The greatest challenge for India's foreign policy is the building of an architecture of peace and cooperation in the region where India is now universally recognised as the primary power: South Asia. Foreign policy, if it is to be truly an architectural endeavour, is the art of building for the long term: "the careful nurturing of relationships, the elaboration of policies that enhance (a nation's) options and constrain those of its opponents".By declaring on the floor of the Lok Sabha, on the sunny morning of November 25, that India's response to Pakistan's offer of a no-war pact is "positive", Foreign Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao took a bold step forward towards an architectural concept of foreign policy. India is now ready to build for the long term. It remains to be seen if Pakistan is too.Rao's statement did come as a surprise, but let none cavil at that point. For more than eight weeks Indian officials had been contradicting one another on whether or not Pakistan had actually made a no-war offer. In September, the official spokesman of the External Affairs Ministry twice told reporters that India had in fact received the Pakistani offer and was giving it serious consideration.Then in October, the prime minister poured buckets of ice water on the Pakistani proposal, condemning it as empty of substance, a ploy to confuse world opinion, a propaganda gimmick tailored for American consumption, even as a sinister move to dilute the Simla agreement.Tenuous Position: The External Affairs Ministry itself then adopted the somewhat tenuous position that a no-war pact proposal from Pakistan had not been received at all. With Pakistani spokesmen insisting that Islamabad had proposed negotiations for a no-war or non-aggression pact and Indian officials denying that such a thing had happened, there was born a subcontinental debate which compressed, in the words of Winston Churchill, "the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought". President Zia-ul-Haq himself took 68 days to send a written proposal to the prime minister. This had an immediate impact on her. While speaking to the students of the National Defence College on November 24, two days after she had received Zia's written communication, Mrs Gandhi gave a broad hint that India would respond positively if Pakistan's offer was "genuine". The following day, Rao told the Lok Sabha that "more than two months" after Pakistan had first claimed to have offered a no-war pact to India, "the Pakistan Government have confirmed their 'offer' in official notes communicated to us in Delhi and Islamabad".With legitimate pride Rao detailed to the House, India's persistent efforts since 1949 to lock Pakistan to a no-war or non-aggression pact and Pakistan's equally determined effort to recoil from it. Rao was also correct in expressing happiness that Pakistan had finally responded to India's call. Analysts will of course differ on the interpretation of the motivations of the Pakistani offer. As long as the US Congress was debating the $3.2 billion (Rs 2,880 crore) American military and economic aid package to Pakistan, both Islamabad and Delhi were, expectedly, talking not to one another but, in two very different voices, to Capitol Hill in Washington.Persuading America: Pakistan was anxious to persuade senators and congressmen critical of the aid package that it had no intention of using American arms against India. Indeed, the offer to negotiate a no-war pact with India was contained in the last paragraph of a Pakistani note written in the second week of September, largely for the attention of US legislators. .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}This portion of the note was brought to the notice of the Indian ambassador by the Pakistani Foreign Office on September 15, and later, the entire note was handed to the Indian Foreign Office by the Pakistani ambassador in Delhi. Thus, Pakistan submitted to India what in diplomatic practice is called a Note Verbale, an unsigned communication written in the third person, which is less weighty than a Note, but more weighty than an Aide Memoirs.Indian spokesmen too, especially Mrs Gandhi, trained their verbal missiles not at Islamabad but at Capitol Hill. How could Pakistan talk about a no-war pact when it was actually arming furiously with the most sophisticated and versatile fighter, the glamorous F-16? Mrs Gandhi asked. Why should Pakistan "offer" a no-war pact now, after having rejected all India's offers for the last 35 years?Several Indian analysts saw a gnawing incongruity between Zia's no-war pact offer and his vision of an Indo-Soviet "collusion" to destabilise Pakistan, and a worse duplicity in Agha Shahi's statement at a Lahore seminar that Pakistan regarded India - and not the USSR - as the principal threat to its security.Lacking Coherence: Indeed, since January 1980, when Pakistan and the US started negotiating an arms deal in the immediate wake of the Soviet lurch into Afghanistan, till now, Islamabad has lacked a coherent strategic concept of the use of force for external purposes. It has spoken in three voices, each stealing the other's credibility. To the Americans it has projected itself as a willing partner in the military containment of the Soviet Union. To the Soviets, it has dangled the carrot of "accommodation". To the Pakistani people, the Zia regime has kept India framed as the main enemy. These contradictory strategic postures highlighted to several Indian analysts the duplicity, cunning and unreliability of the military regime.What the contradictions actually showed, however, was the regime's inherent weakness. A shining cluster of 40 F-16 aircraft and $2 billion (Rs 1,800 crore) worth of arms do not a power make. President Zia knows very well that he cannot make war either on Afghanistan or on India. In either event, not only will the Pakistani military be crushed, Pakistan will cease to exist as a single political entity.It is this knowledge that has prompted the President to reverse the entire historical trend of Pakistani diplomacy and offer a no-war pact with India. The US aid package has given a psychological boost to the Pakistani military; it can now talk peace with the big neighbour as the first step towards improved relations with the Soviet Union and, therefore, Afghanistan.Proceeding Gingerly:A no-war pact is not an offspring of immaculate goodwill; even if it is conceived in good faith (which is often not the case), its delivery involves prolonged twisted parleys and hard bargaining. The Simla agreement took more than six months of very hard negotiations to lake shape; even five minutes before it was signed, there were serious doubts if it would really be concluded. India's "positive" response to President Zia's "proposal" means only one thing: the two countries will now gingerly engage in negotiations.What importance and momentum the negotiations will gather will depend on political will on both sides, their response to external events, their mutual non-strategic relations, and their ability to build little bridges of confidence as the negotiations proceed.For India, intense preparations will be needed to face Pakistan across the negotiating table. The Simla agreement is, in essence, a bilateral no-war agreement; it rules out the use of force to settle bilateral disputes, including Kashmir. If a no-war pact is to replace the Simla accord, it must accomplish what the latter has failed to do: it must narrow, if not eliminate, the strategic divide between Pakistan and India.India's defence requirements are far larger than Pakistan's, a fact which the Zia regime concedes. What force levels the two countries could maintain in relation to one another without either posing a threat to the other will be a strong bone of contention. Pakistan's security relations with the US and China, and India's friendship treaty with the USSR will also raise tangled controversies. Above all, Pakistan's fledgling nuclear aspirations will introduce an unprecedented dynamism to the forthcoming negotiations.Frontline Nation: "Obviously, Pakistan cannot stay a frontline nation in the cold war confrontation between the two superpowers and still expect to sign a no-war pact with India." observed an official of the Indian Foreign Office. What he meant was that the region had to be rescued from superpower confrontation if Pakistan and India were to live in good neighbourly peace and cooperation.There are some political elements in Pakistan as well as India who believe that any peace structure between the two must also be linked with Afghanistan, especially when Afghanistan is under the shadow of Soviet power. "It is possible for Pakistan and India, working together and independently of the United States and China, to create the minimum condition for the pull-out of the great bulk of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and restore that country's sovereign, non-aligned status," said an official source in Delhi.India will also have to be assured that under no circumstances will Pakistan lend bases or facilities to the US for use in a war for supremacy in the Persian Gulf-Middle Eastern region. Pakistan, on its part, will need to be reassured that India is genuinely and permanently committed to the neighbour's sovereignty and territorial integrity; that the Soviet connection will not be used against Pakistan; and that India will proceed to normalise its relations with China, thereby diminishing in Pakistani eyes, the "imbalance" of its relations with the major powers. Indeed, a certain level of normalisation of Pakistan's relations with the USSR and India's with China will help the process of negotiation for a no-war treaty. This alone can keep US intervention in South Asian affairs limited and restrained.Azad Kashmir: Of course, Kashmir will pose the biggest problem for the no-war pact negotiators. President Zia has repeatedly vowed to respect the Simla agreement. He has also several times articulated his dissatisfaction with the "stalemate" in Kashmir. Azad Kashmir is a troubled part of Pakistan; reports of popular discontent get printed even in the heavily censured Pakistani press. There is an element of uncertainty about the Valley after the passing of Sheikh Abdullah.In other words, Kashmir may still trigger the final war between Pakistan and India. If a no-war pact is to insulate Kashmir from another war, Zia will have to recognise the de jure character of the line of actual control, and India might offer to help him with cosmetic changes to mollify Pakistani sensibilities. Alternatively, a no-war pact may just incorporate the relevant clauses of the Simla agreement, abjuring force to settle the Kashmir dispute, leaving a solution to the next generation of subcontinental leaders.On the nuclear issue, a no-war pact must pledge Pakistan not to explode a nuclear device; in return, India could offer to cooperate with Pakistan in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The two countries must also agree to limit their military expenditures; they can ill afford to spend billions upon billions of dollars to acquire new generations of aircraft, tanks, and missiles while the subcontinent remains the home of two-thirds of the world's entire pauperised humanity. The ice has broken. An opportunity has come to build for the long term. It is always exciting to look ahead, but difficult, even dangerous, to look further than one can see.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Oct 24, 2013--- ENDS ---
