Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s brief stop-over at Lahore on 25 December on his way back from a two-day visit to Moscow and another stop-over at Kabul to inaugurate the Indian built new Parliament building was a master stroke of imaginative summit diplomacy which achieved several objectives in one go. To the international community which had been pressurizing India to respond positively to the several good-will gestures made by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, it conveyed India’s willingness to improve relations with Pakistan on reasonable terms. To Pakistan, it appeared as a good-will gesture, strengthening the hands of doves, but without any visible substantive change in New Delhi’s policy towards Islamabad. Domestically, it reassured the people of India that Modi was able to act like a statesman in the handling of foreign affairs. But while defending Modi’s visit to Lahore, perhaps the most revealing comment was made by RSS’s joint general secretary Dattatraya Hosbole who said that in the management of foreign affairs “one has to use various means such as persuasion-purchase-punish-exploitation of division (saam-daam-dand-bhed) as per the circumstances. The then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee undertook bus journey to Lahore but the Kargil war was too fought under his tenure”.
Undoubtedly, Modi’s stop-over improved the atmospherics of Pakistan-India relations. It must, therefore, be welcomed as a good-will gesture which hopefully would help in recommencing a comprehensive dialogue on all outstanding issues between the two countries. It has since been announced that the foreign secretaries of the two countries would meet in Islamabad on 15 January to chalk out a road map for the resumption of the dialogue. It remains to be seen, however, whether the meeting would be successful in achieving this objective, especially after the recent terrorist attack on the Pathankot air base. Unofficial reports emanating from India have laid the blame for the terrorist attack at the door-step of the Jaish-e-Muhammad outfit. Although there is no concrete evidence to support the allegation, yet the terrorist attack may already have cast a shadow on the prospects of the foreign secretaries meeting.
Modi’s sincerity in recommencing the comprehensive bilateral dialogue will be tested soon. If the foreign secretary-level talks indeed take place as planned and lead to a road map for the resumption of a dialogue covering all important issues of concern to the two sides, it will be a solid indicator that Modi-led India is finally ready to move away from coercive diplomacy, which it has practiced over the past few years, towards the path of negotiations. Such negotiations will certainly help in defusing tensions and the adoption of confidence building measures. This would not be a mean achievement as the avoidance of a major armed conflict or a war is in the mutual interest of both Pakistan and India because of their status as de facto nuclear-weapon states and because of their need for peace to concentrate their energies and resources on the gigantic task of eradication of poverty and raising the standard of living of their peoples.
But if the resumed Pakistan-India dialogue fails to show any progress towards the resolution of outstanding peace and security issues, particularly the Kashmir dispute, Siachen and terrorism, its beneficial effects in other areas will remain limited and easily reversible.
Therefore, progress in these areas is an indispensable condition for the development of mutually beneficial cooperation in economic and commercial fields on a sustainable basis. It is unrealistic to expect that the two countries would engage in far reaching programmes of cooperation in economic, commercial and technical fields while they are at loggerheads with each other on those issues which have caused wars and armed conflicts between them in the past. At the same time, it is also unrealistic to expect that such contentious issues as Kashmir would be resolved to the satisfaction of Pakistan, India and the Kashmiri people in a short period of time. Therefore, what is needed is a virtuous cycle in which some progress in the resolution of outstanding issues of peace and security leads to increased cooperation in economic, commercial and technical spheres which in turn would pave the way for enhanced progress in the former and so on.
The recommended course would require a sustained comprehensive dialogue over a fairly long period of time to produce the desired results for the improvement of Pakistan-India relations. Neither of the two countries should try to derail the dialogue process on flimsy grounds as has been India’s wont during the past few years. India would also have to give up its practice of coercive diplomacy and instead aim at achieving its objectives through negotiations with Pakistan on the basis of sovereign equality and mutual respect. Pakistan is not a helpless small country at the mercy of India’s bidding. It is a de facto nuclear-weapon state of 190 million people at the crossroads of South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia, which is able to safeguard its legitimate security and economic interests. It is also high time that the elements in Pakistan with defeatist mentality, who are willing to kowtow in front of India and sacrifice our national interests for pleasing India, were told to reconsider their views which amount to a sell out to India.
India during the past few years has tried to dictate to Pakistan its one-sided terms for the resumption of a comprehensive dialogue as if it is a favour to be granted by it. It demanded prior satisfaction on the issue of the condemnable Mumbai terrorist attacks for the resumption of a comprehensive bilateral dialogue. Pending a satisfactory resolution of the Mumbai issue, it was willing to move forward only in promoting Pakistan-India trade which it saw as an opportunity to dominate Pakistan’s economy. This approach should be obviously rejected by Pakistan. While Islamabad should take all possible steps through the judicial process to punish those elements in Pakistan who may have been responsible for the Mumbai terrorist attacks, India should also be told unequivocally that non-state actors on either side of the Pakistan-India border should not be allowed to derail the dialogue process through their machinations. Instead, the two countries should step up their cooperation in rooting out terrorism while remaining engaged in the dialogue process. It is also worth underlining here that whereas India has complaints against Pakistan on this score, the latter also has its own complaints, particularly about RAW’s involvement in terrorist activities in Balochistan, FATA and Karachi. The point which must be underlined is that neither Pakistan nor India can unilaterally lay down conditions for the resumption of the bilateral comprehensive dialogue.
India should also be told in no uncertain terms that it would have to give up its hegemonic designs in South Asia and learn to deal with Pakistan on the basis of sovereign equality and mutual respect in the interest of durable peace and cooperation. Finally, we should not encourage India into believing that the two countries could engage in sustained and unlimited programmes for the promotion of mutual cooperation in economic and commercial fields while outstanding issues of peace and security like Kashmir and Siachen continue to fester and poison their relationship. Those in Pakistan who offer advice to the contrary must be given an elementary course in economics which, for good reason, was also called political economy because of the close connection between economic and political issues. The crisis in Ukraine should suffice to bring home this point.
