Like all military dictators, former Pakistani president Parvez Musharraf has left a profound impact on the destiny of his nation and its relations with India. Musharraf would be remembered in India as the man who contributed enormously to peace in Kashmir. Equally significant was the contribution of former Indian prime minister Vajpayee, who had risked the anger of his party’s hardliners to visit Lahore in February 1999 but felt betrayed by Kargil incursions.
Nevertheless, putting the Kargil conflict behind, in a rare display of large-hearted approach, Vajpayee accepted the invitation of Musharraf to visit Pakistan for a summit level meeting of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The joint statement issued after the meeting between the two leaders on January 6, 2004, made it clear that Pakistan had agreed that it would not allow any territory under its control to be used to support terrorism. For the first time, Pakistan assured India that it would not allow the activities of terror groups and their launch from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK).
The security establishment in India was in disbelief when peace started taking shape. Musharraf announced cease-fire on the line of control and international border in November 2003 that was immediately reciprocated by India. Guns fell silent on both sides of the border followed by significant reduction in infiltration and a steep decline in violence within Kashmir.
There is little doubt that the US played a major role in bringing the two countries to the dialogue table. The US didn’t want any distraction in its focus in targeting Al-Qaeda and its Taliban supporters in Afghanistan and was heavily dependent on Pakistan for providing bases. Besides, it had realised its folly of allowing “mujahideen” to take credit of the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan rather than stinger missiles that it had supplied.
It is not that Musharraf was a man of peace when he “hijacked” his own plane on October 12,1999 and allowed its landing only after being sure that his officers had carried out the coup successfully. His first major international exposure was when US president Bill Clinton visited Pakistan in March 2000 for a few hours and lectured Musharraf on what the world (US) expected from him. In alive telecasted speech, he made it clear that Pakistan would have to find a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue. His remarks on Kashmir that “this era doesn’t reward people who struggle in vain to redraw borders with blood” shook Pakistan’s military establishment.
Thereafter, Musharraf made a half-hearted peace overture in Kashmir by allowing “Hizb-ulMujahdeen” to unilaterally declare cease-fire in July 2000. When the Pakistan army realised that its initiative may hugely benefit India, the ceasefire was called off. As he became stable, Musharraf wanted peace with India but on his terms. He still nursed the wound inflicted by India in 1971. Some Indian editors had a taste of his thinking when he invited them for a breakfast meeting on the side-lines of the Agra Summit in July 2001. The summit was bound to fail.
However, his joining US’ “war on terror” changed Pakistan’s security landscape forever. It created an unprecedented rise of religious extremism and, for the first time, the country faced domestic blowback of raising and nurturing terror groups as instruments of foreign policy. For a complete turnaround in policy after 9/11 under intense US pressure, Musharraf even faced two assassination attempts by the cadres of these very terror groups.
Barely a week after 9/11, Musharraf, in a televised speech, had explained to the people of Pakistan that the foremost reason for him to succumb to the US demands was to save the Kashmir policy of Pakistan. As the war on terror progressed, it became increasingly difficult for Pakistanis to swallow that the people whom they proudly called “freedom fighters” in Kashmir and “mujahideen” in Afghanistan were now on the crosshairs of Pakistan army. As he became the darling of the western world, his popularity nose-dived within Pakistan.
To tighten his grip on power, he tried to tame the judiciary. That provoked widespread protests across Pakistan by lawyers and he had to eventually handover the charge of army chief. According to his foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri, both India and Pakistan were close to a solution to the Kashmir issue. But the lawyers’ agitation weakened Musharraf ’s resolve to take risks. He didn’t reveal what was agreed upon in the dialogue between Satinder Lambah on the Indian side and Tariq Aziz on Pakistan. But it is believed that the solution was perhaps close to Musharraf ’s four-point formula that the people of Kashmir thought could end the decades-old conflict in the region.
His adversarial relationship with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif after the coup in 1999 led to his trial for treason for violating the constitution for which he was sentenced to death by the special court. In fact, the court order warranted him to be hung in front of Parliament and kept there hanging for three days. The order was later overturned, but Musharraf preferred to die in afar-off land away from the country, which he had taken oath to serve when joining the service.
Timeline of Musharraf’s Engagement with India; He was the Architect of Kargil War in 1999
August 1943: Born in Delhi; family moves to Pakistan after partition
October 1999: The then Chief of Army Staff deposes the then PM Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless military coup, installs himself as head of govt
June 2001: Declares himself as President of Pakistan
July 2001: Meets PM Vajpayee for a two-day summit in Agra
December 13, 2001: Terror attack on Indian Parliament; India blames Pak-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad
March 2002: Pledges Pakistan will combat extremism on its soil, but claims that the country has a right to Kashmir
September 2003: Calls for a ceasefire along LoC during a UN General Assembly meeting; India and Pakistan reach an agreement to cool tensions
January 2004: Vajpayee and Musharraf hold talks at the 12th SAARC summit in Islamabad, and the two countries’ foreign secretaries meet later in the year, marking the beginning of the Composite Dialogue Process
November 2004: On the eve of a visit to J&K, PM Manmohan Singh announced that India will be reducing its deployment of troops there
September 2006: Musharraf and Singh agree to set up an India-Pakistan institutional anti-terrorism mechanism
November 2006: Musharraf hails former Indian cricket team captain MS Dhoni for his dynamic batting skills and long hair. Musharraf famously advised Dhoni to not have a haircut.
The writer is a former Intelligence Bureau officer who served in Pakistan. Views are personal
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com.)
