Pakistan’s former president Pervez Musharraf
The period from 1998 has been one of upheavals in the regional political situation in South Asia.
The tit-for-tat nuclear tests were followed the Lahore peace initiative by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.
But the Kargil incursion and the military coup that followed in Pakistan dashed the hopes of peace. Pervez Musharraf, the man known as the architect of Kargil war, became the President of Pakistan. Diplomatic ties soon went to low ebb.
While tensions continued till 2001, despite failed attempts at peace like the Agra Summit, the 9/11 terror attacks on the US further altered the regional strategic equations.
Pakistan, which harboured terrorists and gave support to cross-border infiltration in Kashmir, became an overnight frontline ally of US in its war on terrorism.
Despite India’s attempts to be equally cooperative with US in the war efforts in Afghanistan, Pervez Musharraf managed to be the most important partner of the US in the region.
Pakistan’s geo-strategic position was not something India could match in the war against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime.
However, the US realization about the dangers of terrorism benefited India in a different way because Washington soon began to condemn terrorism in all its forms.
Though all sides deny a ‘third party’ involvement, the US was instrumental in defusing the tensions stemming from military build-up after the December 13, 2001 attacks on Indian Parliament by Pakistan-supported terrorists.
During the stand-off, the global focus shifted to South Asia and there were unprecedented, frequent visits to the region by the US Administration officials.
The tensions, significantly, were followed by Vajpayee’s offer of the ‘hand of peace’ and the subsequent civilian and government-level interactions and exchanges.
By 2003, the Composite Dialogue Process started between the two countries and there was considerable decrease in the cross-border infiltration from Pakistan. What could take for other rivals some decades to solve, India and Pakistan seemed poised to solve in five years at that time.
One wonders if these overwhelming, epochal events in such short span of time, moving from extreme confrontation to active peace process, was possible without the watchful eyes of the US.
Notably, such major political trends in the region had a ‘mirroring effect’ on the Indian diaspora.
The diaspora was active in campaigning against Pakistan in the US during the height of crises. But when the rapprochement started, the immigrant organisations ‘mirrored’ it so much so that the Indians and Pakistanis in US held Independence Day marches together. But the bonhomie was soon over with the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008.
South Asian America 