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Time now for candour with one and all

Are we finally breaking the ice, taking the initiative and getting ready to talk to Pakistan? Will Delhi please tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? There is enough confusion as it is, for god's sake.

Ever since Kargil, North Block or South Block or whatever in Delhi has been proclaiming that Pakistan must stop its cross-border terrorism before we can talk. The prime minister reiterated that view in his seven-minute quickie in Hindi from a podium on his very recent US yatra. He even put it in a poetic phrase (shloka?) saying, "Samvad aur atankvad ek saath nahi chal sakte. [Dialogue and terror cannot go together.]" But hardly had the tape of that speech gone into the archives than our external affairs minister sang a different tune.

Addressing an event at a San Francisco hotel on September 20, Jaswant Singh was reported by The Asian Age as saying: "Talks will be resumed", but exhorted patience to the small gathering at the function organised by some World Affairs Council. He also added that the time frame for this dialogue must be left to the two countries and not be imposed from outside. "Interaction on track two continues," he added.

Less than a week after that, our home minister said in Gujarat that India's talks with Pakistan were ruled out until Pakistan first stopped cross-border terrorism. It was thus back to square one. Meanwhile, Niaz Naik, an ex-diplomat of Pakistan, had returned home after a quick Track II sortie over some seminar in Delhi. Confusion confounded.

No imposition from outside, says Jaswant Singh. Well, well, read what was told by the white vice-president of the Asia Society in an interview published in The Indian Express on September 26. That gentleman, Marshall Bouton, says that while Pakistan's current stance of confrontation has raised the ante, "the US will continue to urge Delhi to re-enter dialogue", that "he (PM Vajpayee) is expected to reopen dialogue" and that "the international community wants him to try". Ah, so now we know how and why this otherwise obscure Asia Society of Mr Bouton suddenly appeared on the scene as the launching pad of Vajpayee's recent sojourn in the USA.

Then there is that meddlesome Brookings Institute. Based in Washington, DC, it is always referred to as the "American think-tank"; it is the same tank that, two years ago, made out a case and a plan for J&K to be independent yet jointly governed by India and Pakistan in select areas. A crazier idea cannot be imagined, but Brookings continues to be regarded an intellectual institute.

And its senior fellow, Stephen Cohen, has now aired his views on the need for India to talk to Pakistan. In a telephonic interview on September 26 to The Asian Age -- which revels in seeking out anything that's embarrassing to the BJP-led government -- this chap Cohen says, "India will eventually have to sit down and deal with Pakistan," and that "it wouldn't be realistic for India to expect uncritical support from the US in the eventuality of a conflict with Pakistan". More than a veiled threat is clear there: talk to Pak or else...

So there you have it. The USA is pressurising India to genuflect once again -- on Vajpayee's brand-new knee this time. So there you have it -- Vajpayee's recent yatra to the Statue of Liberty and Capitol Hill was for Uncle Sam to smother him into breathlessness. All those ovations and platitudes of India and the US being chums who can change the world were hype to hide the main purpose.

Look at the bottom line of that yatra. What did we get from it? Not even a promise of any kind. A Congress resolution yes, but actual lifting of the sanctions, no -- not until you at least sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. A reiteration of Clinton's four R's for Pakistan, yes, but declaring it a terrorist state, no -- not until you first genuflect on J&K by putting it on the negotiating table.

There are, of course, Indians too who want India to talk to Pakistan. Such Indians are cheaper by the dozen --- from Kuldip Nayar, the frequent Islamabad flier, to Nirmala Deshpande, the trustee of Gandhi's soul at Rajghat. Nayar's pro-Pakistan proclivities are known to those who stomach his newspaper columns. It is Deshpande's voice as a peace activist that is almost pathetic.

Speaking in Chennai last month, she said that stoppage of cross-border terrorism need not be a pre-condition for resumption of talks with Pakistan. "What are we going to achieve by setting such pre-conditions?" she asked. She believes that the only alternative to a dialogue between India and Pakistan is conflict, possibly a nuclear conflict. Her message in short is: if we want peace, genuflect -- the Gandhian way. And yes, Deshpande says we must repudiate the "myths" of Pakistani society; look, she says, "several brave women are fighting the Talibanisation of Pakistan successfully".

Deshpande is obviously too busy managing the Rajghat samadhi and delivering peace lectures. She cannot find the time to read The Washington Post and The Atlantic Monthly to discover the truth about Pakistan.

Robert Davis, former US ambassador, very recently wrote in the Washington newspaper: "The Pakistani military regime is exhibiting an almost pathological determination to keep South Asia in turmoil, doing little to curb Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism breeding within its borders while scuttling others' steps towards peace."

A grimmer, broader picture of Pakistan is painted in an article of the September issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Titled "The Lawless Frontier" and written by Robert Kaplan, probably the world's leading reporter on the region, the masterly study's essence is simple. It postulates that while world attention is focussed on the proxy war in J&K, conflicts far more fierce and fundamental in nature are taking place in the borderlands of Pakistan -- in the North-West Frontier Province, Baluchistan and even Sind. This has set the State of Pakistan on a course of irreversible dissolution. This has been brought about by the "accumulation of disorder and irrationality" that has still to be understood. And the jihad in J&K is a consequence of this fear of a crumbling state, a lawless frontier, for which India should prepare itself.

If that is the direction Pakistan is headed in, does it make sense to talk to any of its leaders? Is that the Pakistan to which the Boutons and the Clintons, the Gores and the Gujrals, the Nayars and the Deshpandes want India to talk on bended knee? And talk what? About a plebiscite in J&K?

It is time, really, for Delhi to stop beating about the bush, drop all pretences, muster the courage to face the truth, and tell it to the nation so as to win its confidence and support. And the truth is that peace in J&K is not a matter of instant burger, chips and coffee. Talks with Pakistan are not the route to that peace. Only the courage to fight its jihad is. That fight could last a long while more, but we'll have to face it.

In an interview to The Los Angeles Times during his latest visit to the US with the prime minister, Jaswant Singh said India should engage the US with candour, and that "the real territorial dispute" is that "the entire northern areas of J&K are occupied". It is time that our external affairs minister, our prime minister, our home minister and anyone in any Block in Delhi engaged not only the US but the entire world, including the whole of India, with such candour and more.

Vajpayee's cuddly closeness to the US of A should now be passe. So should be his pauses of speech and blinking of eyes. We have had enough of both.

Arvind Lavakare