Reporting Pakistan
Page 33
India and Pakistan wanted Kashmir, and the Kashmiris wanted independence, or azadi. Three wars, much bloodshed and seven decades after 1947, none of them have got what they desired. Funnily in Pakistan, I met a lot of people who said the Kashmir dispute will go on but that doesn’t mean India and Pakistan cannot be friends. The Pakistan government doesn’t agree—it cries hoarse that it’s about people’s aspirations not real estate, and India is not willing to cede an inch. And the issue remains deadlocked. Kashmir figured often in the news while I was there. Visa issues for the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Yasin Malik’s wife and daughter; LeT chief Hafiz Saeed’s rallies or abuses; Syed Asiya Andrabi, the Dukhtaran-e-Millat founder-chairperson, spewing anti-India rhetoric over the phone from Srinagar; the late Hamid Gul venting on India; or the Kashmiris in Islamabad who held protests, meetings and press conferences. In informal meetings with Kashmiris, they would speak of how the issue was almost never discussed seriously.
The Pakistani government launched an email campaign, writing to the UN secretary-general on Kashmir Solidarity Day—5 February 2014—demanding that the UN resolutions be enforced. The email said the only solution to the Kashmir issue lay in the appointment of a plebiscite administrator, withdrawal of troops, and a UN-conducted plebiscite to ascertain the will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir before it was too late. That day saw more anti-India speeches and demands for plebiscite. Pakistan kept saying that the UN resolutions would form the benchmark for the rights of the Kashmiris. I stood on the sidewalk near the press club and watched the JuD members accusing India of everything under the sun. The JeI, the Difa-e-Pakistan Council and the JuD held separate rallies to protest against the atrocities in Kashmir by Indian security agencies and demanded self-determination for Kashmiris. ‘India ka ek iIaj, al-Jihad, al-Jihad’ (Only one solution for India and that’s Jihad), shouted flag-waving members of the JuD while speakers said that Kashmir could only be freed in a holy war. ‘India teri maut aayi, Lashkar aayi, Lashkar aayi’ (India, your death has come, the fighters have come), screamed the crowd wearing fluorescent jackets emblazoned with the words ‘Falah-i-Insaniyat’, the humanitarian arm of the JuD. War cries and calls for jihad against India were common at JuD rallies, and the first one I attended had a long avenue full of young men baying for blood.
Ijaz-ul-Haq of the PML (Zia) took it one step further—he said that Hitler killed Jews one by one but let a few go so that they could tell the world that the rest were dead. In jannat (heaven), no Kaffir can live, he bellowed. Kashmir can be resolved only with jihad—now even clean-shaven people are ready for jihad, he roared. Former ISI chief Hamid Gul’s son, Abdullah Gul of Anjuman Naujawan-e-Pakistan, said, ‘Ye goli aur bandook ka rishta hai’ (This is a relationship between the bullet and the gun). He emphasized that there could be neither trade with India nor any MFN status for it and that it was time for the rise of the Islamist forces. He looked like an affable young man, but his speeches were even more vicious than his father’s. Asiya Andrabi gave a speech over the phone in a high-pitched voice. India could capture Kashmir but not the hearts of its people, she said, adding that Kashmir can never be a part of India. She then exhorted Pakistan to free Kashmir from ‘impure’ India. Andrabi urged the Pakistan government to tell India that Kashmir is an integral part of Pakistan. Kashmir will be part of Pakistan, she screeched, her voice rising higher and higher in anger. Hamid Gul, who has passed way since, was confident that Kashmiris would never go with India. They had to be given the right to self-determination, he said.
Just before Kashmir Solidarity Day, the JeM founder, Maulana Masood Azhar, addressed a large public meeting over the telephone in Muzaffarabad to launch a book by Afzal Guru, on 26 January 2014, India’s Republic Day. Azhar issued open threats to avenge the execution of Afzal Guru for the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001. In 1999, he was one of the militants escorted to Kandahar by the then Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh in exchange for passengers and crew of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane. He formed the JeM in 2000, after he returned to Pakistan. The JeM was banned, along with the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other groups, by Musharraf but seems to be quite active.
Since there was a weekly foreign office briefing, questions were asked and the foreign office spokesperson, Tasneem Aslam, said in response that the views of an individual who belonged to a proscribed entity should not concern India so much; probably, this was a one-time event. He escaped scrutiny and he did it but his organization is banned in Pakistan and their activities are monitored. She also diverted the question by saying that Pakistan, however, had a position on the provocative statements of the Indian Army chief, an aspect that was being missed.
It was not only Azhar who emerged from the woodwork, but also Hizbul Mujahideen Commander Mast Gul who had escaped after a prolonged gun battle at Charar-e-Sharif in Kashmir in 1995. Gul, now part of the Taliban which claimed responsibility for some bombings in Peshawar, was seated next to the TTP Peshawar chief in North Waziristan, Mufti Hassan Swati, in a front-page picture in the Dawn. It was the day after the Kashmir Solidarity Day in February 2014 and not long after Maulana Masood Azhar addressed a rally. Swati had claimed the bombing of a hotel frequented by Shias in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar in Peshawar, saying that Gul had carried out the attack. Dawn reported that Gul had escaped an ambush near Peshawar in 2003 and had been underground ever since.
Mutilated by war, terror and repression, Kashmir has become a voiceless entity. It is the raison d’être for Pakistan-trained terror groups calling for a flagrant jihad to claim what they say is rightfully theirs. The Pakistan Army is waging war—whether by proxy or by any another name, it is still war—and believes in the relentless pursuit of Kashmir. Both countries claim inalienable rights over it, often calling it the ‘jugular vein’, a phrase Jinnah used, though that vein has been slashed and Kashmir is almost bleeding to death. The Indian government, in trying to repress the youth trained and armed by Pakistan, has smothered the place with troops. Kashmir’s fate is mired in status quoism and the promised self-determination exercise (in 1947) hasn’t taken place after nearly seventy years. The cry for azadi has gone unheard and more than its beauty and syncretic culture, Jammu and Kashmir is remembered for torture camps, brute force, young men being trained in hate and warfare, exiled Pandits, missing young men and their mothers who cannot forget . . . for lost innocence and for the brutalization of women. Its people can’t see a way out of the wretchedness, and India and Pakistan lack the will and statesmanship to allow for an honest decision in their interest. Instead, the two countries mindlessly inflict suffering, and blame each other at every step like squabbling, crotchety neighbours, unmindful of the gross tragedy they have wantonly inflicted on thousands of ordinary lives. The massive unrest after the JeM’s Burhan Wani was killed in July 2016 reflects the burning resentment and alienation of a people left by the wayside, and pellet guns were aimed at even children who came out to protest. The gun, not dialogue, is India’s blinkered solution to a complex problem that hasn’t vanished over the years. Kashmir hangs like an unused curtain in the background of our two countries, gathering dust. Everyone knows it’s there, but you can sneeze it away.
So, I was surprised that in January 2014, I was invited to the hallowed National Defence University (NDU) in Islamabad for a seminar on Kashmir. Indian lawyer and constitutional expert A.G. Noorani whose writing I greatly admire, was one of the key speakers. I went bright and early to the NDU and my invitation card made sure I was not hassled. I asked one of the organizers why this sudden focus on Kashmir, and one of them said off the record, ‘We need to remind these shopkeepers that Kashmir is still a problem.’ Noorani spoke well and mentioned the proposed deal between Manmohan Singh and Musharraf which hadn’t come through.24 The two-day programme focused on Kashmir as a matter of the people’s right to make a choice and not as a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan.
Noorani was succinct—after the Agra rebuff from the then President General Musharraf, Pri
me Minister Vajpayee had nothing to offer Pakistan, only sweet words, but in September 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Musharraf were ready with a formula which fell apart in 2007. It was a non-territorial arrangement and neither side would give up its stand—the LoC would become lines on a map and people would be free to move: there would be a lot of exchange. The self-rule would extend to the Northern areas and Gilgit Baltistan, and troops would be withdrawn. The chief ministers from both sides would meet and review this interim arrangement for ten to fifteen years and compare notes, and the greatest gainers would be the people. The solution lay in seeking a congruence of interests.
The softening of the Kashmiri border under the Musharraf–Manmohan plan was not a new idea. Way back, Kuldip Nayar had written about John Kenneth Galbraith, then the US envoy to India, who had suggested the reopening of the road between Rawalpindi and Srinagar through Baramulla, Uri and Murree, and the resumption of trade and tourist traffic. But India’s military rights in the vale of Kashmir were to remain intact. Nayar writes:
This was more or less the same proposal that Sheikh Abdullah discussed with me in 1969. His argument was that the border should be soft so that Pakistanis had an easy access to the valley. Strangely enough Bhutto repeated the same thing during an interview with me in March 1971: We can make the ceasefire line a line of peace and let people come and go between the two Kashmirs. After all why should they suffer? Let there be some free movement between them. Then one thing can lead to another. After all, simultaneously we hope that there will be exchange of visits, of officials and non-officials.25
The peace narrative reached its zenith during Prime Minister Vajpayee’s time, but his memorable bus ride to Lahore in 1999 ended with the Kargil war and the Agra summit was a washout. Dr Singh who very much wanted to visit his village Gah near Chakwal in Pakistan couldn’t take a dynamic decision and rise above political compulsions. Calls for peace are now stronger after two successive democratic governments, and friendly overtures from Nawaz Sharif, but paralysed by the usual one step forward, two steps backward disease.
Peace on Siachen
While the main issue of Kashmir festers, there’s this tendency to go for the low-hanging fruit, and the Siachen Glacier and Sir Creek are believed to be issues that can be resolved. But events have shown that pussyfooting around other issues, while not resolving the main crux of enmity and wars, will not led anywhere. Siachen is a case in point.
Since the avalanche in the Gayari sector in April 2012, which killed 140, including 129 Pakistani soldiers, General Kayani spoke of the need to withdraw from the glacier. Pakistan was keen on Siachen being demilitarized, and statements would be made to this effect off and on while I was in Islamabad. The foreign office spoke of the environmental dimension of the Siachen Glacier issue. Pakistan said there should be disengagement of forces and demilitarization of the area. Sartaj Aziz, the national security and foreign affairs adviser to the PM, gave an interview to Radio Pakistan saying that Indian forces presented a serious environmental threat to Siachen; that they were damaging the virgin snow on the glacier, a source of drinking water, and Pakistan was a country facing water shortage. He urged a quick pullout of the Indian Army as its continuing presence and waste disposal was damaging the glacier.
I had attended a discussion on the Siachen Glacier in Mumbai some months after the Gayari disaster in 2012 where people from both countries spoke of the need to evolve a consensus on the troop withdrawal. A worrying aspect was also the impact of climate change on Siachen—the snout of the glacier had receded in the past few years. There was also a humane reason for the troops to be removed from the high altitude, and it was a conflict neither country could afford yet they persisted for strategic reasons. At the discussion, only one voice spoke for a solution on Kashmir first. The editor-in-chief of Kashmir Images, Bashir Manzar, felt that Siachen could not be looked at in isolation and if Kashmir was not an issue, there would have been no need to militarize Siachen. The two countries were close to signing a deal three times in the past, and for the first time General Kayani was amenable to demilitarizing the Siachen area or cutting down on the troops. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had also met his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, in Delhi and things did look optimistic for a while.
The Indian Army has been reluctant to move away despite the colossal price in terms of men and material to hold that snowy defence. Accounts of the Siachen occupation from Indian writers and journalists point to a ‘cartographic aggression’ by the Pakistanis,26 while General Musharraf said that India quite frequently intruded into the Siachen Glacier ‘which clearly belonged to us’. He then admitted to plans to occupy some of the passes on the Saltoro Range.27 He also accused the Indian Army of fake attacks and encounters with Pakistan to bump up the need for aggression. By the time the Pakistanis decided to occupy some of the high mountaintops on the Saltoro Range in May 1984, India had launched Operation Meghdoot, and to Musharraf’s dismay, the Indians were already there.28 Indian soldiers, too, were killed in an avalanche in February 2016. Even before and especially after the Kargil war, the Indian Army has been wary of letting go of this high-altitude defence which it has worked hard for over thirty years to keep under its control. That is one more so-called low-hanging fruit out of the running in terms of any peaceful solution.
Hate India for Kashmir
In 2013, the banned LeT seemed to be alive and well in the Pakistani capital. Its bespectacled and bearded founder, Hafiz Saeed, often called Professor (he used to teach earlier), was allowed to masquerade as an NGO activist on behalf of his renamed outfit—a front organization for the LeT, the JuD29 and its charity arm, Falah-i-Insaniyat. Moreover, Masood Azhar of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hafiz Saeed and others seemed to have a carte blanche in making open threats against India. They worked around proxy war limitations to keep up a continuous flow of invective on Kashmir. Saeed, the man wanted in India for the 26/11 attack, enjoyed till his arrest in January 2017, untrammelled freedom of speech and movement. An official once told me that it was the payoff for not sending terrorists to fight in Kashmir across the border. The JuD, in Saeed’s words, was recognized for its relief and rescue work after floods and earthquakes, and no court in the land had indicted it. He was also getting invited to speak in universities. He once addressed the Lahore High Court Bar Association on a number of issues, including the Indian elections, the media and the ISI standoff and Kashmir. At that time in 2013, as a strident Opposition in India, the BJP was demanding that no talks be held with Pakistan till Saeed was handed over, but obviously Prime Minister Modi forgot all about that when he dropped into Lahore to meet Sharif in December 2015, on the latter’s birthday, fifteen years after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s famous bus ride to Lahore in 1999.
There was a Difa-e-Pakistan Caravan on 6 September 2013, to commemorate the 1965 war, planned from Rawalpindi to Islamabad where there would be a large rally. Giant posters billowing in the wind taunted India: Indian water aggression, LoC attacks, freedom of Kashmir, US drone strikes and terrorism in Pakistan. Since 2010, Saeed has been one of the leading proponents of ‘India’s water terrorism’.
It was a Sunday and I reached the D-Chowk opposite Parliament and the President’s house which is cordoned off with barbed wire and barricades, around 6 p.m. in order to get a place. I needn’t have worried. I saw a large crowd exclusively of young men in black shirts and pyjamas, carrying black-and-white flags emblazoned with ‘There is no God but one God’ in Urdu. The support for Saeed was evident in the huge procession from Rawalpindi to Islamabad. He was not stopped anywhere and allowed to speak in the heart of the city near the National Assembly surrounded by his orderly stick-wielding young men. This all-male procession waving the monochrome Jamaat-ud-Dawa flags swamped the roads as they came in a procession of cars and trucks from Rawalpindi.
And what was so Pakistani and unique were the containers, the kind that go on ships. The stage was three containers parked next to each other, and TV crews were poised
precariously on another set of two containers. There was a crude but effective lift in the form of a crate in which we were hoisted up for a bird’s-eye view. The only problem was that the empty containers shook with all this movement. I was hoisted on to a Maersk container in a small box attached to a crane, to join scores of TV cameras and journalists, two of whom fell into the space between the containers arranged together like a platform. One of them was knocked out after hitting his head on a camera stand.
From the top, one got a clear view of the crowd which seemed endless. They were strangely quiet and orderly, only shouting at times in support of the speakers’ statements which were mostly against India. Apart from me, I met two other women journalists. All the young, bearded men wore black T-shirts and leggings caught up below the shins with elastic. On their T-shirts was written ‘Security Jamaat-ud-Dawa’. The main stage was covered with red, patterned carpets, and there was a similar makeshift lift to take the speakers up and down. It was no wonder during his 2013 election campaign, Imran Khan fell off and broke his ribs; the contraption looked highly unstable.
That’s when I also met many journalists who translated the speeches for me; one of them even apologized for the vituperative anti-India statements that were coming from the stage. I listened to the accusations that India was drawing all the water from the tributaries of the Indus, and the water treaty was a sham. Hafiz Saeed sat at the centre of the stage smugly smiling. I thought here was a man wanted for the most brazen and biggest terror strike in India, and he was sitting right across from the Pakistani Parliament, in the heart of the Pakistani capital, about to hold forth against the very country he was suspected of terrorizing again and again. Amid calls for India to be torn to pieces and India’s tabahi (destruction) from other speakers, Saeed was firm that Pakistan should not hold talks with India, backchannel or otherwise, till the Kashmir question was resolved. He said India was using its consulates in Afghanistan as a conduit for terrorism in Balochistan and sending in killers. India was blamed for the violence in Karachi, and flooding Pakistan by releasing waters from the dams. No talks, he thundered, till all this was resolved, and absolutely no need to borrow power from India. Saeed laid down the foreign policy towards India that night before an approving audience which stood out for its lack of variety!