What an Indian
Diplomat Thinks About Chaudhry Shujaat
By
G. Parthasarathy
DURING
THEIR recent visit to Pakistan, Indian Members of Parliament warmly
embraced and shook hands with the President of the ruling Pakistan
Muslim League (Q) Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain who was Interior (Home)
Minister in the Nawaz Sharif Government.
Chaudhry
Shujaat broke ranks with Mr Sharif and spearheaded the movement
to establish the PML(Q), with due encouragement and support from
General Pervez Musharraf and the ISI. He was a leading aspirant
for the post of Prime Minister in the Musharraf dispensation,
but had to settle for his cousin Chaudhry Parvez Elahi being appointed
the Chief Minister of Punjab, while he became the leader of the
PML(Q). He is now one of General Musharraf's closest political
cronies.
Even as our parliamentarians were bending backwards to meet Chaudhry
Shujaat, he had some interesting things to say about relations
with India. He proclaimed: "Running buses, trains and exchange
of cultural delegations between the two countries cannot buy peace
without a resolution of the core issue of Kashmir. Peace in this
region can be achieved only when the core issue (of Kashmir) is
resolved to the satisfaction of the wishes of the Kashmiri people."
Put
bluntly, Chaudhry Shujaat was disowning the Simla Agreement that
requires all issues including Kashmir to be resolved peacefully
and bilaterally and threatening recourse to war if Pakistan's
ambitions on Kashmir were not fulfilled. All this was happening
when our Parliamentarians led by Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav were talking
about the need to "demolish the wall of hatred".
There is little doubt that hardly any of our parliamentarians
knew about the backgrounds of their interlocutors. If they had
done their homework properly, they would have known that Chaudhry
Shujaat and his family have been part of a network in Pakistan,
backed by the ISI, that has been at the very epicenter of efforts
to fan separatism and terrorism in Punjab. Both Shujaat and his
late father Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi were part of this network set
up by General Ziaul Haq.
Incidentally, Pakistani moves to fan Sikh separatism in Punjab
picked up momentum shortly after the visit of the then Indian
Foreign Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to Pakistan in 1978.
Virtually all important separatist Sikh leaders from abroad like
Jagjit Singh Chauhan and Ganga Singh Dhillon enjoyed the personal
hospitality of the family of Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi during their
visits to Pakistan.
Even today, this Pakistani infrastructure of terrorism plays host
to wanted terrorists from Punjab linked to organizations like
the Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth
Federation that were involved in the assassination of former Punjab
Chief Minister Beant Singh. This infrastructure extends to ISI
cells in Pakistani missions abroad that incite persons running
gurdwaras to keep alive the call for "Khalistan".
At a recent meeting that I had with a group of prominent Pakistanis
in a South Asian capital, a close associate of General Musharraf
bluntly remarked that if India believed that it could ignore differences
with Pakistan and move ahead economically, his country would have
no difficulty in taking steps to retard India's economic progress.
A few years ago a former Director General of the ISI remarked
to me that Pakistan would see to it that the jihad in Kashmir
would draw support from Muslims all across India. This was in
response to an assertion by me that Muslims in India were proud
of the secular ethos of their country.
It is important to bear these factors in mind while assessing
the challenge that Pakistani policies pose to India. Pakistani
ideologues, especially in their Punjabi-dominated armed forces
establishment, believe that they are the true inheritors of the
Mughal throne in Delhi. Like the Mughals, their concept of 'Hindustan'
ends with the Vindhya Mountains. A former ISI Chief actually told
me that he did not regard me to be "Hindustani" because
my hometown Chennai was south of the Vindhya Mountains!
Terrorist acts like bomb blasts in Mumbai, the attack on the Red
Fort and Parliament in Delhi and on the Akshardham temple in Gujarat
have to be seen and understood in the context of this Pakistani
mindset. Assertions by General Musharraf and his sidekick General
Aziz Khan that low intensity conflict and tensions with India
will continue even if the Kashmir issue is resolved merely reflect
this mindset. They strongly believe that India must be weakened
and divided and its secular and pluralistic ethos undermined at
all costs.
The 1993 Bombay bomb blasts were personally approved by then Prime
Minister Sharif and executed by his fundamentalist ISI Chief General
Javed Nasir, who now heads the so-called Pakistan Gurdwara Prabhan-dak
Committee (PGPC). The main function of the PGPC is to incite Sikh
pilgrims from India visiting their holy shrines in Nankana Sahib
and elsewhere in Pakistan.
Less than a week after the Lahore summit, Javed Nasir was spreading
a message of poison and hatred against India and Hindus to a group
of Sikh pilgrims visiting the holy shrine of Nankana Sahib. Nasir
belongs to a fundamentalist group called the Tablighi Jamaat that
is patronized by the Sharif family. Sectarian groups like the
Tablighi Jamaat and the Ahle Hadis are used to spread fundamentalism
and separatism among Muslim minorities abroad, including in India.
Fundamentalist outfits like the SIMI that was founded in 1977
have close links with these Pakistani sectarian organizations
Saudi Arabia serves as a convenient and hospitable venue for such
activities.
What the military establishment in Pakistan is today engaged in
is nothing short of an attempt to undermine the very basis of
a united, secular and pluralistic India. This is not an effort
that can be diluted by candlelight vigils at the Wagha border,
or sentimental reminiscing about our common culture and values.
Sadly, very little effort is made to educate public opinion in
India about these realities. We are instead fed with daily diets
about how one or another "peace initiative" is about
to bring instant success, merely because of sentimental outpourings
over the surgery of Baby Noor, or the witticisms and profound
wisdom of some of our parliamentarians and journalists visiting
Pakistan and interacting with the likes of Chaudhry Shujaat.
The relationship with Pakistan will normalize only when its people
are made to realised that their military establishment is leading
the country to ruin and disaster. That effort will require consistency
and a sense of national will and purpose, even while keeping the
doors to contacts and dialogue open.
Pakistan will spare no effort to undermine us in every possible
manner. But we would do well to remember that it was able to exploit
the situation in Punjab only after political parties there espoused
and adopted policies that sought to promote separatism and exclusionism.
The Pakistani effort to undermine communal harmony in Punjab failed
because of the bonds of Hindu-Sikh unity and brotherhood.
Pakistan exploited disaffection in Kashmir following what many
young Kashmiri politicians believed were flawed elections in 1987
and the abject surrender of the VP Singh Government to extortionist
demands by Kashmiri terrorists in December 1989. Pakistan exploited
communal tensions in India in 1993 and after the Gujarat communal
carnage last year to incite and assist disaffected Indians to
resort to terrorism. It is true that there is no justification
whatsoever for resort to terrorism. But, is it not time for our
political parties to vow not to repeat their past mistakes and
follies?
The
writer is a former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan. - Courtesy
The Pioneer
