INDIA CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC AFTER PAKISTAN GENERAL ELECTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 NEW DELHI 000542

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/20/2018
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PTER, PINR, PBTS, MOPS, KDEM, KISL, PK, IN
SUBJECT: INDIA CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC AFTER PAKISTAN GENERAL
ELECTION

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Classified By: PolCouns Ted Osius for Reasons 1.4 (B, D)

1. (C) SUMMARY: Initial Indian reaction to Pakistan
elections has generally focused on the political pressure
facing President Musharraf in the wake of his party's
defeat, with the GOI maintaining its low-key approach to
events across the border. In the 24 hours following the
election, Indian officials stressed India's desire for
stability in the bilateral relationship. Throughout the
election season, GOI officials have indicated that New
Delhi intends to go about business as usual regardless of
who is in power in Islamabad. Signaling Delhi's desire to
continue the positive trend in the relationship, the GOI
will schedule the fifth round of Composite Dialogue talks
with Pakistan in March, as it pursues several
technical-level dialogues on naval cooperation,
civil-aviation, prisoner exchanges, and improving trade
relations. Indian analysts remain mistrustful of President
Musharraf's intentions towards India, while the GOI points
to a three-year thaw in Indo-Pak relations in the
post-2002, Musharraf dominated era. In pre-election
discussions, no Pakistan observers in India expected
imminent progress in the border disputes in Siachen, Sir
Creek or Kashmir, and warned that any Pakistani success in
quelling its own insurgency in the North-West may increase
terrorist infiltration from Pakistan into India.
Progressive improvements in bilateral economic trade and
people-to-people exchanges are cited in India as the two
most hopeful augurs of positive change between the two
nations. (Septel will report on the Prime Minister and
National Security Advisor's reactions to Pakistani
elections.) END SUMMARY.

INDIA CLOSELY, QUIETLY WATCHES PAKISTAN ELECTIONS

2. (C) News of President Musharraf's PML-Q party's defeat
in national assembly polls has been closely followed in
India, with initial public reaction praising the defeat of
the "King's Party" as a victory for democracy amid varied
speculation on how Musharraf and the new coalition will
interact. As of mid-day February 20, the GOI had yet to
make any official statement, continuing a policy of
discretion in order to avoid any accusations of
interference in Pakistan's internal affairs. Still,
Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma,
reiterating Delhi's policy of supporting the process over
personalities in Pakistan, responded to news of election
results by saying "Pakistan is our neighbor. We want peace
and stability in the region. India shares a special
relationship with Pakistan." A senior MEA official who
wished to remain anonymous was quoted as saying "Stability
in Pakistan is a must for the entire region. Let us hope
democracy is strengthened in Pakistan." National Security
Advisor M.K. Narayanan told visiting CODEL Biden on
February 20 that Pakistan's stability was crucial for the
region regardless of who runs the government.

3. (C) At a lunch for CODEL Biden, former Indian High
Commissioner to Pakistan G. Parthasarthy stressed the
importance of "breaking the nexus between the Pakistani
army with its corporate interests and the Islamists."
Former Foreign Secretary Maharajakrishna Rasgotra stated
his hope that the victorious parties will not seek to

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humiliate President Musharraf. "The Army won't accept
that," he asserted.

4. (C) Op-ed pieces varied predictably from describing the
election as a victory for Pakistani democracy to warning
that the lack of an overwhelming majority for the
opposition left Musharraf with "maneuvering room" to
maintain his relevance. Other opinion pieces predicted a
coming power struggle between Musharraf and the PPP/PML-N
coalition, and beyond that, internal conflict between Nawaz
Sharif and the Bhutto family, fraught with anxiety about
the possibility of the Pakistani army stepping once more
into the fray to retake power. Several analysts were
comforted that the umbrella party of Islamic fundamentalism
- the MMA - was soundly defeated by the secular Awami
National League (ANL) in the North West Frontier Province
(NWFP),seeing this as a hopeful movement towards peace and
away from fanaticism. But one theme that emerged from
Indian analysts was that no matter who is in power in
Islamabad, New Delhi will have no choice but to deal with
him - or her. In the days leading up to the election,
contacts described steps India expects to take to
positively engage with the new Pakistani government.

PRE-ELECTION INDO-PAK RELATIONS TRENDING POSITIVELY:

5. (C) Pakistan's election comes amidst what Delhi
perceives as a positive trend in relations. Although the
fifth round of Composite Dialogue Talks, the high-level
mechanism for conflict resolution discussions between the
two countries, was originally scheduled for December 2007,
it had to be postponed to a date to be determined as a
result of the state of emergency imposed by President
Musharraf, MEA Deputy Secretary G. Balasubramanian
(Pakistan) told PolOff on February 15. However, he cited
several parallel interactions between the two governments
as evidence that lower-level dialogue was alive and well:

- Pakistan and India wrapped up a two-day bilateral
Civil Aviation conclave in Islamabad on February 15,
resulting in an agreement to increase the number of weekly
flights between their countries from 12 to 28, and adding
Chennai and Islamabad as destinations.

- Accepting an Indian invitation, Pakistan sent a
representative to the New-Delhi hosted Indian Ocean Naval
Symposium (IONS) February 14 - 15. The two-day symposium
gathered naval chiefs of approximately 30 littoral states
of the Indian Ocean, as an Indian initiative to promote
cooperative engagement in the entire region.

- On February 5, the Pakistani and Indian
government-funded and supported defense-analysis think
tanks signed a memorandum of understanding enabling regular
contact. According to press statements made by the Indian
Institute Director Narendra Sisodia, the MOU signed by
Pakistan's Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS) and
India's Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis (IDSA)
would "establish direct academic and scholarly ties...and
conduct of joint scholarly conferences, seminars and
round-tables." This new arrangement is intended to include
hosting of each other's scholars and enable open
discussions between experts from both countries on security

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issues, something which in the past has happened only
haphazardly at international fora.

INDIA FORESEES THE BILATERAL RELATIONSHIP CONTINUING TO
IMPROVE

6. (C) Balasubramanian noted to PolOff prior to the
February 18 elections that India and Pakistan will schedule
the next round of talks for the Composite Dialogue sometime
in March, 2008. He added that on February 21-22 New Delhi
will host technical-level bilateral discussions on
expanding passenger bus connections between Indian and
Pakistani cities such as New Delhi and Lahore.

7. (C) Wilson John, Pakistani affairs analyst at the New
Delhi think-tank Observer Research Foundation, told PolOff
February 12 that he sees no concrete political progress on
the horizon with Pakistan regardless of the election's
outcome, especially not on the hotly disputed issues of
Kashmir and Siachen glacier. He speculated that the
current UPA government will not risk looking soft on
Pakistan in an election year, which will preclude New
Delhi from making any concessions or major commitments
within the year. Speculating on the possibility of a new
BJP-led government, John mused that L.K. Advani would
likely rescue Indo-Pak ties from the status quo by
resurrecting the conciliatory initiatives taken by former
NDA Prime Minister Vajpayee in the late '90s.

SKEPTICISM TOWARDS PAKISTANI EXTREMISTS ALIVE AND WELL

8. (C) Dr. Ajay Behera, Pakistan scholar from Jamia Millia
Islamia University, asserted during a lecture on February
12 that Pakistan's internal political structure has become
so unstable under Musharraf's leadership that the next
Pakistani administration will be too preoccupied with
trying to stamp out rebellion and unify the country to
concentrate on its external politics. At the same
lecture, General (retired) Afsir Karim, counter-terrorism
expert and former chief commander of Jammu & Kashmir
troops, underlined that India must remain alert and prepare
its security forces to combat further waves of jihadist
infiltrators and terrorists, which he predicted will enter
India in increasing numbers in the wake of Pakistan's
rapidly deteriorating internal security crises in the FATA
and NWFP. Balasubramanian opined to PolOff that the
security situation in Pakistan "is like a balloon - if the
Pakistani security forces advance on insurgents in the
North-West, those insurgents will instantly pop up
elsewhere - we worry that it will be in Kashmir." India's
former spymaster Vikram Sood wrote in a January 29 op-ed
that it would be nave to accept Musharraf's olive branch
of peace to India as sincere when he "spent his entire
adult life plotting, planning and executing schemes to undo
India, and referred to India as an enemy country in
2006."

"CAUSE FOR CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM"

9. (C) Both Karim and Commodore Uday Bhaskar (Deputy
Director, IDSA) proclaimed at the lecture that the
appearance of grass-roots protests by educated Pakistanis
and lawyers against Musharraf was "cause for cautious

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optimism," and that civilian clamor for reform was and will
continue to be the most hopeful phenomenon taking place in
Pakistan. Wilson John emphasized enhanced people-to-people
contact between the two neighbors as a catalyst for
positive changes in the relationship, citing exchanges of
writers, intellectuals and artists. He singled out
economic trade as another area of potential for increased
cooperation and concrete achievement between Pakistan and
India.

10. (C) Balasubramanian related that the GOI has great
hope for the potential of trade to improve the bilateral
relationship. He noted that, though Islamabad has yet to
reciprocate India's offer of Most Favored (trading) Nation
(MFN) to Pakistan, it has been enlarging its list of
unprotected tariff items, a trend welcomed in
Delhi. Pointing at the success of the bilateral decision
to open, for the first time since Partition, the
Wagah/Attari land-border for truck-borne cargo in October
2007, he divulged that the GOI and the GOP are now
considering implementing an integrated checkpoint system
(ICP) to facilitate movement of cargo containers across
the border. The second area Balasubramanian identified as
having great potential for positive movement in relations
was improving reciprocal consular arrangements between
India and Pakistan. He related that India would host a
meeting of bilateral judicial committees on February 25-27
to continue work on resolving prisoner repatriation
disputes and to facilitate improved access to prisoners.
He was less hopeful on the possibility of progress on
border-dispute issues, but remarked, "irrespective of
election results, India will deal with whatever government
is in place with Pakistan," noting that many working
bilateral mechanisms for dialogue were in place, and that
forward movement on negotiations was "an irreversible
process."

COMMENT: INDIA VIGILANT, CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC

11. (C) COMMENT: The bottom line for the GOI appears to
be a desire to work with the new government to maintain the
stability which has entered the bilateral relationship.
India's public reaction has been generally positive and has
focused on the fact that Pakistan seems to have conducted a
reasonably free and fair election. Many Indians are still
very skeptical of what the future holds for Pakistan,
noting that Musharraf or the army still have the option of
stepping forcefully back into power if they feel threatened
by the winning coalition, or if the coalition itself
dissolves in bitter acrimony. The final year of the UPA
administration is unlikely to witness any risky effort to
forward further rapprochement with Pakistan. India's
posture is certain to be one of extreme caution, and an
overwhelming desire not to cause any problems for
Pakistan's leadership as they work to quell the jihadi
challenges. END COMMENT.
MULFORD