी आर्मी और ISI को पार्लियामेंट के तहत लाएगा कौन? भारत? अमेरिका? नहीं। आम पाकिस्तानी जनता। एक समय आएगी जब जनता उस किस्मका मैंडेट देगी।

प्रश्न है वो समय कब आएगी। Can it be hastened? How?

Related articles

• Pakistan's Sharif to offer India peace proposal at U.N. General Assembly
• Indian aggression attempt to disrupt war on terror: COAS
• India-Pakistan to hold flag meeting today to discuss peace issues
• Jammu and Kashmir CM Mufti hopes for a Modi-Nawaz meeting in US
• No meeting scheduled for Pakistan and India at UN general assembly
• Nawaz Sharif likely to raise Kashmir issue at UNGA

Making Peace With Pakistan

How To Make Peace With Pakistan

• Get engaged, stay engaged.
• Keep expectations low, especially short term expectations. 
• Expect setbacks. Use setbacks to better understand how the Pakistan Army, the ISI and non state actors try to undermine the Pakistani Prime Minister. 
• Engage at multiple levels, not just with the Prime Minister. 
• Appreciate their need to posture. They need that drama for their domestic audience. 
• Talk to the Prime Minister, but also talk to the Pakistan Army directly. They are not a subservient but a parallel power center. 
• Seek a trilateral intelligence sharing arrangement vis-a-vis the United States, especially on terrorism. Pakistan itself is a target. 
• Help strengthen democracy inside Pakistan. Ultimately only a fully democratic Pakistan is capable of true and permanent peace with India. Until that day arrives, keep expectations in check. Expect slow progress and setbacks. 
• Greater people to people contact would help. More trade will help. 
• And if that happens between China and Pakistan, so be it. Think of that as dress rehearsal. Pakistan opening up is good news. It is a closed society. Russia is also a good one.
• Muslim-Hindu per capita income parity is a domestic goal for India. Steps towards that goal would help. 
• Peace is possible. Ultimately perhaps even a free trade area. 
• Attempts of terrorist attacks will continue. There are plenty of non state actors inside Pakistan, but mostly globally, who would like to hurt India. It is a democracy thing. And there counter-terrorist acts is an area for the military experts. This is not traditional warfare. You have to speak the language they speak. You have to be able to counter their moves. Mostly you win if you are really good at intelligence. Intelligence sharing with governments goes a long way. 

पीके और अब बजरंगी भाईजान

पीके और अब बजरंगी भाईजान के जबरजस्त हिट होने से मेसेज मिल रहा है ----- भारत और पाकिस्तान की जनता शान्ति के लिए तैयार है, मौसी तैयार है। भारत सरकार और पाकिस्तान सरकार तैयार है कि नहीं वो सरकार वाले जानें।

How To Make Peace With Pakistan

Normalized relations with Pakistan will add 1% to India's growth rate, and Modi is all about economic growth. But that normalization is no easy task since Pakistan is not exactly a democracy. So one has to be careful. One has to be realistic. One can not close the doors of engagement, but one also has to be tough.

The latest salvo from Nawaz Sharif is that there can be no peace talks unless India is willing to talk about Kashmir. That is posturing. He needs to do that to stay credible inside Pakistan. He can not act too eager for peace and still stay viable inside Pakistani politics. Just like Modi had to act tough for a year. He needed to do that. To send a clear message to Pakistan that he means business, but also to send a message to the home audience, that he is tough with Pakistan.

Peace with Pakistan is hard because Pakistan is not a democracy. The army is not subservient to the Pakistani parliament. The ISI is a three headed hydra. Only one of the heads might be answerable to the parliament. The hardliners inside the ISI and the army need to keep the conflict going. If there is peace, they become irrelevant. And so they seek for opportunities to stoke the fire. When peace attempts are made, they feel the need to scuttle the efforts. Nawaz, frankly, does not have the power to make peace. He can not give you what he does not have.

Any genuine peace effort from India's side has to be multi-dimensional. When Modi meets and talk to Nawaz, high ranked army people on both sides also should meet and talk. The army people should try to set up things like hotlines. Both are nuclear powers after all. Seeking to establish hotlines might be one way to stoke Pakistan's nuclear ego.

Another place where Nawaz is powerless is Pakistan truly has a major domestic terrorism problem. The Pakistani people are at the receiving end of it, the Pakistani army is, the Pakistani establishment is. And it does not help that some elements of both the ISI and the army nurture, aid and abet some or many of those same terrorists. Nawaz could not halt domestic terrorism inside Pakistan even if he wanted to, and he is trying his best, or as much as his limited powers allow. Pakistan can not help India with something it can not help itself with.

There is no state that America can expect will take care of either the ISIS or the Al Qaeda. These are not state actors. And they have to be dealt with directly. Similarly, India has to do the best it can to stay one step ahead of the various terror outfits. You try to prevent attacks, you nab them when you can, you try to infiltrate them, you hit back when you can, you cooperate with powers like America on things like intelligence sharing. Pakistan can not help you with something that it can not help itself with.

Having said that, it is an open secret that the inferior Pakistani army relies on terror groups to make its point when it feels the need. You can not ignore that.

Peace with Pakistan is not like Reagan meeting Gorbachev. Nawaz has parallel power centers all around him, several of whom don't think of him as their superior or boss. India has to move ahead with that knowledge.

• Moving from a position of strength is key. There are elements on the Pakistani side, many of them not in Nawaz' control, that simply do not talk the language of reason. 
• Not engaging is not an option. 
• A multi-pronged approach to peace talks is key. The parallel power centers will only respond to direct engagement, and even then they will play hard to get. Think about it. Why will they negotiate away their central place in Pakistani society? 
• Because there is no immediate solution to terrorism, one has to keep expectations low. Peace with Pakistan will be a slow process. Larger tectonic forces are at play. Think of it as Climate Change. It is complex, and Nawaz can not help you. So suggesting he does not want to is a lame excuse. Maybe so. Maybe he does not want to help. But he can't even if he wants to. 

In the short term I am pessimistic about the prospects. Larger global forces are at play. And those forces will have to align in a certain way for India and Pakistan to see genuine peace. Scapegoating Kashmir is one way to go about it. But it really is about the terrorists. Kashmir is not why they exist. And Modi-Nawaz handshakes will not make them go away. 

A sophisticated engagement where you are plain realistic is perhaps the way to go. Keep expectations low, but stay engaged at multiple levels. And seek small areas of cooperation like, hotlines between the two armies, perhaps even information sharing on terrorists, and there the US might have a role. 

Like Yaser Arafat said about Israelis, "We are practically cousins!" 

India succeeding to make peace with Pakistan is about if Pakistan can become a full democracy where the army and the ISI come completely under the Pakistani parliament, and if the world makes progress with dealing with terrorism, whose only solution I think is a total spread of democracy across the Muslims world, where, ironically, both India and Pakistan are in a very good position to play a decisive role. 

Maybe that higher purpose will bring Modi and Nawaz closer together. 

Curiously India has excellent relations with Afghanistan, Iran and several other states in the region. 

Does it help to realize that the partition was Britain's fault? No?