Pakistan Army, not government, shapes policy towards India

[Bang Galore]

NEW DELHI: India may have picked Nawaz Sharif's four-point formula for peace to launch its attack on Pakistan, but the real target of the tough line New Delhi took at the United Nations this week was that country's army bosses in Rawalpindi.

Assessing that the Pakistan Prime Minister was not calling the shots on the India policy, the Modi government continued with its belligerence in reacting to Islamabad. While it was PM Sharif who put forward his government's suggestions for peace last Wednesday from the high podium, it is no secret that it is the other Sharif in the cantonment - army chief General Raheel Sharif - who calls the shots in Pakistan.

From its Rawalpindi headquarters, Pakistan's army has for too long shaped Islamabad's India policy and its stamp was evident in the Right to Reply by Pakistan's Permanent Mission in UN following Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj's address, and the decision to hand over the UN Secretary-General dossiers containing
purported evidence of Indian involvement in terrorism and fomenting instability in Pakistan. India's alleged atrocities in Jammu and Kashmir were the dominant theme in Pakistan's Right to Reply on Thursday and the issue has been Rawalpindi's lifeline to justify its role in the country.

PM Sharif - by fighting detractors at home - had responded positively to Narendra Modi's invite to his swearing-in ceremony in May last year. The two had decided to take forward relations, including
boosting cross-border trade ties. At the the landmark meeting of two PMs in Ufa, Russia, on July 10 Nawaz Sharif took a bold step of not referring to the K-word in a joint statement. Certain forward-looking steps were announced, but the first hurdle could not be crossed as Islamabad refused to limit the agenda of National Security Adviser-level talks on all forms of terrorism, going against the very spirit of Ufa. The Pak army's shadow was evident in the Sharif government's decision to cancel NSA-level talks, officials and experts in India point out. Terror attacks were planned in Punjab and J&K and violations by Pak army along the Line of Control and international boundary have been on the rise.

The writ of Raheel Sharif, one of the strongest Pakistan army chiefs, runs over the decisions — either to consult the Hurriyat Conference ahead of formal talks or bringing Kashmir issue at the centrestage of any bilateral dialogue. Terror does not figure high on his agenda vis-avis India. He has gone on record to teach India a "lesson" in case of any attack from here. New Delhi's tough line for any meaningful talks was evident from Swaraj's no-nonsense approach at the UN General Assembly on Thursday. "We do not need four points, we need just one -give up terrorism and let us sit down and talk."

Pakistan Army, not government, shapes policy towards India - The Economic Times

 

[Bang Galore]

Don’t Hand the Military-Jihadi Combine a Veto Over India-Pakistan Relations
By K.C. Singh on 02/10/2015 • 1 comment

Hopefully, Prime Minister Modi will at some stage retrieve his Pakistan policy from the security and intelligence lobby

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, MEA Spokesperson Vikas Swarup and Foreign secretary, S Jaishankar at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday. Credit: PTI

The suspense over a possible meeting – formal or pull-aside or chance encounter – between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan petered out as the two leaders completed their peregrinations in New York. All we got instead was an exchange of hand waves – reminiscent more of departing passengers at an airport terminal than of responsible leaders heading states that possess nuclear weapons.

The bilateral theatrics were eventually left to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and India’s External affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj during the UN General Assembly debate. The Pakistani leader ran through the full gamut of standard national arguments, leavened this time by tart observations on how a reformed UN Security Council cannot be an “expanded club of the powerful and privileged”. This reflected Pakistani concerns over the G4 summit and the path that has been cleared for text-based inter-governmental negotiations on UNSC reform to proceed.

Then followed arguments about Pakistan being both a “primary victim of terrorism” and a sword arm against it, reiterating their determination to fight “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations”. His government’s first priority Sharif maintained was peace and development. As the co-creator of the composite dialogue in 1997, he claimed he had resumed the role of a peace seeker since his return to power.

In the end, he unfurled his “New Peace Initiative”, consisting of four points that deserve analysis.

Four points to nowehere

First, he proposed formalising the 2003 cease-fire agreement for the Line of Control, which he then qualified by seeking an expanded role for the UN Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan. UNMOGIP observers first arrived in the region in January 1949. Following the 1972 Simla Agreement, India argued that the mandate of UNMOGIP had lapsed as the old cease-fire line had now become a Line of Control, not requiring supervision. Pakistan, wishing to retain the UN as an intermediary in Jammu and Kashmir, disagreed and continues to allow UNMOGIP full freedom to function on its side of the LOC. India, on the other hand, has severely curtailed their role. Thus Nawaz Sharif’s constructive proposal came laden with an unacceptable condition. In the light of his proposal, however, it seems that the incessant cease-fire violations by the Pakistan army over the last year – besides often providing covering fire to infiltrators – are also aimed at creating the environment for UNMOGIP to become active again.

The second proposal is for India and Pakistan to reaffirm not to use or threaten to use force to resolve bilateral disputes. This is a commitment already enshrined in the UN charter as indeed the Simla Agreement. It seems that under the garb of stating the obvious, Pakistan is reviving its old proposal for a conventional weapons restraint regime. India’s response has been that Indian security and defence concerns go beyond Pakistan and thus no such agreement is possible at a bilateral level. Revival of this old idea seems driven by the Pakistan army’s concern over Indian plans for greater defence equipment purchases, driven by an assertive NDA government.

The third suggestion for demilitarisation of Jammu and Kashmir is in contravention of the UNSC resolutions of 1948, by which Pakistan swears, as it is Pakistan which was first required to withdraw all its forces. India was, thereafter, required to reduce its forces commensurate with the exigencies of law and order. In any case, post-1990, when Pakistan started pushing trained terrorists into the valley, its demand for demilitarisation lacks any moral validity and is plain duplicity.

Nawaz Sharif’s final suggestion – something very dear to the Pakistani army’s heart – is for mutual withdrawal of forces from the Siachen glacier, where India holds the dominant positions. On the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war, it merits recalling that the handing-back by India of critical features like the Haji Pir Pass have been since then used by Pakistan to facilitate infiltration into the valley by trained terrorists. The moral of the story is not to make unilateral concessions out of misplaced goodwill.

India’s response

India reacted to Nawaz Sharif’s four-point peace offer, gift-wrapped like an improvised explosive device, by using its right to respond by fielding a first secretary, thus adding insult to injury. It was then followed up in the address of External Affairs Minister S Swaraj’s by her one-liner: “We don’t need four points, we need just one: Give up terrorism and let’s sit down and talk”.

While rhetorical exchanges with Pakistan have occurred at the UN in the past too, the tone is distinctly sharper this year, indicating that red-lines are being more firmly etched. The Indian counter-attack in raking up the brutal suppression of demonstrations in Gilgit and Baltistan is a belated attempt to put Pakistan on the back-foot and defang its tirade about the Hurriyat and the “forcible occupation” of the valley.

In conclusion, as winter approaches, India-Pakistan relations too appear headed to a deep freeze, with Nawaz Sharif reduced to carrying messages from an army chief whose pictures adorn huge bill-boards, with a three star general as his head of public relations. However, it is not in India’s interest for a civilian government in Pakistan to be so weakened. The absence of good diplomacy cannot be an excuse for jeers and taunts.

Hopefully, Prime Minister Modi will at some stage retrieve his Pakistan policy from the security and intelligence lobby. To ask Pakistan, as Sushma Swaraj did, to “give up terrorism” is to ignore the complexity of the issue as indeed to give a veto on India-Pakistan relations to the military-jihadi combine in that country. The answer is to devise a more imaginative Indian response – one where new redlines need not be brandished in public nor rhetoric allowed to degenerate, while defending national interests firmly.

Don’t Hand the Military-Jihadi Combine a Veto Over India-Pakistan Relations | The Wire

 

[third eye]

In all fairness NS seems to have been brave in what he said.

However, since there was no point replying to him as he does not call the shots - a reply was sent to those who call the shots.

 

[Rank]

lol after many years of listening bullshit about Kashmir issue will resolve bilateral according to Indian bakwaas.... I am sure UFA topi-drama of India is same like Shimla agreement...

PS: If anything decide by two parties in the world, what is the purpose of United Nation then? On Syria, US and Russia should start war and resolve bilateral, India and Pakistan should start war and resolve bilateral, China and Japan should fight and resolve bilateral... everything every issue should resolve bilateral so what is the purpose of this bullshit United Nation ? Indian logic!

 

[third eye]

everything every issue should resolve bilateral so what is the purpose of this bullshit United Nation ? Indian logic!

The Indian POV is :

Patt lo jera Pattna hai ..Kashmir nahin dena.

 

[Sipahi]

Pakistani Army only knows : INDIA INDIA INDIA and it is really very very good for the nation like us....

jaisa k hindustan mein kaha jata hai *NaJar hati aur Ghatna ghati*... PA will keep eyes on you

 

[ice_man]

This is the problem with india they keep thinking the Army calls the shots.

when in reality they don't. but the paranoia of india is so deep embedded that it cannot be rooted easily.

 

[CHD]

Who should we trust a corrupt politician who will sell Pakistan completely if he could or a patriotic professional who will die for Pakistan on a monthly salary.we want Pakistan to be run by the establishment for the next 100 years as there is no chance in future that we will get an honest Politician

 

[Musafir117]

Another excuse for runaway from talks