The Longest August

by Dilip Hiro

  And yet the differences in perception persisted. Whereas Delhi insisted that these were to be “talks about talks,” with one item on the agenda—terrorism—the Pakistanis said they wanted to discuss several issues, including Kashmir.40

  India’s Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart, Salman Bashir, held a four-hour session in New Delhi on February 25, 2010. Bashir stressed that Pakistan was a victim, not a sponsor, of terrorism. More than five thousand Pakistanis had been killed and nearly thirteen thousand injured in terrorist attacks there since 2008. He accused India of supporting “militants and terrorists” in Afghanistan, which endangered the security of Pakistan.41

  On her part, Rao presented Bashir with three dossiers on fifty senior Islamist militants based in Pakistan and urged greater efforts by Islamabad to hunt for the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks. She expressed her frustration that the LeT’s Saeed was a free man. In early June 2009 the Lahore High Court had declared his detention unconstitutional and ordered his release. A month later the Pakistani government appealed this decision. It lost. On October 12 the Lahore High Court quashed all cases against Saeed and set him free. The court also ruled that the JuD was not a banned organization and could work freely in Pakistan.42

  Following the well-worn pattern, the leaders of India and Pakistan used a summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to meet informally on the sidelines. At this regional conference in Thimphu, Bhutan, at the end of April, Singh had an hour-long, one-on-one conversation with Gilani. No joint statement ensued, but it was reliably learned that they decided that their foreign ministers should work out the ‘‘methodology’’ to carry forward the composite dialogue process.43

  Pakistan listed its steps to curb the activities of the banned JuD. “We have frozen 16 bank accounts of Jamaat ud Dawa, blocked six websites, cancelled all arms licenses issued to the outfit, detained 71 activists, placed the names of 64 activists on the Exit Control List, put over 63 madrassas of the JuD under government control and confiscated all its publications and papers,” said Interior Minister Malik in early May. The government had also appealed to the Supreme Court over the release of Saeed and awaited its verdict.44 On May 26 the Supreme Court dismissed the prosecutor’s case and upheld the lower court’s decision to release Saeed.

  In June India’s home minister Palaniappian Chidambaram met Malik in Islamabad on the margins of the SAARC interior ministers’ meeting. While providing further leads on the Mumbai attacks, he expressed his dissatisfaction at the glacial pace of the trial of the seven suspects by an antiterrorism court in Rawalpindi. He noted that on May 9 the defense lawyers filed an application in which they argued that the government was resorting to various tactics to delay the trial. They referred to its application to the Indian authorities seeking access to Kasab. It was bound to be rejected because on May 6 Kasab had been found guilty of eighty-six charges and given capital punishment. According to the Article 403 of Pakistan’s Code of Criminal Procedure and Article 13 of its constitution, a person once convicted or acquitted cannot be tried for the same offense again.45

  At the end of a twenty-five-minute telephone conversation between him and Krishna on how to narrow the “trust deficit,” the Pakistani foreign minister Qureshi invited Krishna to Islamabad. But any goodwill created so far evaporated following a revelation by India’s home secretary, Gopal Krishna Pillai, on the eve of Krishna’s departure on July 14. It was based on the full confession made by David Coleman Headley in May 2010 as part of his plea bargain to be spared capital punishment after his arrest in Chicago in October 2009. In June he spent thirty-four hours talking to Indian investigators in the presence of FBI agents. Pillai said that fresh evidence provided by Headley showed that the ISI and Saeed played a “much more significant” role in planning and executing the 26/11 terrorist attack than was known before.46 (In October India released a 109-page summary of David Coleman Headley’s confession.)

  Though Krishna went through his scheduled meetings, including the one with Qureshi—joined by Interior Minister Malik, who summarily dismissed Headley as “an unreliable witness”—the chance of any diminution in mutual trust deficit had practically vanished. At the joint press conference Krishna looked on stony-faced as Qureshi said that besides terrorism the two delegations had discussed Kashmir, Sir Creek, and Siachen Glacier. He complimented this by mentioning Pakistan’s assurance that it would seriously follow up the leads given to it earlier by Chidambaram.47 From Delhi’s perspective, however, the latest development was nothing more than the continuation of “talks about talks.”

  Pakistan decided to call India’s bluff that no composite dialogue would be resumed until and unless there was a substantive delivery on 26/11 and cross-border terrorism. All it had to do was to spin out the trial of the seven suspects, which started in April 2009 and went through four changes of judge. The ploy worked. The Indian government concluded that it could not just continue “nonengagement,” and that it needed to engage with Pakistan in the hope that it would yield the result that refusal to talk did not. It put that policy into practice at the foreign secretaries’ meeting in Thimphu on February 6, 2011.

  However, discernible movement did not occur until March 27. On that day Singh invited Gilani to witness the India-Pakistan World Cup semifinal cricket match in Mohali, a small town in Punjab a few miles from the Pakistan border, on March 30. Gilani agreed. And in a major confidence-building gesture, his government decided to let Indian investigators travel to Pakistan to probe the Mumbai attacks.

  On March 30 security was tight in Mohali. Indian army helicopters and antiaircraft guns imposed a no-fly zone over the Mohali stadium to ward off any potential attack by militants. Singh and Gilani spent eight hours watching a cricket match. The broad “agenda,” according to Rao, was to “understand each other better, resolve outstanding issues and at the core of the dialogue . . . normalize relations.”48 India won, scoring 260 runs for 9 wickets, with Pakistan all out at 231.

  A new round of talks ensued between foreign secretaries. On June 24, at long last, Pakistan agreed to include nonstate actors and safe havens for terrorists as part of the terrorist infrastructure to be addressed.49

  A quid pro quo followed. After deliberations with his new Pakistani counterpart, Hina Rabbani Khar, on July 27 in New Delhi, Krishna implicitly acknowledged participating in a “composite dialogue” with Pakistan. Their joint communiqué expressed satisfaction at the holding of meetings on counterterrorism (including progress on the Mumbai trials) and narcotics control, as well as such other issues as economic cooperation, Siachen Glacier, and above all the Kashmir dispute. They settled for continued discussions, in a purposeful manner, with a view to finding a peaceful solution by narrowing divergences and building convergences. They agreed on measures to liberalize cross-LoC trade and travel.50

  This was the first substantial foreign ministers’ meeting after the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. And they were right to define it as a foundation for a “new era” in bilateral links.

  Signs of Budding Goodwill

  A dramatic illustration of the improved relations came on October 23. An Indian military helicopter with a colonel and two majors on board lost its bearings in bad weather and strayed twelve miles into Pakistani Kashmir from its base in the India-controlled region. The mishap had the potential of spiraling into a major spat requiring high-level political intervention. Instead, Pakistan’s military escorted the intruding aircraft after ordering it to land, questioned the crew politely, and discovered nothing more than the standard engineering equipment aboard. This information was conveyed to the highest military authority in Islamabad. It activated the hotline to Delhi. As a result, the Indian crew was released, and their helicopter was refueled. Within five hours it was back at its base.51

  A week later Islamabad announced its intention to normalize commercial ties with India by extending it most-favored-nation status (MFN)—meaning that
it was ready to give India a trade advantage by offering low tariffs—by January 1, 2013, thus reciprocating Delhi’s gesture dating back to 1996. This was a major concession by Islamabad—up to that point it had insisted that improvement in trade relations and people-to-people contacts should come only after an amicable resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

  With relations thawing slightly, Singh and Gilani had an hour-long meeting on the margins of the SAARC summit in Addu City, Maldives, on November 10. They discussed terrorism, trade, and the divided territory of Kashmir. “The time has come to write a new chapter in the history of our relationship,” Singh said, standing beside Gilani at a joint press conference. Foreign Minister Khar was realistic. “We have many, many long miles to move ahead still,” she said.52

  During her visit to Delhi on April 3, 2012, US undersecretary of state Wendy Sherman told the Indians that Washington had placed a $10 million bounty on the capture of Saeed for his alleged role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.53 Only three other extremists, including Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, carried such a staggering figure with their seizure.

  A defiant Saeed held a press conference in a hotel just across the street from the headquarters of Pakistan’s Army in Rawalpindi—a symbolic gesture suggesting that his close ties with the ISI remained intact. “I am living my life in the open and the US can contact me whenever they want.” The Americans knew where he was, he added. “This is a laughable, absurd announcement. . . . Here I am in front of everyone, not hiding in a cave.”54

  During a heated debate in the National Assembly on the subject, Gilani warned that the American reward was a “negative message” and would “further widen the trust deficit” between Washington and Islamabad. He described Saeed as “a domestic matter.” Opposition MPs called the award “mind boggling” and “ridiculous.” Outside Parliament, right-wing lawyers in Lahore pointed out that courts in Pakistan had cleared him of all charges.55

  The media in Pakistan and India were abuzz with the implications of the bounty on Saeed, as President Zardari prepared for a private pilgrimage to the shrine of the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, Rajasthan, on April 8. He had planned this trip much earlier to fulfill a mannat,56 or vow, he had made during his long incarceration on corruption charges. He was invited to lunch in Delhi by Premier Singh, and accepted.

  On the eve of his departure for India, he chatted with reporters. “My stance on Saeed is not different from that of my government,” he told them. “My visit to India is of a religious nature and I do not think Manmohan Singh will make me sit [and discuss only] this issue.”57 Indian officials tried to downplay the luncheon reception for Zardari, at which the wide-ranging cuisine included the Kashmiri delicacy of Goshtaba, meatballs in curd-based curry. But the significance of the first visit by the Pakistani president to India in seven years was hard to underestimate.

  Further news of a warming of relations came on April 13. On that day the trade ministers of India and Pakistan inaugurated an enlarged border commercial terminal at Wagah with a capacity to handle six hundred trucks a day. This was done to help bolster bilateral trade, which had risen to $2.6 billion a year, up from $300 million in 2004. Simultaneously, India decided to lift its ban on foreign direct investment by Pakistan.58

  Singh and Zardari met again on the margins of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran on August 30, 2012. “We have covered a lot of ground but we still have to go a long way,” remarked Zardari at the joint press conference. He added that Pakistan was keenly looking forward to a visit by Premier Singh, born in the Pakistani Punjab village of Gah, which in his view was “long overdue.” But the Indian leader was coy, covering himself in the diplomatic language of traveling to Islamabad at the “appropriate time.” Briefing the Indian media, his foreign secretary, Ranjan Mathai, said: “Prime Minister Singh pressed for an expeditious conclusion of the 26/11 trial and said action taken in this sphere would be a major confidence building measure.” It would help to bridge the trust deficit and build public support for the kind of relationship India would like to see between the two nations, he added.59

  In short, Delhi’s bottom line had not changed. There would be no “business as usual” until and unless Pakistan brought to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack.

  On the eve of his departure for Islamabad for the third round of high-level talks on September 8, Krishna stressed the same point in an exclusive interview to the Press Trust of India. Given the numerous adjournments of the case, the Indians’ patience was running thin. A frustrated Singh referred to “increased attempts by militants to cross the LoC.” In other words, India continued to treat terrorism as the number one item on the agenda. All the same, the two governments signed a new visa regime. Among other changes, the agreement exempted travelers over sixty-five, children under twelve, and businessmen from reporting to the police during their travels.60

  On the other hand, yielding to the pressure of the Islamist groups and the farm lobby, the Pakistani government failed to keep its promise of granting India MFN status by December 31, 2012. And the New Year started with a sudden rise in tension in Kashmir. Minor incidents across the LoC were commonplace; they did not threaten the cease-fire signed in November 2003. The eighty-odd instances of minor technical violations by both sides in 2012 were considered routine.

  In the violence that erupted during January 6–8 near Mendhar, 140 miles north of Jammu, the killing of one Pakistani soldier by the Indians allegedly in retaliation for the Pakistanis’ cease-fire violations led to the further killing of two Indian troops. One of them, Lance Naik Hemraj, was beheaded by a cross-border raiding party. “After this barbaric act there cannot be business as usual with Pakistan,” declared Singh. “What happened at the LoC is unacceptable; those who are responsible should be brought to book.” In reply Pakistan’s foreign minister Khar said, “We have ordered an independent investigation, but we are offering more, let a third party investigate the issue.” India did not take up her offer. “It [the beheading] was stage-managed and pre-planned,” claimed the Indian COAS, General Bikram Singh. “India reserves its right to retaliate at the time and place of its choice. The important thing now is to ensure that morale among commanders in Kashmir remains high.”61

  Following this saber rattling, however, India’s director general of Military Operations, Lieutenant General Vinod Bhatia, conferred with his Pakistani counterpart. They reached an understanding to lower the temperature.

  Soon after, popular attention in South Asia turned to the impending general election in Pakistan. To ensure a level playing field, Mir Hazar Khan Khoso, a retired judge, was sworn in as the caretaker prime minister on March 25, 2013.

  The Return of Nawaz Sharif

  In the National Assembly poll held on May 11, the Pakistan Muslim League (N), led by Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, a pro-business conservative, won 166 seats, reducing the incumbent PPP to a fraction of its previous size. With 18 independent members of the National Assembly joining the PML (N), Sharif secured a comfortable majority in the 374-strong chamber. Having survived all criminal convictions (subsequently overturned), six months in jail during the dictatorship of Musharraf, and seven years of exile in Saudi Arabia—where, given a government loan, he set up a steel plant—and Britain, he was back at the helm at home.

  Singh congratulated him and his party on their “emphatic victory,” hoping to work with him to chart “a new course for the relationship” between their countries. Surprisingly, the BJP president, Rajnath Singh, followed Prime Minister Singh’s example. “Mr. Sharif’s statements on rebuilding relations with India are a positive sign,” he remarked. Referring to Sharif’s statement “to pick up the pieces of 1999 peace process,” he added that “keeping in view our past experiences with Pakistan, the BJP views Mr. Sharif’s statements with cautious optimism.”62

  Sharif was sworn in as prime minister on June 5, after he had secured a record 244 votes in the National Assembly. He set a
nother record by becoming the first prime minister in his country’s sixty-five-year history to take over from an elected government that served a full five-year term, an unprecedented achievement. “The democratic transition of government in Pakistan is a welcome development,” noted the BJP leader.63

  Such bonhomie did not last long, thanks to the tit-for-tat violence that erupted again at the LoC at the end of July. Indian soldiers killed four men from Pakistani Kashmir, alleging that they were infiltrators. This claim ran contrary to the fact that among them they had only one assault rifle and no grenades or communications equipment. Islamabad contended that they were local peasants who in the process of picking herbs had strayed close to the LoC when they were abducted by the Indians.

  These killings set off a fresh round of bloodletting. Some analysts believed that such attacks were deliberately orchestrated by elements within the Indian and Pakistani forces opposed to rapprochement between their governments.

  Accusations and counteraccusations were hurled when India said five of its soldiers guarding the LoC were killed on the night of August 6. On August 7 hundreds of Indian Youth Congress activists staged a violent protest near the Pakistani high commission in Delhi. There were anti-Pakistan demonstrations in other major Indian cities. Noting the street uproar, Defense Minister Antony told Parliament that “specialist troops of the Pakistan army were involved in this attack,” thus directly implicating the government. “We all know that nothing happens from the Pakistani side of the Pakistan Line of Control without support, assistance, facilitation and often, direct involvement of the Pakistan army.”64

  In Islamabad, addressing government officials, Sharif expressed “his sadness over the recent incidents,” and added, “It is incumbent upon the leadership of both sides not to allow the situation to drift and to take steps to improve the atmosphere.”65 Later that month, in his interview with David Blair and David Munk of the Daily Telegraph of London, Sharif said, “We didn’t have any India-bashing slogans in the elections. There have been such slogans in the past—10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago—but not now. In fact, I very clearly spoke about good relations with India even before the elections were happening.”66