Lost Peace Process

The late S K Lambah’s book, which discusses the promising peace process between India and Pakistan during 2003-07, leaves one with a sense of regret for what could have been accomplished

IN his book, ‘In Pursuit of Peace,’ the late Indian diplomat S K Lambah provides a comprehensive account of the behind-the-scenes efforts to secure peace between India and Pakistan by resolving Kashmir, their decades old bone of contention. Lambah was a skilled diplomat who had access to all shades of political leaders in Pakistan. The “accord” reached by the two countries on Kashmir  aimed to make borders irrelevant without redrawing them, with key elements such as bus services between two parts of Kashmir already in play during Manmohan Singh’s term as Prime Minister. However, this was not to be, and hostilities continue to dominate the relationship between India and Pakistan. Lambah’s book documents the inability of diplomats from both countries to reach a mutually beneficial agreement that would ultimately allow their people to live in harmony.

The book also highlights the possibilities for peace that presented themselves over the past quarter century, including the Delhi-Lahore bus service that began in 1999, the visit of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Islamabad in 2004, General Pervez Musharraf’s visit to India in 2005, and the near-reopening of consulates in Mumbai and Karachi, among others.

However, the current state of affairs is far from promising, with no direct flights, hardly any visas issued, and no bus or train services between the two countries. Lambah notes that India-Pakistan hostilities have become an instrument of political mobilization and that the painful memories of partition are being revived. He rightly points out that hate is the guiding political philosophy of both countries today, and as long as this remains the case, no channel, front or back, will work.

Overall, “In Pursuit of Peace”  offers a glimpse into the complexity of the relationship between the two countries and the challenges that must be overcome to achieve lasting peace.

That said, Lambah’s book is the second on the promising 2003-07 peace process between India and Pakistan. The first one was ‘Neither Hawk, Nor Dove’  written by the former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri.  That book also provides a detailed analysis of “the complex Pakistan-US-Afghanistan-India quadrangular relationship”.

Kasuri writes that by the time the former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf was ousted from office, Pakistan and India had made progress on the last of the contentious points of his four point settlement formula for Kashmir which had brought the two countries tantalizingly close to a solution. This was about creating a joint consultative mechanism between the divided parts of Jammu and Kashmir. The two countries had agreed that such a mechanism would consist of a specified number of elected members from each of the two units. There was also an agreement on “the principle of the presence of Pakistanis and Indians” in this mechanism. What was still under discussion was “the manner of the presence and association” of the two countries with the arrangement.

Kasuri believed that Pakistan’s relations with India “had impacted our national psyche and affected Pakistan’s foreign and security policies because of the distrust, suspicion and hostility between the two countries”.

The four year engagement between the two nations was underpinned by a sustained back-channel contact, first between Tariq Aziz and Brijesh Mishra, then Aziz and J N Dixit – who allegedly first broached the idea  of an “out-of-box-solution to Kashmir” to Kasuri – followed by the one between Aziz and Satinder Lambah.

What transpired during these years has since been told and repeated. The broad outlines of the contemplated solution – no border re-adjustment, demilitarization, self-governance, and joint mechanism – are now a common knowledge.  The book offered a new perspective by delving into greater depth and providing more comprehensive details than had previously been available.

For example, Pakistan had agreed to withdraw troops from the part of Kashmir controlled by it after India demanded a quid pro quo for doing the same on this side of the border. And the two countries had agreed to conclude an “agreement within one year over reduction of troops and the process of demilitarization”.

Kasuri credited Pakistan for the progressive decline in militancy in Kashmir during the period.  According to him, Pakistan had set up centres to wean away militants through a process of DDR – De-radicalization, Disengagement and Rehabilitation.

The rest is history. The agreement could not be concluded. The lawyers’ agitation and Musharraf’s slipping grip on power towards the end of 2007 ensured that the agreement remained confined to non-papers. Then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s expected visit to Pakistan  – first in 2006 and then in March and May 2008 – to sign the deal was indefinitely put off and never again seriously contemplated. In August 2008, Musharraf exited the scene and the backchannel couldn’t be sustainably re-established since.

The situation has considerably transformed since, and almost in every sense: regionally in terms of the growing power disparity between India and Pakistan, and in J&K too, which has since been divested of its special status and downgraded into two federally controlled units, in other words, two union territories. This, in turn, has altered the complexion of the Kashmir issue as we understood it.

And if at all the two countries return to dialogue in the near or medium future, it seems hardly probable that they will revisit the Four Point Proposals. But should the two countries choose to go back to them as a broader framework for settlement,  they will need to adapt it to the new reality, But again, getting to that point won’t be easy.