By Mahendra Ved
There are no solo events in South Asia, particularly when it comes to India-Pakistan relations. The brief, high-profile visit to India of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to attend the inauguration of the new government led by Narendra Modi, despite the bonhomie it generated, is no exception.
After the momentary euphoria, misgivings and mistrust are bound to creep back.
On the day Sharif was attending Modi’s inauguration, incidentally covered ‘live’ by TV channels in Pakistan, the Pakistani Rangers fired at Indian troops on the border.
In Islamabad, President Mamnoon Hussain asked envoys of member nations of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to “intensify efforts” for “early and peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute”.
India has a history of being disregarded by, and disregarding the OIC, especially on the Kashmir issue.
Although pre-planned, the event helped the Pakistan leadership to address the domestic constituency that opposed Sharif’s India visit, especially to witness the opening of a government of the “Hindu right wing”.
On the same day, with Sharif present in New Delhi, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, paying his last official visit before quitting on completion of the Afghan presidential election, accused the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based terrorist body, of being behind last week’s attack by gunmen on the Indian consulate in Herat, Afghanistan.
This was the latest in a string of assaults on Indian targets in Afghanistan. India has in the past accused the Pakistan Army’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of using the Afghan Haqqani network of attacking its missions in Afghanistan. The involvement of the LeT, if true, brings the charge closer to Islamabad than before.
For good measure, talking to India’s Headlines Today television channel, Karzai sourced his information to “a Western intelligence agency”, and called it “a clear terrorist attack”.
Fresh from a long election, India has been too busy to look at forced conversions of the Hindus, especially girls, and desecration of Sikh shrines in Sindh, for which members of the tiny minority took to streets and courted arrest last week.
Asked by The Hindustan Times if he was willing to give an assurance that terrorism would no longer be sponsored from Pakistani soil, Sharif was positive: “We have lost thousands of lives. Our economy has suffered at the hands of terrorists. Who can be more serious than us regarding eliminating terror from the region.”
The figure is 32,000 Pakistanis killed in terror attacks. This is a familiar line that Pakistan’s friends accept. That includes the US, when it is about to dole out huge funds, and China, despite Pakistan sheltering and training over 400 Uighur rebels from the Xinjiang province, since it calls Pakistan its “all weather friend”.
The list of events above illustrates the traditional pitfalls that impact India-Pakistan relations, and these cannot be wished away. They benumb the well-meaning statements of the leaders on both sides.
When the outcome of the Indian elections became known, in a grudging welcome to an India “stereotyped as world’s largest democracy”, Dawn newspaper editorially explored an old idea in the subcontinent: “a centre-right government in Pakistan with genuine legitimacy and political support in the heartland can do business with a right-wing government in India.”
Although the new government has in Sushma Swaraj a very articulate and experience external affairs minister, traditionally, foreign policy is the prime minister’s prerogative in India. Modi will not need to appease state level satraps while dealing with neighbours. He will seek to carry them along, but guard what he perceives as national interests.
This is more so in the context of Pakistan. During the election campaign, Modi has said that Pakistan mattered to him even as the Gujarat chief minister because of the common border. “No terrorist is allowed to work in Gujarat”.
He can be expected to follow what is called the (former prime minister Atal Bihari) “Vajpayee line” on neighbours – in short, of moderation. But another serious attack by any group(s) from Pakistan is bound to provoke him. In such an event, Modi may not emulate Vajpayee (after the attack on Indian Parliament in 2001) or Manmohan Singh (the 2008 Mumbai terror attack).
At his one-on-one meeting with Sharif, Modi reportedly talked tough, enunciating the Indian standpoint on tackling terror through five succinct points. Most of them relate to the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and the need for speedy trial.
Sharif’s response, going by the statement he read out before leaving New Delhi, was moderate. He did not touch upon the five points. He did say that it was necessary to “change confrontation to cooperation”, indicating its need in the face of Modi’s tough talk.
The only concrete thing that emerged was that the foreign secretaries would meet “and decide the way forward”, said Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh, who however indicated no date.
She also downplayed the Sharif invitation to Modi to visit Pakistan. All SAARC leaders have invited Modi and the same has been accepted. But there was no move to fix a time table, she said.
Was there no takeaway for Sharif from the India visit? If not, he would have problems defending his decision to go to New Delhi ignoring his critics – just the way his old tormentor, Gen. Pervez Musharraf had after the Agra Summit in 2001.
There are reports of confrontation building up between Sharif and the military. He is resisting the closing down of Geo TV channel that the army wants after the channel named the current ISI chief for the attack on its anchor, Hamid Mir. Indeed, the confrontation has been prolonged and the Sharif government seems caught in a pincer: it can neither gag the media, nor defy the army.
The other pincer is between the Sharif government and Imran khan, darling of the influential sections of the military and the middle classes. He is moving to force a mid-term election.
It would be known in the next few weeks if the India visit has proved beneficial or costly for Sharif and his government.
(Mahendra Ved is a New Delhi-based writer and columnist. He can be reached at southasiamonitor1@gmail.com)
This article was published by South Asia Monitor.
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