Politics of half-truths

In a recent series of blogposts, Javed Chaudhry, a television anchor, has made several “revelations” after a long meeting, per his own account, with the former Chief of the Army Staff, General Qamar Bajwa.

Much of what Chaudhry has written is about domestic politicking and how and why former Prime Minister Imran Khan and Bajwa fell apart. While many parts of this account were already known, this information supposedly comes from Bajwa and is meant to restore the former general’s image battered by Khan’s statements about him.

While we shall very briefly return to the domestic part of the account, because that requires separate treatment, let me begin with what Chaudhry has written with reference to Pakistan-India relations and the baton of “breakthrough” that was in the nation’s grasp but was dropped by Khan. Here’s a translation of what Chaudhry wrote: “The Inter-Services Intelligence DG, Lieutenant-General Faiz Hameed, met with India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval several times in an Arab country. As a consequence of these back-channel meetings, it was decided that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi would visit Pakistan on April 9, 2021. Modi, a devotee of Hinglaj Mata, would go to the temple and stay there for a ten-day fast. On his return, he would meet with Imran Khan, hold his arm aloft and declare friendship between the two countries.”

And what were the conditions for this visit? Chaudhry writes: “Modi would announce the opening of trade between the countries. Both sides would declare that neither would interfere in each other’s affairs or engage in terrorism against the other. Kashmir would be held in abeyance for 20 years before a decision could be made about it.”

Chaudhry further writes that this arrangement got scuttled when former Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, told Khan that making this deal on Kashmir would seal his political fate. Khan backed out and the visit was subsequently cancelled. Let’s unpack this version before raising the question about whether the former COAS should have given this juicy bit to Chaudhry.

To be precise, there were multiple reports in 2021 about some kind of back-channel between Pakistan and India. In fact, in an interview to Karan Thapar on October 13, 2020, former National Security Advisor, Moeed Yusuf, said that India had expressed the desire to start a conversation. However, as I wrote at the time, while revealing this, Yusuf also made plain that such a dialogue was contingent on certain concrete actions by India: “release of political prisoners in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, making Kashmiris a party to the talks, ending restrictions in the region, rescinding the domicile law that allows non-Kashmiris to settle in the region, and stopping human rights abuses.”

The back-channel talks began to figure out what the two sides could achieve. Bajwa began talking about this off the record in 2022, with journalists. Chaudhry’s blogpost shows that he (Bajwa) has now decided to bring this on the record.

I have triangulated this with some other sources and it appears that there indeed was an initial roadmap of how this would come about. Modi’s visit to Pakistan was part of that arrangement. However, it must be noted that there was no approval from the political principal about whether this would, or could, go forward, even though the covert process was known to the concerned people on the civilian side.

There’s also some issue with the date, April 9, since at the time Modi was deeply (and personally) involved in the state elections in West Bengal, along with his lieutenant, Amit Shah. Whether he could leave at the time for a 10-day sojourn in Pakistan is, therefore, moot. But I shan’t quibble over that because there are four other important points here.

First, should the former COAS have shared this information on the record for political reasons? Second, such processes have taken place between Pakistan and India before. They are meant to sound out what’s possible and what’s not. In other words, while they are important for bringing the temperature down and act as confidence-building measures, they are not a substitute for the real, above-the-surface interactions. Third, the process can fizzle out because it may not be cost-effective for one or both sides. Fourth, why should this sketchy information be made public in a manner clearly meant to present the former PM as the man responsible for missing a great moment and, by extrapolation, lay the blame for continued hostility at Pakistan’s door?

The answer to the first point/question is an emphatic no. Sensitive foreign and security policy issues must not be used for political or personal point scoring.

The other, even bigger problem is with reference to the fourth point above. Why is this account silent about what India’s ask was? It would be naiveté at its most naive to think that Modi had decided to come to Pakistan and declare “friendship” because he is full of the milk of human kindness. What has been put out is not enough and deliberately so.

What, for instance, was the real deal on Occupied Jammu and Kashmir? Were Kashmiris part of it? Or was it discussed — wrongly and injudiciously — as a Pakistan-India territorial issue? What was India planning to do in the 20 years that IOK’s self-determination was to be put in abeyance? What was discussed apropos of India’s sponsorship of terrorism, especially in the wake of evidence gathered by Pakistan and presented to the world in the form of not one but two dossiers?

There’s other information available about certain specifics. I shan’t go into those details but it appears that what was being asked by India could not have been delivered by any government in Pakistan. Those specifics are deliberately missing from the leak. Moreover, to say that Qureshi told Khan to step back from this process is to ignore the institutional assessment about the process and India’s demands by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other concerned actors.

It is unfortunate that such has become the personalised nature of this country’s politics that half-truths are being made public through deliberate leaks about highly-sensitive issues. In a battle, protecting one’s flanks and rear is crucial. This leak creates the space for India to tell the world that while it was ready for friendship, Pakistan scuttled the process. Indeed, Indian media outlets have already started spinning the Bajwa revelations in this manner.

Finally, though very briefly, should an army chief be telling an elected PM what (s)he should do, whether in relation to foreign and security policies or who to appoint as CM of a province? It’s the army’s job to give its assessment within its professional remit. No more and no less. But it cannot, even with the best of intentions, try to run a country’s politics. That a chief and his team did exactly that is the real lesson one draws from these “revelations.”

The writer is a journalist with interest in foreign and security policies