Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Pakistan dilemma

 AFTER PRESIDENT Asif Ali Zardari’s Easter Sunday visit to New Delhi and Ajmer, there is an undeniable sentiment in the government and in strategic circles in the capital that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s trip to Pakistan is only a matter of time. As some have pointed out, should Singh complete 10 years in office in 2014 and still not have set foot on Pakistan, it would appear odd if not downright churlish. Pakistan would be about the only major country—from India’s point of view—Singh would not have travelled to. From a broader perspective, that is a persuasive argument. The question is: when is the appropriate time? Pakistan sees national elections in February 2013 and the contours of the government and arrangement in Islamabad after that are unclear. A visit in the second half of 2013, once the dust settles in Pakistan and a new government (or even a re-elected government) has consolidated itself is a possibility. Yet that is too far away and too difficult to predict. As such, there are some who feel September-October 2012 represents the last potential window for Singh to go to Islamabad and to his native village of Gah in Punjab’s Chakwal district. No doubt this will be a personally and emotionally captivating journey. But how much diplomatic and political content will it have? Singh is a sober realist and has said he would be happy to make a “substantive” visit to Pakistan, one that had “solid” outcomes. What are the benchmarks for such a substantive visit? This is both a general query as well as one raised in the particular context of 2012, and given the political capital Singh has left in the second half of his second term. The three main geo-political disputes between the South Asian neighbours are the status of Jammu and Kashmir— more narrowly the Kashmir region of the former kingdom of Hari Singh—the Siachen Glacier and the Sir Creek waterway in the marshlands of the Rann of Kutch (in Gujarat). A settlement of the Kashmir dispute was considered a possibility in the 2004-2006 period, when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh engaged in serious conversations with former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Those conversations were predicated on the assumption that Musharraf was keen on de-radicalising Pakistani society, acting on sources of terrorism and had come to realise a compromise on Kashmir, roughly along the Line of Control but with a soft border and inter-Kashmir commerce, was the only feasible option. A strong American presence and engagement in the region was also expected to act as a mutual guarantor of good behaviour. When Musharraf began to face domestic challenges, the prospect of a Kashmir settlement receded dramatically. His successors have denied all knowledge of formulations he had agreed to. General A.P. Kayani started, as every new Pakistani state actor does, with the contention that all of Kashmir could be won. And things were back to square one. Today, President Zardari sees merit in settling the dispute but perhaps the best he can do is advocate bypassing or deferring it. Siachen is even more of a nonstarter. The Indian army is well entrenched in Siachen. It enjoys a strategic and altitudinal advantage and has hardly lost men there in eight years. It sees any talk of “demilitarisation” as surrendering hard-won gains. Of course the political executive can overrule it, especially if there is a larger bargain to be made. Nevertheless, given the testy relationship between General V.K. Singh and the government and the overall atmosphere of distrust between generals and the Ministry of Defence, will Manmohan Singh risk being accused of bullying an unwilling army to vacate Siachen? It would be a politically suicidal move. Move now to Sir Creek, the narrow strip of water at the edge of the Arabian Sea and the traditional divide between Kutch (Gujarat) and Sindh. This may seem the easiest dispute to settle but has actually proved extremely taxing. Agreeing to a boundary in the Creek has implications for the boundary in the sea. A small change in the Creek can mean a much wider change in the sea. The international maritime boundary, in turn, would define the economic zone of either country. The Rann of Kutch region is rich in hydrocarbons. That has been known for a long time. India’s oil fields in Barmer (Rajasthan) are in a geologically related area and Pakistan’s gas fields are barely 20 to 30 km from Sir Creek. The potential game-changer has been the emergence of new fracking (hydraulic fracturing) technology in the past decade that has allowed for the exploitation of shale gas and oil deposits in sedimentary rocks. The shale revolution has transformed the energy scenario in the United States. It has also made shale deposits in the Sir Creek neighbourhood far more accessible and valuable than ever before. Many of the postulates that influenced India’s Sir Creek negotiators say that the 1990s may no more be relevant. Energy security concerns could advocate going slow on any Sir Creek agreement until India is certain of what lies beneath and what it is worth. Gujarat sees Assembly elections in November-December 2012, just about two months after the dates being mentioned for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s trip across the Wagah Border to the neighbouring country. The Congress would obviously not want any Sir Creek controversy to become an election issue and give the BJP a talking point. In any case, in a replay of the (West Bengal-Bangladesh) Teesta Episode, the state government of Gujarat has to be on board. Chief Minister Narendra Modi has already raised the issue of exploring hydrocarbons in the Sir Creek region. The upshot of all this is that a ‘substantive’ agenda for a prime ministerial visit to Pakistan is unlikely. Unless minor (but symbolically important) advance in trade is repackaged as a historic move forward Singh may not easily find the excuse for a summit in Islamabad. While there is a near consensus in India that a conventional war with Pakistan is not practicable and not desirable, there is no unanimity on the big agreements that should be reached and when. This constricted domestic-political space will limit what Singh can do on his arrival in Pakistan, should he choose to go this year.