India-Pakistan terms of engagement: H-word, M-word & the Trump hyphenation

Return to hyphenation is dreaded because our successive govts have laboured for three decades to rid us of what we see as the equivalence big powers used to draw between us and Pakistan. Three things follow.

Illustration: Shruti Naithani | ThePrint

Much as I would’ve wanted to use ‘khota sikka’, the challenge of finding an exact translation brings me to the usual bad penny. Let’s say, therefore, that like a bad penny, the dreaded H-word is back with us. H, as in hyphenation with Pakistan.

And its return is dreaded because our successive governments have laboured for three decades to rid us of what we see as the equivalence the big powers (read the US) used to draw between us and Pakistan. Three things follow.

Let’s call the first the ‘zero-sum game’. If Washington sees the Subcontinent in a hyphenated manner, then it must balance the relationship. Gain for one is loss for the other. It brings an equivalence India detests. It believes it stands in a class by itself and linking with Pakistan demeans it.

The second can be called ‘stature denial’. Given its growing Comprehensive National Power (CNP), India believes it deserves a sphere of influence. If ally Washington sees the region through an India-Pakistan prism, it’s unacceptable. Rather than endorse India’s sphere of influence, this undermines it.

This is double trouble as China is already working hard at denying India that pre-eminence, which Pakistan calls hegemonism. And whereas India would expect US backing in this competition, it is galling when the US keeps saying sweet somethings to Pakistan. What’s the point of the Quad then? We thought we were partners in a project to contain China.

And the third, this means the return of the M-word that so triggers us. M for mediation. For Indian public opinion, Donald Trump has undone the work of the past decades by continuing to insist that he mediated the India-Pakistan ceasefire.

Now, we know that his interest isn’t in any mediation but in getting credit: ‘nobody gives me credit for stopping a nuclear war’, ‘they never give me credit for anything’, ‘I stopped a nuclear war and I haven’t seen any stories about it,’ and so on.

You can’t blame the Pakistanis for latching on to it. They think Trump’s renewed interest in the region emanates only from a fear of nuclear conflict. Therefore, they think they’ve been able to switch the global attention back to the nuclear threat, from the case India had built across decades for partnership in the global war on terror. Personifying this rediscovered mojo is Bilawal Bhutto, who said, in his usual breathless hyperbole, that the US will drag India to the negotiation table, if necessary, by the ear. Pakistani establishment has thrown everything in their desperation to revive their faded American connection, even a bunch of crypto. But anybody who’s sidled up to Trump has ended up singing that sad old song: ‘ik bewafa se pyar kiya… haye re hum ne yeh kya kiya’ (best-effort translation: I fell in love with one who knows no love, how the hell did I get into this mess?).

This is a very transactional Trump with no loyalties, and as focused on his domestic base as Narendra Modi in India. Any US partner who doesn’t accept this, is setting themselves up for a feeling of grand betrayal and humiliation.

The good thing is, our policy establishment is still wise not to respond emotionally and avoiding any public expression of anxiety. They are quietly progressing on the issue that matters right now, an India-US trade deal. If that works, much clutter would die down. In any case, nobody has brought back that other demon, the K-word as yet.

Nobody is saying India and Pakistan should negotiate over Kashmir, and further that we are willing to mediate. I am not even sure Trump is aware of an issue like that.

That said, Trump is now reshaping the world in his own vision uncluttered by history, facts and ideology. He’s gutting NATO, ridicules the western alliance, serially insults Canada’s prime ministers (Trudeau and Carney), and is impatient with Netanyahu. He detests Zelenskyy, adores Putin. Check out the latest gem from him: ‘Putin says they lost 51 million people (in WWII) and we were your allies. Now everyone hates Russia and they love Germany and Japan. Let’s explain that sometimes. It’s a strange world.’

It’s unrealistic to expect that somebody making radical shifts not confused by history would even know or appreciate our concern over de-hyphenation.

Modi government’s current approach of social media noise-cancellation is wise. The nominated Assistant Secretary of State Paul Kapur’s full testimony to the committee voting on his appointment is mature and fine for India. But just that one line saying he’d work with Pakistan where it suits America’s interest has made so many in India sulk like a jilted lover.

And the Centcom Commander, General Michael Kurilla calling Pakistan a phenomenal partner against terror comes from the essential geostrategic division the Pentagon has followed historically where Centcom covers Pakistan and India falls under Pacific Command.

Ask any crime reporter worth her next scoop and she will explain to you how the first interest of any station house officer (SHO) at a police station is to curb crime in their own jurisdiction even if it means making deals with even the baddest guys. You might get a different answer from the Pacific Command chief. On top of this, our own news TV rumour machine, which has done more to undermine India’s strategic credibility, invented its own fiction that Pakistan’s newly self-minted field marshal was invited for the US Army Day parade. We were saved from mass neurosis by White House saying they weren’t inviting any such guests.

While such touchiness rules our larger public opinion which loves that self-defeating “we have to do it all alone” obsession, it will be challenging for the Modi government to immunise serious policy from public responses. This government is obsessed with the buzz on social media.

Finally, if you can use that noise-cancellation device again, and see what foreign involvement in our crises has meant. It will also help us distinguish mediation, intervention and involvement. After the Cold War, India endured about four years of intense American pressure over Kashmir over human rights. But, as India’s economy grew post-reform, so did its stature. By 1998, the equation was changing.

Not only was the second Clinton Administration quick to embrace the reality of a nuclear-armed India, the next year, 1999, it played a very constructive role during the Kargil crisis. Clinton hauled in Nawaz Sharif to Washington even on the US Independence Day (4 July) to give him a face-saver to retreat from Kargil.

During Operation Parakram, repeated American interventions and frantic visits (most significant Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld on a day we seemed closest to war) helped both sides stay calm. The solidarity in war on terror over 26/11 and onwards served a dual purpose. One, to largely dehyphenate India from Pakistan. And second, to stick the ‘terror state’ label on Pakistan’s chest.

However, times do change. And with the return of Trump, how. Every crisis in the subcontinent has drawn American involvement to defuse it. That’s the fire truck at our doors. Trump has only changed the language, junking old-fashioned diplomatic discretion. Trump seeks credit like a five-year-old. It’s the new reality for the world, especially for America’s friends and allies.

PostScript: when Musharraf came for the Agra Summit (14-16 July, 2001), Vajpayee hosted a lunch for him at the biggest banquet hall in New Delhi’s Taj Palace Hotel. He was also clever enough to invite Farooq Abdullah to it, and seat him just one table away. Dessert time, Farooq predeterminedly got up and walked to the head table with a big, mischievous smile. “Arrey, yeh dekhiye, yeh toh third party intervention ho gayi,” a startled Musharraf found a good escape line, and everybody laughed.

Next week: The perils of self-hyphenation