Subcontinental Drift

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Twice in 2001, General Pervez Musharraf had the opportunity to change the course of South Asian history. The first he let slip between his fingers; the second, he grabbed with both hands.

The first opportunity arose in July, when the Pakistani dictator accepted Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's invitation to talks in Agra. The trip raised hopes on both sides of the border. Pundits trotted out the perverse logic that a military general and the leader of a Hindu nationalist party had exactly the credentials and credibility to work out a lasting peace between the old enemies. In the run-up to their summit, Musharraf and Vajpayee both made the right kinds of noises about peace and trust. The general even displayed a hitherto unnoticed gift for public relations: he won over many Indians by visiting the Delhi neighborhood where he was born, meeting with the maid who had attended to him then, and handed the old woman a fistful of dollars.

In all the hoopla, nobody seemed to notice that the summit had no agenda at all. There had been no diplomatic preparations, no negotiations over what would be discussed or how far either side would go. This became painfully clear when the two men finally met in Agra: put simply, they didn't have a clue how to proceed. Almost reflexively, they retreated to the status quo, each blandly repeating the bromides their predecessors had issued hundreds of times before. Vajpayee said Kashmir was only one of the issues they needed to discuss; Musharraf said it was the only issue that mattered. The general then stormed off, returning to Pakistan a day early.

The dramatics seemed designed to win Musharraf, a moderate Muslim, brownie points with hard-liners in the Pakistani military and religious establishment who oppose any kind of deal with India. But at the end of the day his visit did nothing to bring the subcontinent any closer to peace. Musharraf and Vajpayee failed their respective peoples.

The only person who got anything out of the trip was the general himself: the invitation from Delhi gave him the legitimacy he had craved since his coup -- and a convenient excuse to name himself President. But in the aftermath of the Agra fiasco, the dictator looked more a straw man than a strongman, a weak ruler too beholden to (or just afraid of) hard-liners to effect any real change. Under his charge, Pakistan seemed doomed to keep spiraling downward, dragged to the depths of misery by religious fundamentalism and economic chaos.

Then came Sept. 11. When the United States called for a war against terrorism, Musharraf seized the day.

He would probably have won American gratitude (and the goodies that come with it) just by allowing U.S. bombers to fly over Pakistan to raid Afghanistan, and the use of a couple of air bases for logistics support. But, showing a gambler's instinct he had seemed to lack in Agra, he decided to do more than the bare minimum. He went much further, replacing hard-line officers with handpicked moderates, arresting the more egregiously fundamentalist Islamic clerics and, for a time, even curbing the activities of extremist Kashmiri militant groups based in Pakistan.

In return, Pakistan got billions of dollars in aid and debt write-offs -- not a moment too soon for a country on the verge of bankruptcy. Musharraf also got America's promise to remain engaged in Afghanistan and help Pakistan sort out the enormous problems that will inevitably follow the war.

Going forward, the general will need Washington to keep its word. If 2001 was a good year for Musharraf, 2002 could all too easily turn into a nightmare for Pakistan. The millions of Afghan refugees will stretch not only the country's economy but also its social fabric: many believe Pakistan betrayed their country and see Musharraf as a traitor to the Islamic cause. The thousands of Pakistani jihadis who fought side by side with the Taliban but fled home after the U.S. campaign began will remain susceptible to the fundamentalist clergy's call for holy war. Events of recent weeks suggest his ability to restrain militant Kashmiri groups is limited. In the months ahead, Musharraf will likely come under increasing Western pressure to return to negotiations with India over Kashmir.

But with a little luck, 2002 will present Musharraf another chance to do what he failed to in Agra: begin the process of peace in the subcontinent. Let's hope he takes that chance.

South Asian of the Year 2000: Karnam Malleshwari

South Asian of the Year 1999: Chandrababu Naidu