 Hello everyone. Welcome to another international relations capsule for the Shankar Academy. Today our topic is a former president, Harvest Musharraf, former president of Pakistan, who died recently in Dubai and was buried in Pakistan a few hours ago. We are discussing it because his whole legacy is being reexamined at this time. He has always been a controversial person in various ways in Pakistan itself. But today the controversy is not in Pakistan but in India. In Pakistan, they decided to bring his body back from Dubai, though he was in exile and buried him with military honors but without the presence of the president, prime minister or the chief of staff. So that chapter is closed. But in India, the discussion is whether he was a villain or a hero. This question is open because his period of tenure as the army chief starting from 1999 and then as president from 2001. He was a very distinguished military official. He was born in India before partition. And he was in Turkey as a young student and then joined the army in 1964 and rose in the hierarchy, but smartly and particularly. Till in 1999, President Nawaz Sharif appointed him as the chief of army staff on the top of several others who were equally competent and senior. And in 1999, he undertook an adventure against India without any provocation. It is not very clear who thought of the idea, but it was clear that the brain behind it was Nawaz Sharif. Parvez Musharraf who was the chief of the army staff and Nawaz Sharif who was prime minister was probably unaware of it. But Musharraf says in his book that it is a myth to think that he did it without taking the political leadership into confidence. That's all he doesn't elaborate. So it is not very clear whether it was with the support of Nawaz Sharif that he undertook this exercise. Which was basically to find a new route to Kashmir across the line of control and try to capture Kargil, which is a very important post on the Indian side of the line of control. And whether it was properly planned or not, it turned out to be a major war between India and Pakistan. And finally, of course, there are different claims as to who lost more lives, etc. We have done a lot of studies and we know that Indian soldiers were killed there. And still we refrain from entering the LOC on the Pakistani side. We tried to meet the threat from our part of the line of control. And therefore we got some kind of appreciation from many countries and particularly the United States, which for the first time in the question of Kargil supported India. Because it was Pakistan which has crossed the line of control and the United States has some commitment to the line of control. And therefore they considered Pakistan's action aggression, at least irregular action or whatever. And therefore, President Clinton summoned, as it were, called the Prime Minister in our story to Washington on a 4th of July, which is the national day of the United States. And engaged him for the whole day. In fact, he was also keen to be in touch with Prime Minister Vajpayee. Prime Minister Vajpayee declined to go to Washington because we don't want this kind of mediation. But President Clinton kept Prime Minister Vajpayee informed of the developments and what happened. And at the end of the day, he gave Nawaz Sharif an argument that the Pakistani troops withdraw behind the line to Pakistani territory on their side of the line of control. And without much trouble, Nawaz Sharif managed to get the army pulled back, even though the army was not very happy with it. Mushroff himself was not so happy. But this is what happened in Kabul. Kabul has been discussed in great detail. We have done a study as to what his implications were. It was a major war in India and Pakistan. And there was no doubt that the man behind this adventure or misadventure was Mushroff himself. Then we know that in October 1999, Mushroff dismissed as army chief while he was traveling from a visit to Sri Lanka, coming back to Pakistan. And his plane was not allowed to land. And it was asked to move out of the Pakistani airspace urgently. This was the message that he received in the plane. And he didn't understand why it was so. But he managed to contact his generals on the ground and prepared rather safe landing for him. And he landed and that was a big provocation that Nawaz Sharif had tried to dismiss him or even kill him. And as a consequence of this particular incident, or at least as an excuse, Mushroff took over. He staged a military coup. It was a bloodless coup because he didn't have to kill anybody. But he arrested Nawaz Sharif and took over charge. For some time he ruled as a, there was no martial law or anything. He was not worried about backlash because the army was with him. And then he suspended the constitution and went through several steps. In 2001, he became the president of Pakistan. And he had a certain legitimacy because it was under the constitution that he assumed office. And then something very strange happened that Mushroff for some reason or the other decided to stage a peace initiative with India. This is a bit mysterious because we do not know what prompted him to suggest various proposals to resolve the Kashmir issue and to become friendly with India. This is where the contradiction is because as a champion of Kargil and as someone who tried to fight a war with India, suddenly becoming a peace, proposing a peace initiative. And we know that there was a meeting with Prime Minister Vaishwari in Agra in 2001. And the two sides discussed various things, various possibilities of peace between the two countries. This was preceded by backdoor, backstage negotiations between diplomats on both sides and there were some proposals there also. So always put together, he made a very major push to persuade Mr. Vaishwari to agree to some kind of an agreement. A draft declaration was suggested and they came to a point of agreeing on that. Because the details are still not very clear. The whole idea was to change the story as far as the Kashmir issue is concerned. To open up the issue because it is frozen in the context of India claiming very strongly that this is a particular part of India and Pakistan has nothing to do with it. It was constitutionally legally part of India and therefore Pakistan had no real say in negotiation. There was no negotiating point as such. What he wanted to do was perhaps to open out this for further discussions because we agreed to discuss Kashmir only in the context of terrorism, not in the context of its status. The status as well as we are concerned. Yomo and Kashmir is part of India and that's all there is no further question on this. So he tried generally to get around to this by opening up now some new proposals. And then he put forward the famous four point formula for Kashmir which totally went against all that had happened till then. It goes against the question of India's sovereignty over Yomo and Kashmir etc. He wanted areas to be identified as areas which needed attention and then have some kind of a different administration. That is Pakistanis, Indians and Kashmiris jointly administering these territories which is far away from the position of India and also to keep the borders open. And all this was tried but the last minute India rejected it. Another effort was made by the president and it was again rejected and Mushara was rather disappointed. And later of course there were many developments in Pakistan itself. So he reinstated the constitution elections became president then 2007. He had a quarrel with the judiciary and in 2008 his policy is a party totally failed. And he had a lot of difficulties and he eventually resigned as president in 2008. So he again tried to become the president through a new political party all Pakistan Muslim League. But in 2013 a Pakistani court disqualified him and he was arrested in 2013 on charges that he had a hand in the murder of Benazir Bhutto. And so the Bhutto assassination he was considered a conflict. But and also he was sentenced to death for height reason by a court in Pakistan. And but he was allowed to leave the country because he was not safe and so he has been living in Dubai since then. He could not return to Pakistan. And there he was very ill and he passed away. It was not very clear whether his body would be brought back to Pakistan because he was exiled in a sense, and also he was a criminal. But contrary to general expectation, he was allowed to be brought back. He had only army owners and the civilian government would participate in that and there ended the story of Musharraf. So he was controversial in many ways, the way he became chief and he became president and he tried to manipulate the constitution and then finally had a face off with the judiciary. He tried to damage the judiciary, but that was not possible and eventually he was exact. So that was the end of the story. But now the question arises as to what was the nature of his presidency. This is particularly because some of our political leaders, you know, referred to him in some glowing terms as it were. He recognized that he was an enemy of India. There was no question about it. Argil was really his creation and therefore there is no way we can consider him to be a friend of India. But some people felt that his efforts to make peace with India and Kashmir and the efforts in Angra to bring up some new proposals made him a power for peace. And therefore he could be considered not a friend, but at least he was reasonable with India. But this is rather strange because I do not think that there was any justification for us to think in terms of being friendly to India, except for that particular situation when he tried to bring about some positive change in India-Pakistan relations. But if you look at the proposals that he put forward and tried to promote in Agra, hoping that Prime Minister Vajpayee would agree, they were fraught with dangers. It was not at all in the interest of India to have changed the situation and it was foolish of him to think that this would be accepted by India. He expressed great disappointment. He put the blame on some of the Indian officials for sabotaging it, etc. And the only justification for such effort was the fact that tracked two discussions between India and Pakistan officials and made some suggestions on the line that his proposals were put forward. So to think that he then only tried for peace in Pakistan in the percussion room. And therefore he could be considered a favorable figure in the history of Pakistan. He's a little skewed and there seems to be no justification for it. He would continue to be a controversial character in the history of Pakistan and also he will study all his activities and actions. He will certainly be considered numerical to India like all other leaders and army chiefs in Pakistan. But there is a certain love-hate relationship between India and Pakistan because we are the same people, we are adversarial in nature, but in many ways we feel comfortable with Pakistani leaders and Pakistani diplomats even when they are very adamant on their differences with them. But socially Indian diplomats get on well with Pakistani diplomats abroad because of the cultural linkages, music and general common history of the past etc. So similarly we also have the tendency to look at Pakistani leaders with certain amount of consideration because the Pakistani leaders are generally very sophisticated and they put on an air of friendliness and informal interaction etc. General Zia was perhaps the most hardened anti-Indian chief of army staff. But even he, if you read writings by journalists or the so-called peace nicks in India who want to negotiate peace with Pakistan, they always talk about him as a very charming, friendly, courteous man. We would walk up to the car when Indian politicians visit him and this kind of some kind of an artificial born homie was created by some of these generals in the past. And they are quite westernized and army of course, many of them have worked with our senior military officials and there is some amount of probability. But even Imran Khan who was a great friend of India, millions of fans in India, he did not raise a little finger to change the situation. And therefore on a personal network or on a personal impression for each other, such problems cannot be solved. We have learned that. And that is why Prime Minister Mair Anuram Modi after he made all these efforts soon after he became Prime Minister, invited the South Asian leaders, speaking to the Pakistani Prime Minister and sending gifts for his mother and even attending a wedding in the Navashri family. All these were very warm gestures on the part of Prime Minister Modi. But after the Mumbai attack, things changed completely. And he went back to the original position that India held that we shall have no negotiations with Pakistan till Pakistan abandoned terrorism as a state policy. This is the firm belief of the present Prime Minister and the government. The same position was held even during Dr. Manmohan Singh's time, but often not talks were held formally and informally to see whether there is any possibility of assuming the negotiations. But now Prime Minister Modi has put a halt to all that. And he firmly holds the view that we learn nothing to do with terrorism and terrorism. That's a very firm position we have today. And that is why, even though at the time of the pandemic we called a meeting of Sark, it did not take off as Pakistan is interested on discussing Kashmir and the meeting was called for dealing with the pandemic. So there is no way of considering all these statements and positions taken by them in good faith, not at all. No Pakistan leader has put forward any proposal. They made proposals like no war pact, South Asia as a nuclear weapon for his own. All these sound very reasonable to outsiders. But if you look at them, you will find that they were all various tricks to somehow change the situation on the Kashmir issue. So there is no doubt that Musharraf should be considered a hero in India. And that has been very clearly mentioned by those in the government as well as in the opposition. So with his contribution to the Pakistan peace is negligible. He made a very sincere effort for no reason, maybe to serve his own purposes and not to resolve the issue or to give any concession to. So that is what we need to remember when we make an assessment of his contribution. He was impressive in many ways, very stylish. He enjoyed a scotch, not in public, he had dogs, generally a tolerant machine. That is the image that he gets physically. The fact that he was born in India was also, you know, highlighted. And he wanted his birth certificate which is given to him by the Prime Minister. So all these gestures and so on went on. But basically having been in the orbit of Kargil and later trying to hook India into new proposals on Kashmir, he would certainly judge him not as a friend of India, but as someone who was very clever and tried to do various things with his own people and also with India. And he met a tragic end, but massively he died in his bed. He had four assassination attempts against him by the terrorist groups inside Pakistan. And he survived all that and he was able to die in peace in Dubai and he was buried in Pakistan in spite of all this has happened. And we should be able to close that chapter with that kind of a judgment. Our policy is not to negotiate unless they give up their inimical and definitely their agenda is to destroy India. That is their agenda because they are very weak, too weak for that, but they have nuclear weapons and so on. So there's no question of any kind of peace with Pakistan unless they stop terrorism, which they are not willing to do. So on what basis can we negotiate? As far as we are concerned, what we want is recognition of young and Kashmir as an integral part of India, which they are not willing to do. So they're trying to do various things, some of which we ourselves have considered, but none of them were as practical enough. And now because you know that the present government has also said that any solution will mean also return of Pakistan occupied Kashmir to India. And then Article 370, you know. So the situation has become very rigid and I see no possibility of any peace negotiations at this stage. Thank you very much.