ASIF Ali Zardari was never taken seriously in India. People either knew him as Benazir Bhutto’s husband or Mr 10 per cent. But his pronouncements after assuming charge of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) began drawing attention in India. He was applauded when he said, six months ago, that the ties between the two countries should not be held “hostage” to the Kashmir issue. This was what New Delhi had been saying all along.
 
Since Zardari’s point of view did not fit into Islamabad’s policy that mindset bureaucrats, crusty politicians and army top brass devised and pursued, he was denounced. Islamabad interpreted his statement differently and reiterated the same old policy. Even Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Mahmood Qureshi, whom I met at Islamabad subsequently, rationalised that Zardari did not mean what was being presumed.

Zardari, now Pakistan’s President, has expressed similar thought in a more explicit way. He seems to have stirred up a hornets’ nest of opposition on the Kashmir issue. In an interview to a US daily, he has said that “the Kashmiri militants are the terrorists.” I do not understand the furore over the remark. He has not given away Kashmir, nor has he withdrawn the claim on the state. All that he has done is to describe today’s militants as terrorists who, by no stretch of imagination, are “freedom fighters,” the title that General Pervez Musharraf gave them.

If this definition is accepted, the entire argument of fighting against the Taliban falls flat. They too are up in arms to ‘free’ people from the modern way of thinking and living because it, according to them, defiles the “Islamic behaviour.” (The Taliban have burnt down 125 girl schools in the territory under them). Who are the militants except those who were first trained and armed by General Zia-ul Haq to bleed India and then sustained by General Parvez Musharraf till 09/11 when the entire scene changed drastically?

True, when the state elections in 1987 in Kashmir were rigged, many from among the youth crossed into Pakistan and obtained arms after getting training in their use. The first phase of insurgency was not sullied, either by religious fervour or by senseless killings. But that phase ended soon and the fundamentalists took over. Terrorists under different names of Laskar-e-Toiba, with headquarters in Pakistan, continue to indulge in violence and encounters. They kill the innocent. Should they be called freedom fighters or Mujahideen as the fundamentalists claim? Terrorism cannot be fought if its perpetrators are hailed when they infiltrate into Kashmir and condemned when they operate in Pakistan. Zardari sees the point. Others, prisoners of old policies, don’t.

Yet, I am a bit disappointed over the criticism by the Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif. He knows better because he saw through the game when he flew to Washington to retrieve the honour of his armed forces after the debacle at Kargil. They are the same terrorists who indulged in bomb blasts at Lahore, Sargoda or elsewhere. They are the ones who burnt the Marriott at Islamabad. If Nawaz Sharif were to analyse the situation dispassionately, he would come to the same conclusion as Zardari has. Political considerations should not cloud Nawaz Sharif’s judgment.

Kashmir is an issue which has to be settled. There is no running away from it. But should even limited ties between the two countries depend on the solution of Kashmir? Both sides have wasted 60-long years and have fought three wars. They are nowhere near to the Kashmir solution as they were in 1948. Had we reversed the order and facilitated trade and travel first, we would have generated enough goodwill to take up thorny problems like Kashmir.
 
Whenever I have visited Pakistan, I have found the climate improving. There is no tension. Pakistanis are awakening to New Delhi’s difficulties in keeping its polity of pluralistic as well as democratic. India is ashamed of many happenings, particularly those which have made a mockery of our secular credentials.

Still the majority of people are trying to restore “the balance” which India has come to represent over the years. The task has become more difficult because a band of Taliban has come up among the Hindus. Since we are nearing the general election, the BJP is at its old game of dividing the society. The party, burning with the ambition to return to power, is using all methods to incite the Hindus which constitute the majority.

Equation with Islamabad is an essential ingredient to protect the ethos of secularism. This is where I find Zardari different from the general run of politicians in Pakistan. He is preparing his country to face certain realities. He has no hesitation in saying that India is not a threat to his country. He has recognized India’s economy prowess. He rightly imagines that Pakistani cement factories being constructed to provide for India’s huge infrastructure needs, Pakistan textile mills meeting Indian demand for blue jeans, Pakistani ports being used to relieve the congestions. What is wrong with that?

Mercifully, the clarification which Pakistan Information Minister Sherry Rehman has issued on Zardari’s interview is confined to Kashmir. The most important part regarding the economic cooperation between the two countries seems to have the general support in Pakistan. It goes without saying that the vested interests do not see anything beyond the Kashmir issue. And they are plugging the same old line. I concede that Kashmir is the core of the issue. But certain steps like trade, travel and sharing technology will pave the ground to tackle the issue more effectively.

Even on Kashmir Sherry Rehman has said that Zardari never termed the Hurriyat leaders as terrorists. He did not comment on them. Why bring in something he never said? He wants Pakistan be at par with India. But at the same time Zardari is not scared of India’s influence abroad.

One thing striking about Zardari is that he is courageous enough to tread on the ground on which the politicians of old mould fear to walk. Leaders of different parties in Pakistan have a viewpoint on India, not divergent from one another’s. Kashmir is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is the feeling which the country’s size and economy evokes. It has more to do with the fear than with religious bias.

No doubt, New Delhi is watching closely what Zardari does or says. His meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at New York went off extremely well. It seems the latter was impressed by the former’s frankness. Pakistan is passing through difficult times. India has to do something concrete to express its solidarity with it, more so with the nascent democracy. It is in India’s own interest.