A joint letter by over 100 eminent Indians and Pakistanis urging both governments to take concrete and sustained steps towards restoring peace, dialogue, and normal bilateral relations between the two countries has ruffled some feathers in India. The BJP and other right-wing leaders are fuming. The ‘godi-media’ has found a range of fresh victims for their respective gladiator projects, and every possible signatory to the letter is being hunted down to fit into a clinically manufactured narrative and branded ‘anti-national’.
Congress leader, Manish Tewari, too joined the chorus and advocated against a dialogue till terrorism ends. That’s pretty much what BJP leaders – from Narendra Modi to Rajnath Singh – have maintained: ‘terror and talks can’t go together’. Whether or not the Congress party shares his sentiments, the real questions are: why is there so little appetite for peace, dialogue and reconciliation? Does it stem from ideological conviction in chauvinism? Does it stem from poor understanding of the underlying triggers and causes of hostility? Does it stem from a lack of geo-strategic pragmatism? Or does it matter where the message of peace is coming from?
Who says it?
Rewind to six weeks before the peace letter was delivered to the prime ministers of India and Pakistan: RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale called for talks with Pakistan. His exact words: "If Pakistan is like a pinprick trying to create incidents like Pulwama, etc., we have to answer appropriately according to the situation…. But at the same time, we need not close the doors. We should always be ready to engage them in a dialogue."
Hosabale was more cautious in his advocacy for dialogue than the 100 peaceniks, who pointedly outlined the imperatives for peace and offered constructive suggestions for beginning an India-Pakistan dialogue. But there was no reaction to Hosabale’s utterances other than by the Congress leaders, who mocked the RSS leader, insinuating he had taken diktats from the West, and also chided the Hindu Rightwing for double-speak, referring to the past utterances of Prime Minister Modi, who has not only opposed talks without settling terrorism first but also declared that ‘every act of terrorism will be deemed a war’. No frenzied media teams to rip him apart. BJP leaders squirmed in their corners instead of vocally mauling him with the ‘anti-national’ tag.
In today’s India, who says it matters as much as what is being said. If you’re close to the corridors of power, you have the divine license. If not, you can’t even apply for one. But the real question is: why does the mere mention of peace rile everyone?
Talks and Terror
One of the major reasons cited by those opposing peace is that talks, and terrorism cannot go together, or that there can be no dialogue without guarantees on ending terrorism. Terrorism remains a major and valid concern for India but insisting on guarantees before talks is putting the cart before the horse. You have to sit down and talk before you can even hope to convince Pakistan to agree to them. Talking reveals an earnest attempt to resolve the problem. Instead, turning ones backs on it makes it look like one doesn’t care a damn.
Terrorism, even though a crucial issue, is not the genesis of the India-Pakistan conflict. The dispute predates terrorism. Rather, it’s the lack of a space for meaningful dialogue and conciliation, which India and Pakistan have held in fits and starts but with a lack of sincerity and perseverance over the last seven decades, that feeds and nourishes cross-border terrorism. Secondly, terrorism does not exist in a vacuum. It can be fomented by an outside force for whatever reasons, but it cannot be sustained without deep-rooted domestic grievances existing on the ground.
Fighting terrorism requires a multi-pronged strategy. It cannot be simply crushed militarily. Tewari, who offers examples like the ‘successful’ Russian suppression of Chechnya insurgency, is, perhaps, guided by selective memory. Two caveats can be inserted here. One, that the end of the Chechnya conflict was announced by Russian authorities. Whether it existed on the ground is another story. Second, the Caucasus insurgency weakened under a mix of conciliatory measures and stepped-up security operations, but its own messaging kept widening its target audience - from Chechnya to the whole region to global jihad, mainly to keep recruitment alive rather than out of doctrinal conviction. The insurgents were unable to revive fully, but they’re not fully diminished.
And that is instructive about the nature and trajectory of terrorism. It cannot be easily weeded out lock, stock, and barrel – at least not without consistent and patient efforts and the right blend of strategies. There’s enough empirical evidence to prove this from the sub-continent’s own example. Insurgency, purportedly aided and abetted by Pakistan, erupted in the early 80s in Punjab and later in Kashmir primarily due to two reasons – local discontent and the absence of healthy diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan. The years coinciding with the composite dialogue between India and Pakistan between 2002 and 2009 showed the most remarkable decline.
It would be unfair to locate the reasons of decline purely in the peace process between the two countries. The softening of stance and the gestures of involving Kashmir’s separatists in talks were matched by proactive military interventions to crush militancy. That peace process fell into disarray after the Mumbai terror attacks. Continuation of the dialogue would have been the best response to that attack aimed at sabotaging peace. Instead, India and Pakistan were held hostage to their inherent biases, subsequently abandoning dialogue, despite some attempts to restart. The results were disastrous.
Diplomatic relations soured. Insurgency metamorphosed into homegrown militancy and finally into a more aggressive form of terrorism. Pulwama and the even more shocking Pahalgam attacks are evidence. Combating insurgencies that have both internal and external components requires a mix of conciliatory and military approaches. One alone will never be sufficient. That underscores the need for a dialogue with India and Pakistan.
‘Never Fear to Negotiate’
When John F. Kennedy famously said in his inaugural presidential address, “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate,” he was offering a new world vision of peace, civility and negotiations instead of one torn between two superpowers. A beginning has to be made without expecting overnight results to melt away the accumulated baggage of trust-deficit, animosity and historical prejudices that are rooted in partition, or even before that. It takes time and patience to resolve. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But it requires courage and conviction to go the whole hog despite obstacles.
South Asia has been held hostage to enmity, wars and violence that drain resources, cause casualties, deflect attention from major issues of health, poverty and illiteracy, and leave the region’s people poorer. Unfortunately, the lessons from last year’s 88-hour-long India-Pakistan war, highlighting its futility and unsustainability, are lost on the hawks in both countries. Neither side can win the war, nor sustain it without bleeding themselves. They can continue with the present status quo forever and suffer. Or, they can be imaginative for a stable and prosperous future.
The only alternative for both countries is to open the doors for dialogue. As Churchill is popularly, if not entirely accurately, credited with saying, “to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.”
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