Peace with Pakistan

Pravin Sawhney

Pakistan army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa seems ready to pick up the conversation with India which was interrupted by Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s ouster in 2008. What’s more, he is happy to do so under Musharraf’s four-point formula on Kashmir. Very senior serving Pakistan army officer whom I met on the second day of the Islamabad Security Dialogue (ISD), which I attended as a speaker, said this to me in no uncertain terms.

Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa with Chinese President Xi Jinping

Interestingly, the previous day, Moeed Yusuf who was then still the national security advisor said the same thing in an informal interaction with me. According to him, the Musharraf formula could be the basis of bilateral interaction between India and Pakistan. Moeed has since resigned once the dissolution of the national assembly was ordered by the Pakistan President.

In his keynote address on April 2, Gen. Bajwa said that he wanted good relations with India because ‘Pakistan will benefit if we improve ties with India.’ Holding up the Line of Control as an evidence of Pakistan’s sincerity, Gen. Bajwa said that it ‘has been peaceful since a year’, a fact corroborated by the Indian army chief, Gen. M.M. Naravane on several occasions in the last few months.

‘Since Pakistan’s concern are its people, we want to put the money where the mouth is. Today, Pakistan stands on the crossroad of its economic and strategy goals. It has north-south connectivity (Pakistan to Afghanistan to Central Asian Republics and Russia). We want to build connectivity from east to west (India to Iran). This will increase trade and benefit Pakistan and the region. We want to move from geostrategy to geoeconomics and make Pakistan a modern and forward-looking country.’

To my question on how he intended to realise his vision, Gen. Bajwa said, ‘It is time (for India and Pakistan) to move on. Let us sit down and resolve our issues including Kashmir… We want development first’.

According to Gen. Bajwa, Pakistan military spends USD e