Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview With Sumit Ganguly
Aired January 19, 2002 - 09:18 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Pakistani and Indian leaders this week trying to ease tensions between the two nuclear neighbors. Just how important is this to the Bush administration? Well, here to talk about that is Sumit Ganguly, professor of Asian studies at the University of Texas in Austin.
Good to have you with us, professor.
SUMIT GANGULY, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: Secretary of State Powell, as he left that trip, said, "We are on a path that will take us where we want to go." Is that diplomatic rhetoric, or is that for real?
GANGULY: Well, the next few days and weeks will reveal whether it's real or not. Obviously it's in his interest to put the best possible gloss on his trip and say that we are, indeed, on the path to reconciliation. But it's really the actions the two sides take over the next few days and weeks that will enable us to ascertain if indeed we are on the path to de-escalation of tensions in the region.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's go through it. Actions you expect to see or would hope to see if the path is toward peace, let's start with Pakistan first.
GANGULY: To begin with, I think General Musharraf, it would be in his interest to hand over the 14 individuals out of the 20 that India has sought and has accused of a variety of crimes, including terrorist acts going back as far as 1993 to the bombing of the Bombay Stock Exchange.
The 14 of these -- out of these 20 individuals are Indian citizens, so certainly General Musharraf can hand them over if India produces even a shred of evidence that links them to the various crimes that they have been accused of. I think that would be an extraordinary salutary step on his part.
O'BRIEN: There's a few suppositions, though, in that, and that is, number one, that Pakistan knows where these 20 are, and number two, can, in fact, apprehend them.
GANGULY: There is little question that Pakistan knows where these individuals are, because even Pakistani magazines, let alone official spokesmen, have pointed out that many of them have been wandering around scot-free within Pakistan. There's a respected Pakistani magazine called "Newsline" which pointed out that several of these individuals were living happily in Karachi, a Pakistani city.
So it's not as if Pakistan's military authorities are unaware of their whereabouts.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's talk about India. What does India need to do now? It seems as if they're in a position now where they're sort of sitting back and waiting for Musharraf to do things.
GANGULY: That's exactly right. I think what the Indians are going to do is, they're going to wait and see if any of these individuals are handed over, and also, simultaneously, they will watch the border very, very closely, both the international border and, more importantly, the line of control, the working boundary in Jammu and Kashmir, the disputed state between India and Pakistan, to see if infiltration is still taking place from Pakistan.
This is well established. It's not a matter of conjecture but a matter of fact that a number of these terrorist groups have been operating with impunity from Pakistan and crossing over into India to wreak havoc in Jamu and Kashmir.
It'll be interesting to see over the next few days and weeks if indeed the infiltration stops or tapers off significantly in some measurable fashion. And I think after that, the Indians, if indeed such tapering-off takes place, I think it would be reasonable to expect the Indians to start moving troops away from their borders.
O'BRIEN: All right. So I get the sense, bottom line here, we are just about out of time, but bottom line here, I get the sense that tensions are not -- have come off the apex here, that things have cooled down just a little bit, perhaps these two are not as close to war as it seemed a little while ago.
GANGULY: I think that's an accurate characterization. It's really the developments of what transpires in the next few days that will suggest that indeed, we have significantly de-escalated in the region and that the likelihood of war has become considerably smaller.
O'BRIEN: Sumit Ganguly is a professor of Asian studies -- excuse me -- at the University of Texas at Austin. I hope I got that right. Professor, thank you very much...
GANGULY: You did indeed.
O'BRIEN: ... for that little colloquy on India-Pakistan relations, we appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
