What has changed of late the sabre-rattling Prime Minister (PM), Narendra Modi, to become a dove when it comes to relations with Pakistan? Many pundits in the Pakistani media are groping for the right answer. Obviously, there cannot be just one reason for Modi’s U-turn. In statecraft policies are dictated in any country to serve the interests of the ruling classes. However, it should be borne in mind that no country has monolithic class interests and these interests are not cast in stone. But they keep changing with time and circumstances. In Pakistan, the tussle on this issue is between geo-economic and the traditionally powerful geo-strategic lobbies. The latter’s policies have led us to the present mess. The much more powerful geo-economic lobby in India is also pushing Modi to ease the tension.
One view is that Modi has learnt from his party’s defeat in Bihar that anti-Pakistan and Muslim bashing has been counter-productive. This may be one of the many reasons. Perhaps, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is conscious of the fact that in the upcoming UP elections a formidable Dalit-Muslim alliance would make its win difficult. Another reason given is that Modi was pushed by both the US and Russia to normalise relations with Pakistan as they want our establishment to deliver its protégées — the Afghan Taliban — to the peace table. Pakistan’s perennial fear has been that India wants to surround Afghanistan by strengthening geo-strategic relations with the Afghan government. To counter Indian influence it has been supporting the Afghan Taliban for over two decades now. Though India does not take foreign influence as it considers itself a big power in the region, it has a strong urge to seek a position at the United Nation’s Security Council (UNSC). For that it needs the support of the US and Russia. So, easing the tension with Pakistan is not a big price.
Understanding the downside of the policy to consider insurgent groups as assets is something many sensible writers have been criticizing. The existentialist threat to Pakistan by the terrorists is directly related to this perfidious policy. Having said that we have to accept that after bleeding for so long from terrorist attacks our establishment has launched an operation against the terrorists who challenge the writ of the state. They have now changed path and believe the time has come to cash in their investment on the Afghan Taliban. If this gamble of the establishment succeeds, the flip side is that they will be encouraged to continue using non-state actors for furthering their policies in other countries also. Though everybody knows that Pakistan had been providing safe haven to the Taliban, in the past Islamabad has officially been denying this. That is not the position anymore. We have now come out of the closet and accepted our not so-secret relations with the Taliban. Pakistan has successfully involved the US and China in the proposed talks between Afghanistan and the Taliban to counter any negative moves by India.
In this backdrop, when Modi is being criticised for making an oblique reference to Pakistan supporting the terrorists while addressing the Afghanistan assembly, we should bear in mind that this was to further pressurise Pakistan. Even before he was elected his emphasis was that Pakistan should stop cross-border terrorism. His tough posture on this issue and increase in support to disgruntled Pakistani terrorist groups helped India to make terrorism the number one issue on the agenda for negotiations. On the other hand, Pakistan also realised that India’s support to terrorist groups in the country was not going to let it win the war against terrorism at home. This Indian policy has pushed the Kashmir issue to a secondary position. By moving the talks between the National Security Advisers (NSAs) of the two countries to Bangkok it seems both have come to terms that the terrorism issue will get priority in future parleys. It is with this success in the first round that Modi has started moving towards normalising relations with Pakistan. The personal touch in this regard is Modi’s style. Even in Delhi he is blamed by many for not consulting his cabinet ministers and running the government with the help of a few chosen bureaucrats. That is why he praised Shahbaz Sharif’s style of management.
There are unconfirmed reports that his visit was preplanned and not impromptu. This perception helps the critics of Nawaz Sharif who do not miss a chance to please the obese war economy lobby in Pakistan. Once again, they are out raising the Kashmir first flag knowing fully well that this policy has not worked in the last 67 years in spite of our overt and covert adventures. A simple question is: when Modi had shown his desire to visit Pakistan what was our PM supposed to do? Tell Modi “I am a dummy PM and I have to seek permission or advice from the establishment before deciding to receive you”? The discussions on television at times and in newspapers are splenetic to borrow a term from the learned Khaled Ahmed on this issue.
Of course, Pakistan has to safeguard its interests. But here one has to draw the line: are we talking about the interests of the war economy or of the people of Pakistan? Do not tell me they are the same. The people of Pakistan and their self-interest are primary. They know that what we have we could not manage well in the last 67 years. So, to them, Kashmir can wait while we continue to raise a voice against the human rights violations in the wretched valley. The water issue should be dealt with separately, as it was done when the Indus Water Treaty was signed. Mixing it with the sovereignty of Kashmir is in conflict with our interests.
Both countries’ people will harvest a large peace dividend if their governments move to resolve other issues where much progress was made with ‘back door diplomacy’ during General Musharraf’s rule, as painstakingly narrated by Khurshid Kasuri in his book Neither A Hawk Nor A Dove. As this progress was made not by a civilian PM but by an army chief the question embedded journalists should ask is: does the present establishment support the gains made during the military regime including Kashmir’s out-of-the-box solution? This clarification is badly needed to move forward with the peace process. That the Twitter-happy fingers of the establishment are quiet on this peace initiative with India only helps the spoilers who pontificate on talk shows. I am reminded of Omar Khayyam here, who said: “The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy (civies) piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/01-Jan-2016/india-pak-relations-people-come-first
Pure intentions?: by Sultan M Hali in Pakistan Today
The author, a retired Group Captain and author of the book Defence & Diplomacy, is a columnist, analyst and TV talk show host.
Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore on Christmas Day has ignited a lot of discussion and debate. On both sides of the divide, peaceniks welcomed it while hawks—some of them dumbstruck by the sheer audacity of Modi’s exterior manoeuver or as BJP spokesperson M J Akbar called the meeting: an example of “imaginative diplomacy”—have attacked it tooth and nail.
The original phrase was coined by the former Congress Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh who dreamed of a time when “breakfast at New Delhi, lunch at Kabul and dinner at Islamabad” would be a distinct possibility. Unfortunately, Manmohan Singh, a weakling and too obsessed with the aftermath of the “Mumbai Attacks”, could never take the bold step to visit Pakistan. The Mumbai carnage was huge and India scuttled the “Composite Dialogue” process in its wake, blaming Pakistan’s establishment for sponsoring the terror attack and later demanding punitive action against the purported perpetrators of the crime. When the Pakistani judicial system, based on the evidence provided by India, failed to find the accused culpable of the heinous deed, India went ballistic.
Matters worsened with counter accusations by Pakistan that India was responsible for aiding and abetting terrorists both in Balochistan as well as the tribal region in Pakistan, where Pakistan has been battling the Tehreek-e-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP) since 2006. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, during his meeting with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh at Sharm-al-Sheikh in July 2009, had provided a dossier of evidence which the latter had promised to take up. Unfortunately, the beleaguered Manmohan Singh, because of his compromising coalition government, was heckled by Indian hawks on his return forcing him to dump the Pakistani evidence folder.
Ironically, the hardliner BJP leadership has shown pluck to extend the hand of friendship towards Pakistan with whom India has fought three wars and remains embattled owing to unresolved Kashmir and a number of other bilateral issues.
BJP statesman Atal Bihari Vajpayee had travelled to Lahore (February 19-20, 1999) on the inaugural Lahore-Delhi bus service and walked across the border to be received by his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. Alas, the promise of Lahore Declaration was trampled first by Pakistani military’s Kargil misadventure and the coup d’état by General Musharraf. Yet Vajpayee went to the extent of inviting Musharraf for the Agra Summit, which could have changed the destiny of Pakistan and India since the Kashmir imbroglio was likely to be resolved. People blame Musharraf for the debacle but A S Dulat, former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)—India’s external intelligence agency—in his book Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years, reveals that L K Advani was an architect of the Agra Summit between India and Pakistan in July 2001 and he was its destroyer because Musharraf failed to massage Advani’s ego.
Undeterred, Vajpayee went on to visit Islamabad in January 2004 for the SAARC Summit and launched the “Composite Dialogue Process” with Pakistan for lasting peace.
Modi, despite his stigma of being labelled as the “Butcher of Gujarat”—since the 2002 massacre of over 2,000 Muslims had taken place under his watch — made a promising beginning when he invited all SAARC leaders to his oath-taking ceremony as Prime Minister in June 2014. Nawaz Sharif graced the occasion with other leaders of the South Asian forum. It was expected that both the Pakistani and Indian Prime Ministers would develop chemistry owing to their common penchant for trade, commerce and progress.
Unfortunately, Modi not only spurned Nawaz Sharif, but apparently playing out a prearranged agenda, tried to flog Pakistan with the “terrorism” whip. Pakistan was blamed for sponsoring terrorism while its own tribal region and Balochistan continued to face strife and turmoil supported by RAW. Incessant firing across the Line of Control took a heavy toll of lives on both sides with tit-for-tat actions, false flag terror operations by India were on the rise. Modi’s schema of jingoism against Pakistan and browbeating the minorities botched most of BJP’s planned goals. It failed to win a majority in polls in Indian Occupied Kashmir, New Delhi and Bihar. As a result of its fanaticism and maltreatment of minorities and low caste Hindu Dalits, sensitive Indian intelligentsia, academia and performing artists not only returned their national awards in droves but harshly criticised Modi’s Saffron extremism and support for fanatic Hindutva agenda.
Both Pakistan and India have been provisionally admitted to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Their membership will be validated only if they appear to have shunned hostile behaviour towards their neighbours. Modi is desirous of playing a major role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. It has aspirations of achieving a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. India wants to maintain a steady growth rate of 7-8% annually. Its industry is starved for energy from Russia, Central Asia, Iran and the Gulf besides establishing trading routes with all these countries including Afghanistan.
Belatedly, but better late than never, realisation has stepped into Modi’s reckoning that Pakistan holds the key to most of these aspirations but Modi had heretofore snubbed Pakistan’s peace overtures with disdain. Herein lies the rub. The arrogant Modi of Ufa was willing to undergo a metamorphosis at Paris while greeting his Pakistani counterpart. A three-minute historic tête-à-tête paved the way for the covert meeting between the National Security Advisors at Bangkok, which in turn removed the impediments in Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s yatra to Islamabad for the Heart of Asia Conference.
Sushma had hinted at the “surprise” visit of Modi to Raiwind when she had casually remarked on her return to New Delhi from Islamabad that good neighbours should be able to visit each other unannounced.
One should not build too much hope from Modi’s sojourn into the Nawaz lair and expect much from the bonhomie, hugging and backslapping. One has to wait and see whether Modi is using Pakistan to build an image of a good neighbour to achieve his higher aspirations and later dump it or is serious in resolving the seven-decade old unresolved issues.
http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2015/12/31/comment/pure-intentions/
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