The Ceasefire and Trump

We are in an unpredictable and probably unstable moment, but I want to start by passing on the note of extremely cautious but pleasant surprise shared in a lead article in Kolkata’s courageous newspaper, The Telegraph. 

Paran Balakrishnan writes of four developments that he thinks may have brought unexpected relief to the world. One, the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, which Trump in Washington, thousands of miles away from the scenes of battle, was the first to announce. Two, the U.S.-China tariff deal, swiftly reached in talks in Switzerland, even if the deal, though renewable, could expire in three months. Three, the suggestion that Russia and Ukraine could finally sit down for talks. Finally, a faint hint, encouraged by “a tenuous ceasefire” between the Americans and the Houthis, of indirect negotiations between the US and Iran.

Trump loves being unpredictable. And violating norms. He doesn’t seem to mind accepting the gift of a luxury jet worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the ruler of Qatar. He may not be immune to the lure of a Nobel peace prize. The Telegraph article, though, asks us to remember something else, which is “that Trump, for all his bombast, has shown a visceral discomfort with war and American casualties.” When pluses and minuses, admirable instincts and instincts that are not so impressive, are all added together, can the result be life-saving truces? Hardly the only question one should ask, but who will object if the answer is yes?

THE MODI SPEECH 

Next let’s look at India-Pakistan and at Narendra Modi. I heard the speech that Modi gave on May 12, following the ceasefire. Skilfully phrased (in Hindi), powerfully delivered, and accompanied by verbal and physical salutes he offered to India’s soldiers and airmen, the speech ended with a cry that Modi raised three times for Mother India’s victory, each time hitting the air with a clenched fist. As a political exercise (admirers will call it a patriotic exercise), it was probably brilliant. 

But there was nothing in the 22-minute speech, not even one word, about Trump or his role. More importantly, perhaps, there was no word for the people of Pakistan, or for the people of Jammu & Kashmir, where had taken place the murderous attack on tourists that invited India’s military action. Wasn’t the ceasefire address a chance for Modi to also reach at least some of the around 250 million who live in Pakistan, to let them know that India is not unaware of their existence, indeed of their hopes and fears?

As for Jammu & Kashmir, it is the people of that “union territory,” which until 2019 was a state of the Indian Union, especially those people of Jammu & Kashmir living along the borders of their territory, who, during the four-day conflict, saw more death and destruction than any other part of India or Pakistan. And it was Pahalgam in Kashmir that saw the painful killings which not only triggered the conflict but also supplied a huge blow to Kashmir’s economy. 

FERVOR ON BOTH SIDES 

I did not hear Pakistan’s post-ceasefire speeches but have read some of them on the net. The impression I get is that patriotism and fervor is as high in Pakistan as it seems to be in India. Pakistanis do not seem to reject their leaders’ claim that Pakistan “won” the four-day battle. Most Indians will similarly accept Modi’s assertion that Indian strikes compelled Pakistanis to seek a truce, although what will linger as a question mark is the fact that for nearly two hours after Trump announced the ceasefire, and well before the government of India confirmed it, the anchors of India’s television channels were expressing anger at the truce, and anger at the fact that the American president had announced it. 

Remarks by Trump and by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to the effect that India and Pakistan had agreed to talk to each other, including about Kashmir, sparked anger and protests in India. “Terrorism bred by Pakistan” was the only subject for discussion, Modi declared in his speech. 

I was intrigued, and part of me was pleasantly surprised as well, that in the Indian government’s public presentation of the conflict and the ceasefire, a prominent role was given to a Muslim woman, Colonel Sofiya Qureshi of the Indian Army. The fact that Col. Qureshi, as also others making the presentation, including the head of India’s foreign office, Vikram Misri, clearly and categorically said that India was a secular state (meaning that every Indian, whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, or anything else, is entitled to equal rights) sounded encouraging. For it seemed to indicate that the drive to turn India into a Hindu state was yet to achieve complete success. One of Col. Qureshi’s sentences read, “India is a secular nation, and our forces reflect our Constitutional values.” 

OPERATION “SINDOOR” 

By calling its military action “Operation Sindoor,” the Modi government wished, among other things, to underline the Pahalgam killings that sparked the conflict, when men were killed in front of their wives and children. Sindoor is the colored decoration on their hair’s parting which, by tradition, Hindu women remove when widowed. Although “Operation Sindoor” was therefore an emotive call, it may not have won a positive echo from everyone. Many of India’s Hindu women today, whether single or married, are not too comfortable with the symbolism of sindoor.

Although statements have been issued by New Delhi insisting that the ceasefire is provisional, and that resolute action will be repeated and intensified “if terrorism is resumed by Pakistan,” the stoppage of military activities seems genuine, as of now, on both sides.

It may take some time to know the extent and nature of Trump’s role in achieving the ceasefire, and the roles also of Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio. We should note that the Pakistani media assigns part of the credit also to the British foreign secretary, David Lammy. It is likely, moreover, that Saudi Arabia and the UAE contributed.

SAUDI ROLE

According to the Indian online portal thewire.in, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, spoke to the foreign ministers of both India and Pakistan, with the Saudi foreign ministry saying that the talks “focused on efforts to de-escalate tensions and end ongoing military confrontations.” There is the additional interesting fact that Saudi Arabia’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Adel Al-Jubeir, visited both New Delhi and Islamabad “on the directives of the leadership of Saudi Arabia.” A question therefore rises in my mind. Was there no connection between the Saudi minister’s visit and the deployment of Col. Qureshi? 

As I type these lines, Trump is in Saudi Arabia. In the circumstances, it seems legitimate to assume at least a modicum of consultation on the India-Pakistan conflict between Trump and the Saudis.

UNCONNECTED? 

My final point is this. Both Pakistan and India have yet to achieve integration in a nationwide or complete sense. The Balochistan insurgency in Pakistan, affecting the country’s largest, if also the least populated, province, and a province that abuts both Iran and Afghanistan, is a huge reality. Pakistan’s other “frontier” province, bordering Afghanistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, regularly witnesses what Islamabad calls “terrorist activities” and loss of lives and property. Indians may feel that Pakistan’s problems with regional separatism are more serious than India’s. Many Indians also think that the military runs Pakistan, even when, as is the case now, an elected civilian government is in office in Islamabad, though not without important questions about the imprisoned Imran Khan. But let us not forget that it is with the aid of large armed forces that India administers the union territory of J&K. Armed forces are similarly deployed in quite a few areas of India’s northeast, and in some parts of central India. Winning the trust and goodwill of those we call “our own people” and winning the trust of people in the neighboring country may not be, either in India or in Pakistan, unconnected exercises.