Don’t bet on civil society in Pakistan

The overarching power of the Pakistani armed forces makes it especially difficult for India-friendly people in the country’s society to take initiatives to further contacts with their neighbour.

On May 12, senior RSS leader Dattatreya Hosabale said that Pakistan’s military and political leadership had lost India’s confidence, and that it was time for “civil society to lead the way”. He added: “The security and self-respect of a country has to be protected, and the government of the day should take care of it. But at the same time, we need not close the doors. We should always be ready to engage them in a dialogue.” He said that trade and commerce and the issuance of visas should not stop, and that cultural affinities between the two countries work in favour of better ties between their civil societies. “Academicians, sportspersons, scientists and community leaders should come forward there, as their political leadership and military leadership have developed aversion towards India.”

Pakistan has reportedly welcomed this call. Its foreign ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, told a press briefing in Islamabad on May 14 that “the voices within India calling for dialogue are obviously a positive development”. However, my experience in service, and later, does not give me cause to believe that Pakistan’s civil society has the clout to push its government towards better ties with India. Civil-society groups in the two countries are bound by the attitudes and policies of the regimes in power — this is especially so with regard to foreign policy.

The overarching power of the Pakistani armed forces makes it especially difficult for India-friendly people in the country’s society to take initiatives to further contacts with their neighbour.

The intelligence-fundamentalist-bureaucracy-dominated nation, in fact, pays more heed to the diktats of foreign powers than to the advice of some domestic agents. The process began in 1950 when then-Pakistan PM Liaquat Ali Khan declared that the formation of new political parties in opposition to the Muslim League was “against the interest of Pakistan”. The same year, speaking in Washington, he signalled America’s growing role in Pakistan’s power structure by saying, “If your country will guarantee our territorial integrity, I will not keep any army at all.” In 1953, General Ayub Khan went further: “Our army can be your army.” Such dependence weakened democratic institutions. Today, army chief Asim Munir dominates Pakistan’s politics. Will he encourage meaningful civil-society outreach with India?

My first exposure to India-Pakistan civil society dialogue came in 2010, when the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation invited me to a roundtable comprising representatives of the two countries in New Delhi.

Unable to attend, I sent a note advocating a “peace constituency” between the two societies — this was later published in an Indian national newspaper and endorsed by Pakistani human rights activist I A Rehman, who had attended the meeting.

I participated in their second conclave in New Delhi in May 2010, which was attended by senior Pakistani representatives like former foreign secretary Humayun Khan, former army chief General Jehangir Karamat, I A Rehman and former minister Sherry Rehman, a member of the National Security Committee of Pakistan’s Parliament. All of them knew that I was a member of the two-person high-level committee appointed by the Maharashtra government to enquire into the systemic lapses during the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

During a private interaction with General Karamat, I asked him why Pakistan uses militants against India. I reminded him about the two highest level R&AW-ISI meetings in the late 1980s. At that time, General Hamid Gul had told his Indian counterpart that Pakistan was supporting terrorism against India as “it was afraid of its size”, and that it was “India’s responsibility to instil confidence in a small country like Pakistan”. Karamat’s reply was typically evasive. He said that politicians from Punjab (Pakistan) were patronising militants to strengthen their political base, but was not clear why the powerful Pakistan army was not able to stop this practice, if it was convinced that it was wrong.

Sherry Rehman’s paper, ‘Reinventing Dialogue’, submitted at the end of the conference, also reflected this chasm. Pakistan’s “underclass of taxi drivers, shopkeepers, waiters and launderers is invested in a far more benign counter-narrative of authentic yearning for the neighbour that got lost in the fog of war”. But authorities didn’t display matching interest, she said.

Last year, the CIVICUS Monitor-World Alliance for Citizen Participation report on Pakistan affirmed the lack of heft of the country’s civic society. There may be voices favouring reconciliation in Pakistan but they rarely shape state policy. As long as the army retains overwhelming control over Pakistan’s strategic direction, people-to-people engagement is unlikely to be a potent force.

My experience leads me to be sceptical of the suggestion that civil society contacts “will keep doors open for dialogue”.

The writer is former special secretary, cabinet secretariat, who was part of the high-level committee to enquire into the 26/11 terror attacks