Some people have been raising an interesting question. They ask, if Nawaz Sharif was present at Modi’s oath taking ceremony in New Delhi as a goodwill gesture, why he didn’t stop the expulsion of two Indian reporters from Pakistan happening at the same time despite a clear agreement between the neighbours to allow at least two reporters each. The simple answer is that he could not annoy the Army, which manoeuvred the expulsion at a time when it didn’t even want him to visit India and talk to Modi.
The incident opens up a Pandora’s Box of questions relating to the different power centres in Pakistan and the mystery of what power lies in which particular centre. The expulsion reminded me of an incident that happened to me as a reporter back in the late 1980s when I was Voice of America’s South Asia bureau chief based in New Delhi. In 1987, then President Zia visited Jaipur to watch a cricket match between India and Pakistan. Along with other foreign correspondents, I also went to Jaipur and interviewed the President. It was arranged by the then press attaché at the Pakistani Embassy in New Delhi, Mubarak Shah, who had become a good friend because of our common interest in Pakistani singer Hussain Baksh (Gullu) and his Multani Kafis of which both of us had a good collection. I had been requesting Mr Shah for a visa and his simple answer had been, “Forget it, the foreign ministry will never approve your visa even if I send a request.” After the interview, I asked President Zia if I could do a day long interview with him in Islamabad for a special feature to be called ‘A Day with Zia’. In front of Mr Shah, he took my hand and warmly invited me to Islamabad. But after Zia’s departure, when I raised it with Mr Shah, his reply was the President had no power to grant me a visa. It is the foreign ministry, he said, and it will never approve my visa because of my Indian origin.
Many years later, in Washington, I was interviewing late Benazir Bhutto, who, at the time was a two-time ousted Prime Minister, and was planning to go back and take part in the National Assembly elections. During the interview, when I asked her about her plans to improve relations with India, she seemed frustrated. She said candidly, “The first thing you American reporters should understand is that an elected political leader in Pakistan cannot do much about its relations with India and the USA because he or she is not the only centre of power in the country. There is the Army and then the ISI.”
If one understands this fact about Pakistan, then it is not difficult to understand why the Kargil War happened at a time when the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee became the first Indian leader to go to Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore and symbolically endorse the resolution that spoke for the first time about the creation of Pakistan. (He was showing a goodwill gesture to placate those Pakistanis who think India had still not come to terms with the Partition and did not respect Pakistan as a sovereign and independent country.) And why despite then Prime Minister Sharif’s emotional embrace with Vajpayee, the Army chief was getting Pakistani soldiers masked as Jihadi militants ready to take over the Kargil heights to avenge India’s victory at the Siachen Glacier.
Sharif couldn’t do anything within Pakistan when his Defence Ministry was allegedly forced by the Army to file a complaint against Geo TV for naming Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) agency for attack on Geo journalist Hamid Mir, who was seriously injured in a shoot-out in April. It resulted in the suspension of the license of Geo News for 15 days and a fine of 10 million Pakistani Rupees and a continuation of the suspension if the fine is not paid.
The allegations against Geo allegedly manoeuvred by the ISI through PEMRA include charges about Geo sponsored ‘Aman ki Asha’ that promotes peace between India and Pakistan. The allegation says that the program is an Indian agenda funded by a Norwegian NGO and has traces that reach Doordarshan. Geo TV has filed a suit against ISI, demanding a public apology and Rs 50 billion in damages.
This should show the Modi government and the Indian media that just talking to its elected leaders is not enough to bring peace at the Line of Control in Kashmir. If the Modi government plans to promote bilateral trade before a serious talk on Kashmir, it should also note that the elected governments, despite their promises, have not been able so far to reciprocate and grant the much-awaited MFN status to India.
Author/news analyst Ravi M Khanna is a former South Asia bureau chief of Voice of America who now does free lance reporting from New Delhi.
Feedback: ravimohankhanna@gmail.com
