With a five year-ban on playing for Pakistan and a $3.65 million defamation suit slapped against him by the country’s cricket board chief, fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has his hands full, even by the standards of his tumultuous cricketing career.
 

Is this the end of the road for the pin-up boy of Pakistani cricket and one of the most recognisable figures of his country ? A tragic victim, at age 32, of his success, talent, fame and showmanship?
 
For many of us, there is no better sight in cricket than watching Shoaib steaming in to bowl, raw pace at its best and the crowds in a packed stadium behind him. The “Rawalpindi Express” crossed the 100 mile per hour speed barrier in the 2003 World Cup and there aren’t many in international cricket that quick.
 
This week as he arrived in India to play in an Indian Premier League after the Pakistani cricket board temporarily suspended the ban on him and the defamation suit was withdrawn following a public apology by Shoaib, the buzz was starting to pick up in the cricket-mad region.
 
For Shoaib, for all his indiscipline, late nights, missed training sessions and even a doping scandal, can still turn a match on its head and the crowds love it. His record of 178 wickets in 46 Tests and another 219 in 138 one-day internationals speaks for itself.  And all this, after he missed dozens of matches due to fitness or  disciplinary-related problems, the last straw being when he hit a teammate with a bat in South Africa.
 
One can only wonder what  the temperamental player could have achieved  if he simply had been more disciplined in his cricket.
 
For as they say no player is bigger than the game, and Shoaib has had his chances.
 

India, Pakistan and even tiny Sri Lanka have all ignored U.S. concerns, and have hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over the past two days. It is a fleeting visit with less than five hours scheduled in Delhi, but it seems like a carefully calibrated piece of diplomacy tiptoeing around the elephant in the room.
 
For, as relations go, India and Pakistan have become bound up with the United States in ways that would have been unthinkable not very long ago. Islamabad is a frontline ally in Washington’s war on al Qaeda and the Taliban, India a growing strategic partner with whom it is pushing a far-reaching civilian nuclear deal that gives it de facto recognition as a nuclear state.

So what’s this dance with Iran, accused by the United States of sponsoring terrorism and seeking to develop nuclear weapons ? Some of it is down to economics : Iran holds the key to India’s energy  insecurity, as a piece in the Asia Times argues.

With oil prices skyrocketing, India’s thirst for cheaper imported gas has acquired a greater urgency than before and if this means jumpstarting the 15-year-old proposal to pipe gas from Iran through Pakistan, now estimated to cost $7.5 billion, so be it. Pakistan too needs the natural gas to meet its growing energy demand, as also the millions of dollars it will earn in transit fees.

And if history is any lesson, the “pipeline of peace” could promote security in the region with the costs of a conflict between India and Pakistan that much higher.

But is there also a desire to assert or rather be seen to be asserting independence of action in hosting Ahmadinejad at a time when tensions are rising again over its nuclear ambitions ?

Pakistan has a new civilian government which has pledged to pursue a more independent course, including in the fight against al Qaeda, than followed by President Pervez Musharraf.

India’s government is under pressure from its communist allies who think it has gone too far in seeking warmer ties with America and risks losing its independence of action. In any case, New Delhi has been acutely sensitive of being seen as anything other than a fiercely independent nation.  

What of Sri Lanka ? Perhaps the island has had enough of lectures on human right violations and veiled threats to hold back assistance if it continues to seek a military solution to the insurgency by Tamil Tiger rebels. Iran will probably abjure such admonitions.    

In the comments on our blog earlier this month Pakistan: Breaking Down the Stereotypes one thing stands out – that people in Pakistan are tired of it being portrayed as a failed state and blame the western media for focusing too narrowly on suicide bombings rather than the achievements and attractions of the country.

You can read all the comments here and I am reproducing some below:

“Pakistan has always been portrayed in the media as a failed or dangerous country. In reality, this is totally absurd and false. The recent elections in Pakistan proves my point. They are progressive, they want peace and most of all they mean business.” - Posted by arif

“It is quite unfortunate that Pakistan has now become a synonym with suicide bombings and militancy, however, it is more than that. A thriving economy, booming telecom, construction , financial and IT market, Pakistan offers a lot more than what is on the news” - Posted by Kashif

“Pakistan is the best country in the world. It has everything. Beautiful country, beautiful people.. powerful military, fastest growing economy, best relations with other countries (other than communist India), awesome food.. what else does one need?” - Posted by Ahsan.

These comments encouraged me to put up the following video, mostly of the moutains in the north, which is one of the most popular videos of Pakistan on YouTube.  The accompanying music is a little bit dated, but photos are worth a look. I also e-mailed Waseem Khan Jadoon, who posted the video, to ask about it and he made the following comment:

“I uploaded this video because I want to show the world that we Pakistanis are not terrorists. Stop spreading propaganda against Pakistan especially western media. Promote peace and harmony in the world rather than hatism towards different religions and regions.”

Of course, as a journalist watching this video, I see not only my favourite part of the world, but also glaciers melting because of global warming; the divided former kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir, the potential for fights between India and Pakistan over water from Kashmir’s rivers; and the obvious tensions of an area that lies between India, Pakistan and China.

So are our commenters right that the media is too negative about Pakistan? Or are we simply trying to highlight the risks in the years ahead?

An economy growing at an average of 7 percent for six years now with a construction  and consumer boom, a rising middle-class that has just voted out a government, a free  press, a thriving fashion scene. Another emerging market star?

Yes, but this is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, better known these days for its  suicide bombings, a nuclear arsenal and labelled as  the epicentre of Islamist extremism including perhaps the last  redoubt of Osama bin Laden in the lands straddling the Afghan border. “Jihadistan” as one reader wrote on this blog.  

What is the reality ? Are there two Pakistans?  Is it really Pakistan: Now or Never ? Or is the image of Pakistan clouded by TV pictures of blood and gore in its  streets, feeding insecurities while shutting out  the important political, economic and social transformations that are underway in a nation of 150 million people.

Author William Dalrymple travels through the harsh scrublands of Sindh, home to  Kalashnikov-wielding landlords and honour killings, and then back up the Punjab and he  doesn’t find a country flirting with state failure or anything even approaching the  “most dangerous country in the world” as it has been so commonly branded in recent  months, right down to a group by that name on Facebook.

Instead, as he writes in the New York Review of Books, he found a countryside that “was  no less peaceful and prosperous than that on the other side of the Indian border”, and a far cry from the violent instability of post-occupation Iraq or Afghanistan. Pakistan’s cities are changing beyond recognition with shopping malls, expensive cars,  and a burgeoning fashion scene with gay designers and amazingly beautiful women, he says.

  And  capping all this is a middle class that grew almost out of nowhere in a country once  famously known as the land of 22 big feudal families, one of them the Bhuttos, for the  absolute political and economic power they wielded.  And it is this enriched and empowered urban middle class that has finally moved from their “living rooms onto the steets, from dinner parties to political parties,” Dalrymple writes, leading a lawyers’ movement that swelled into a full-scale pro-democracy campaign  that has arguably seen off a military dictatorship

Shades of India, the world’s most populous democracy? No, this is Pakistan, but then the world prefers its stereotypes simple. India successful, secular and forward-looking; Islamic Pakistan, a failure.   Are they really different, is it time to break down the stereotypes then?

India and Pakistan turn into good friends, and America is kept at arms’ length. Is that possible?

Diplomacy like politics is the art of the possible, and if you listen to the new voices emerging from Pakistan, there is change blowing in the wind as it makes the transition to civilian rule after nearly nine years of military leadership.

To stop the extremism and intolerance that is sweeping Pakistan, it must turn away from the Middle East and instead look to its east to rediscover a gentler, yet immensely vibrant heritage that took root in India through the centuries, Pakistan’s The News argued in an extraordinary editorial urging the country’s new leaders to respond to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh call to transform relations into the “best ever”.

“Despite all the attempts to deny this, the reality is that Pakistanis and Indians share a great deal in common — from cuisine to wedding traditions, and of course a great deal more. Rather than tearing ourselves away from this past, which is so much a part of our present, it should be warmly embraced,” it said.

To be sure, there is an element of rebound here and it’s more the fraying relationship with the United States that is driving Pakistan into the unlikely embrace of India, rather than any new-found love for its bitter rival, as the Daily Times said, warning that forging a new relationship with India while dumping America wouldn’t work.

“From the editorials written by the newspapers one comes to the conclusion that whereas the American nexus has become anathema, Pakistan’s good relations with India are a part of the new vision.” it said.

“Somehow, it is presumed that normalising with India will get rid of our problems at home. It is also assumed that getting rid of the American friendship and its implied slavery will benefit us on the basis of our earlier normalisation with India.” But taking on America would only damage Pakistan and give it less leverage in negotiations with India, it added.

On the other side of the border there are equally insistent voices calling for faster normalisation of ties. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is hoping to make a visit to Pakistan, a rare event by an Indian leader, at the earliest opportunity. The two sides are trying to put some agreements in place so that it doesn’t look like an image-building exercise, one for a new leader and another facing elections in India that could be as early as this November.

But of course, mirroring the sceptics across the border, there are voices of caution in India too. A day after Singh said he would try to transform relations with Pakistan, his security adviser M.K.Narayanan warned that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence continued to support militant groups that had carried out attacks in Kashmir and elsewhere in India.

And those with longer memories point out that the installation of a civilian government in Pakistan historically has not been a portent of improved bilateral ties, mostly because of the need for politicians to appear strong on national defence. As an army general President Pervez Musharraf was less vulnerable than civilian politicians on that issue. The Indians are aware of the history.

So is it going to be a real detente? Or are the neighbours condemned to uneasy ties, prisoners of history?

Former Indian deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani has just released his autobiography and he takes issue with President Pervez Musharraf for blaming him for being “the hidden hand” behind the failure of a 2001 summit between the two countries that ultimately led to a dangerous military stand-off before they talked peace again.

Though it’s seven years past, both Advani’s, and before him, Musharraf’s version of that summit with Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal, still makes for interesting reading. It offers a glimpse into the minds of two powerful men — one a Hindu nationalist leader and the other a military general — as they struggled to set aside the baggage of history and half a century of conflict and came close to making history themselves before courage deserted them. They eventually made their peace, partly brought on by circumstance including a dramatically different world after September 11, but also because the mis-steps of Agra were never far from the mind.

In excerpts from his book “My Country, My Life”, Advani says that in the summer of 2001, he proposed to Vajpayee that he invite General Musharraf for talks, to test the mind of the military ruler who did not carry any political baggage and seemed to be his own master in a country where democratically elected leaders had never exercised real power. The rare invitation to a Pakistani ruler to visit India went out, but what obviously the Indians had not bargained for, Advani suggests, was that the general arrived intending to rewrite India-Pakistan relations totally, and on his own terms.

So the summit against the backdrop of the Taj Mahal, whose beauty and symmetry the Indians hoped would soften the former commando, was doomed from the start. Kashmir, as always, remained the stumbling block. India wanted Pakistan to end what it called “cross-border terrorism” — code for Pakistani help to militants fighting to end Indian rule in Kashmir. The Pakistanis in turn, accused India of insincerity and of trying to obstruct any real attempt to tackle the problem at the heart of decades of hostility.

Musharraf says in his book, “In the Line of Fire”, that the two sides came close to an agreement. At one point he even went back to his hotel to change into his “shalwar kameez” ahead of the signing ceremony that had all been arranged, “down to the table and two chairs where we would sit”.

But the Indians backed out and a livid Musharraf let fly at Vajpayee during a farewell call in the dead of the night. “I met Prime Minister Vajpayee at about eleven o’clock that night in an extremely somber mood. I told him bluntly that there seemed to be someone above the two of us who had the power to overrule us. I also said that today both of us had been humiliated. He just sat there, speechless. I left abruptly, after thanking him in brisk manner.”

Most people knew Musharraf was pointing the finger at Advani, for long seen as the hardliner juxtaposed against the poet-politician Vajpayee. Advani himself says in his book that Musharraf was referring to him, but says the whole claim that he scuttled the summit was outrageous. Everyone in the Indian government was on board and agreed that there couldn’t be normalcy in relations until “cross-border terrorism” ended.

And which, Advani says, Pakistan, still led by the general, agreed to at a later summit in Islamabad in 2004. But by then the world had changed, especially Pakistan’s following the September 11 attacks.

Earlier this month, Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, said relations between India and Pakistan should not be held hostage to Kashmir.  The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the author’s alone.

The writer is Vice Chancellor of the Islamic University of Science & Technology, Kashmir. The views expressed in this article, however, are those of a private citizen.

By Siddiq Wahid

 Soon after hearing Asif Zardari’s statement on Kashmir, I received a two line mass-email from a friend in Delhi saying that an unnamed “senior journalist” in Pakistan was “surprised” at the reactions to it in Kashmir. ‘Why is everyone so agitated about this positive statement?” the journalist had asked. My friend in Delhi wondered if the recipients of the mail had any thoughts on this question. I responded, tongue in cheek, that Mr. Zardari seemed a good candidate for an invitation to the many symposia on Kashmir so that he could be educated on the subject. My friend responded that I should be more “generous”, given that Mr. Zardari had come across as “quite reasonable” in his television interview. My friend’s response caused me to read and think a little more about this controversy.

It is clear that reactions in Pakistan to Mr. Zardari’s statement have alternated between perfunctory objections to benign disregard amongst the power-set, largely because of the exposure of a simple political reality about nation-states, to which Pakistan is far from immune: self interest. This reality has emerged with progressive clarity for Kashmiris ever since the funeral of the cold war regime. Witness how the radical resistance that surfaced in Kashmir in 1989 was used with such brutal efficiency by all the parties to self-interest so that today it is an unrecognizable shadow of its former self. In the face of this, the Zardari statement is “no surprise”, as averred by Gul Mohammed of the University of Kashmir.

The history of the pursuit of such self-interest is not recent. In the mid-1960s, Indian and Pakistani diplomats famously kept referring, in private, to the Kashmir dispute as a ‘simple’ matter that could easily be resolved once Delhi and Islamabad put their minds to it. However, statecraft demanded rhetorical posturing and selective leveraging, and the J&K problem was conveniently at hand; Mr. Zardari’s statement is an ‘outing’ of this reality. But sixty years has thickly layered the Kashmir problem and the last two decades are an indication of how complex it has become; in the light of that, as Sheikh Showkat Hussain has put it, we must regard the statement as that of a “politically immature” person.

Politically immature perhaps, but it is also that of a money-wise savvy person. If we read between the lines, Zardari was merely being the consummate businessman. What he meant, although not put as crudely as I am about to, is this: ‘I am a businessman and well understand all the talk about exchange of goods across borders, etc. India is a big market for me, so let us leave messy confrontations like Kashmir for future generations to solve because they are untidy for the bottom line.’ And what happens afterwards? ‘We shall see. Things will not go as wrong as the Americans and Europeans think it will, because we are no less reasonable than they are when it comes to such things as the proliferation of armaments and nuclear confrontation. It is that simple.’

This is how Mr. Zardari’s statement needs to be understood in an immediate sense; that of a businessman and political novice. But more disconcerting is the “surprise” of the senior journalist in Pakistan to the angry reactions from the entire spectrum of political thought in Kashmir, from the radical resistance to mainstream politicians. It betrays a lack of understanding of the Kashmiri frustration, for what is missed is that they are not responding to Mr. Zardari’s comments of today but to sixty years of political poor governance, political obfuscation and moral abdication. The timing of the statement, its cavalier affordability and the muted reaction to it in Pakistan can only increase the trust deficit that exists in Kashmir not just towards New Delhi but, increasingly, towards Islamabad as well. This is not good news for the unending ‘peace process’. The continued decline in the trust quotient will result in radicalizing opinions (of all shades including political, ethnic and religious opinions) in various directions, not just in Kashmir but the J&K State in its entirety; again, not a very good legacy for “future generations”.

But another observation of Mr. Zardari’s deserves positive mention - that the rapprochement between India and Pakistan must not be held “hostage” to the Kashmir problem - in its message to Kashmiris. And herein is the problem with the some of the reported reactions to the Zardari statement in Kashmir. Many of them have argued as if the India-Pakistan relationship needs to be held hostage to the Kashmir problem. A. Gani Bhat of the Hurriyat (M) has said that India and Pakistan cannot “live with the tension” of the rivalry between them. Such reactions betray a somewhat dated approach to the problem on the one hand, and a lack of confidence with the fundamentals of the struggle on the other. Is there really any of the “tension” that Professor Bhat refers to? Let us admit it, there is not. India and Pakistan have had a tacit understanding for almost six years now that the Kashmir problem is holding both their countries back, and that it must be resolved without damaging either of their sovereignties. Similarly, Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s argument that “supporting the Kashmir cause is in [Pakistan’s] vital interest” is a position, we must admit, that was jettisoned by Islamabad long ago. Indeed it has concluded (at least since September 11, 2001) that Kashmir is undermining its national interest and threatening its own security.

The point I want to make here is that Kashmiris need to find arguments that are not dependent on fears about another India - Pakistan clash over Kashmir. That is to give legitimacy to Zardari’s accusation of hostage-taking. If Delhi and Islamabad want to be friends, it does not spell doom for Kashmir. To react as if it is does is to admit of no independent existence of the Kashmir conundrum outside of the nationalist egos of the two states. Surely this cannot be the argument in Srinagar. If Delhi and Islamabad don’t exploit emotions over Kashmir any longer, it is because making Kashmir a bone of contention no longer serves their national interests. No more, no less.

If there is a need to analyse the stated objections in Srinagar and Islamabad, there is also a need to do so with what has not been said in Delhi about Mr. Zardari’s insight. It reflects a very confident and self-assured India. Why is this so?  “Shining” India, after all, seems to have given way to an “emerging” one, a term that is appropriately apathetic given the width and depth of poverty, corruption and other malaise that afflict this complex mega-country. Delhi’s silence, it seems to me, is in part a direct reflection of the ubiquitous American presence in Southasia. Washington has long been pursuing a strategy of cascading imperialism whereby it seeks to identify regional allies, whom it assures of its essential support in return for furthering U.S. interests in the region. In Southasia it has identified India as its primary partner, as suggested by Nicholas Burns in a recent article in Foreign Affairs. As such, its task is to watch over Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and, putatively, Burma. It is also seen by Mr. Burns as an overseer for China in his advocacy, rather patronizingly, that India must “ensure that China’s rise is peaceful” and, beyond that, also “prevent the Muslim world from turning its back on modernity.”  Given these global tasks, Delhi need not sweat over off-the-cuff remarks of a political novice.

The negative reactions from across the political spectrum in Kashmir to Mr. Zardari’s statement should demonstrate one thing to Kashmir-watchers in Delhi and Islamabad: that the Kashmir conundrum has now become one that is independent of New Delhi and Islamabad. It is in this context that the statement of the PDP Patron, Mufti M. Sayeed, that, “We should not mislead ourselves about brushing the [Kashmir] issue under the carpet as was done on earlier occasions”, must be seen. In other words: civic, social and economic issues in Kashmir are important, but the Kashmir polity is no longer content with running a municipality and wants to debate the central issue of their perceptions of sovereignty, or the quantum of their role in governing themselves. It is an open assertion of the fact that local aspirations can no longer be ignored, that it is the denial of these aspirations that has created the problem.

Although the PPP Co-Chairman’s remark on Kashmir is the spontaneous reaction of a political lightweight, it is reflective of Pakistan’s strategic direction in the context of globalization, despite recent “clarifications”. It is this that needs to be analysed and understood in Kashmir. Mr. Zardari has only understood ten percent of the Kashmir problem, and will soon come to understand the rest. Meanwhile it is critical that the State’s Kashmiris, particularly its radical resistance, and its non-Kashmiri population, together evolve and agree on an approach that is less Islamabad or Delhi centric, and more J&K State centric. All the peoples of J&K, admittedly of divergent political views, will recognize and appreciate it.

Siddiq Wahid

Ladakh House

Srinagar

March 6^th, 2008