January 28, 2001IslamabadForeign Correspondents' Enclave20:30 Hours
The invitation list had been drafted like a security plan, not a press plan.
Indian journalists in Islamabad—on record, on camera—was not "outreach." It was a controlled counter-attack on narrative. Delhi's leak had turned the Kartarpur corridor into a scandal before it even became a protocol, and Pakistan's own spoilers were hunting for a single incident that could poison the entire peace architecture.
So Musharraf—General Musharraf to the world—decided to speak before others spoke for him.
But the decision did not come from the General's instincts alone.
Inside the uniform, Aditya Kaul's administrative mind was doing what it had done for two decades in Delhi: reading the room before the room knew it was being read.
Rule one, Aditya reminded himself, never let your opponents define your first sentence. If they name you first, you spend the whole interview climbing out of their label.
The cameras were already positioned. The room was deliberately plain: no excessive flags, no triumphal decor, no theatrical backdrops. A bureaucracy-friendly setting—because Aditya knew spectacle invited parody. A plain room forced attention onto words.
Karan Thapar sat opposite, posture upright, expression neutral in the way only a practiced interrogator can make neutrality feel sharp. He wasn't there to "converse." He was there to extract a headline.
The red light blinked on.
Thapar didn't waste a second.
"General Musharraf," he said, voice calm, "why should India believe the butcher of Kargil?"
A faint tightening passed through the room—handlers, aides, even seasoned correspondents. That phrase had been chosen with surgical care. It wasn't a question; it was a public verdict.
Musharraf didn't flinch. He didn't protest. He didn't plead.
Because Aditya understood something most politicians never learned: denial feeds the label.
"Because I know the real value of life on the border," Musharraf replied. "Not as a man who reads about it. As a soldier who has lived it."
Thapar held his gaze, waiting for either rage or apology—either one would make good television. Musharraf gave him neither.
"I fought wars myself," Musharraf continued. "Not from an office. I'm trained as a commando—something many generals are not."
Aditya felt the sentence land. It was controlled ego—enough to project strength, not enough to look insecure. A calibrated assertion. A bureaucrat's version of muscle.
"When my duty was to fight for my country," Musharraf said, "I did my duty. People can judge those actions as they will."
Then he pivoted—cleanly, like switching files.
"But today, my role is different," he went on. "I am responsible for a nation, not a unit. And what is best for Pakistan is not permanent conflict. What is best for Pakistan is secure borders with stable neighbors."
Anchor the conversion, Aditya told himself. Soldier-to-statesman. Old role, new role. Give the audience a story arc they can repeat.
Thapar's eyes narrowed slightly. "You're asking for a lot of trust."
"I'm not asking for trust," Musharraf said. "I'm offering a test."
Why Now?
Thapar changed angle, shifting from character assassination to motive—because motive is where peace initiatives are usually strangled.
"Why now?" he asked. "Why this corridor now?"
Musharraf answered without hesitation.
"Because we need confidence-building measures before the Agra summit," he said. "If you wait for a summit to produce trust, you will wait forever. Trust must be built before leaders sit down."
Aditya felt the urgency pulse under his ribs—his private calendar was not the public calendar. The world was moving toward shocks the room could not yet name. You build buffers before the storm, not during it.
"So why not now?" Musharraf repeated, deliberately. "A corridor is not a trophy. It is a tool."
"A tool for whom?" Thapar asked.
"For people," Musharraf replied. "For Sikh devotees to see a sacred place connected to Guru Nanak. For families to have a moment that does not get humiliated by visas, suspicion, delays, and discretion."
Aditya watched Thapar's face closely. The word "humiliated" mattered. It was a knife that cut bureaucracy, not nationalism.
"And it is controlled," Musharraf added immediately. "A limited zone. Joint observation. Protocols that can be verified."
Thapar tilted his head. "You're selling emotion."
"Yes," Musharraf said. "Emotion exists whether we acknowledge it or not. States ignore it at their own cost."
The Market Clause
Thapar leaned forward. "And the market you've proposed—inside Pakistan. Why attach commerce to pilgrimage?"
Because commerce creates defenders, Aditya thought—but Musharraf said it in statecraft language.
"Trade is a stabilizer," Musharraf answered. "When ordinary people profit from stability, instability becomes expensive. A small market in a controlled perimeter allows legitimate exchange without opening uncontrolled routes."
Thapar's tone sharpened. "So peace becomes business."
"Peace has always been business," Musharraf replied. "War is also business. The question is which business we want to reward."
Good, Aditya noted. Don't moralize. Normalize. Treat peace as a rational investment.