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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (46329)	5/27/2004 3:13:44 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

<the option of jihad is more or less closed for the time being because the major players in it are more determined to hit General Musharraf now than win Kashmir for Pakistan.> dailytimes.com.pk Musharraf’s ‘core issue’ and realpolitik General Pervez Musharraf has invited the leader of India’s ruling Congress party, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, for a visit to Pakistan. The two talked about the Indo-Pakistan composite dialogue and repeated their resolve to carry it forward. Pakistan’s foreign minister Mr Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri talked to his counterpart Mr Natwar Singh and exchanged the same kind of message with him. Good ground was laid earlier by a statement by Mrs Gandhi about continuing the bilateral dialogue and moving it forward more rapidly. It is clear that all signals in the region are positive for normalisation of relations and discussion of outstanding issues with some more patience than has been evident in the past. But General Musharraf has been going back now and then to the ‘core issue’ of Kashmir. Every time he did that during the BJP tenure, bad vibes began to prevail on both sides while expert wisdom in Pakistan inclined to the counsel of not jumping the gun. Why talk about the end-result of the talks before the talks have begun, the analysts said. It was deemed more important that the bilateral talks should resume while the guns were silent on both sides of the LoC. The people of the Neelam Valley in Azad Kashmir were shown on TV praying that peace would hold to allow them to rebuild houses destroyed by the Indian artillery that had punished them for ‘cross-border terrorism’. For once everyone seems to be putting the horse where it should be — before the cart. Coming from the East-West experience, the CBMs between the two could work only if the ‘core issue’ was allowed to wait until the good atmospherics had pushed suspicion and hostility to the background. Then why is General Musharraf intent on springing the core issue every time the going seems to be good? He did that when the Indians were being welcomed in Pakistan during the cricket series. Since then he has done it several times. But strange to say, his sudden rowing in the wrong direction doesn’t seem to have had much effect on the populace in Pakistan. On the contrary, the positive image of India seems to have stuck. After the Indian election and the defeat of the BJP, the positive emotion has in fact spiralled to admiration in all quarters of the soundness of India’s democratic tradition. Strange to say again, this hasn’t put General Musharraf off too much either. The ruling party has not been instructed to go to town crying foul and recommending getting tough with India. In fact, barring the Foreign Office and the information minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmad — who has been uncharacteristically positive — no other minister has vouchsafed learned opinion on the ‘perfidy of India’. Certainly, there were occasions to do so — as for instance, a recent interview of prime minister Manmohan Singh in which he was forced to say that Kashmir could be reconsidered barring the plebiscite and any change of borders. In fact, a host of commentators are recommending on private TV channels that Pakistan should go slow on Kashmir and allow the two-way dialogue to develop positively instead. This could be General Musharraf’s realpolitik wrapped around with Kashmir rhetoric for good effect. He needs a breather to get under control the much-destabilised political system he has evolved. The economy is said to be on the brink of a takeoff provided the law and order situation is improved and the government spends some of its foreign exchange reserves to bring down the high cost of amenities. He has to keep the door open for investment and knows that the stock market will collapse on the first rumour of things going drastically wrong between India and Pakistan because of Kashmir. Also, the option of jihad is more or less closed for the time being because the major players in it are more determined to hit General Musharraf now than win Kashmir for Pakistan. If the real motivator is realpolitik, we like it all the way. *