Pakistan shuts window of opportunity opened by Modi

Kanchan Gupta

Incensed over Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit meeting separatists from Jammu & Kashmir, India has called off the Foreign Secretary-level dialogue scheduled for August 25 in Islamabad. Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh spoke to Basit late Monday afternoon and informed him about India’s decision.

The talks were called off soon after Basit met Shabbir Shah, a Kashmiri separatist, in New Delhi. Similar meetings were planned with other separatists over the next three days, ostensibly to elicit their views on the resumption of talks between India and Pakistan. Needless to say, these meetings were uncalled for, not the least because the separatists have no say in a bilateral dialogue between the two countries.

Hence, it is understandable that Sujatha Singh should have felt sufficiently enraged to tell Basit that “Pakistan’s continued efforts to interfere in India’s internal affairs are unacceptable” and that his meeting with the “so-called Hurriyat leaders has undermined the constructive diplomatic initiatives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”. There couldn’t have been any other reaction.

Indeed, that India with a new Government that is far more resolute and clear-headed than its predecessor regime would react in this manner was a foregone conclusion. Yet Pakistan chose to push the envelope and test Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s patience. Basit going ahead with his meetings with Kashmiri separatists despite being fully aware that this would displease New Delhi could not have been without the sanction of Islamabad.

Similarly, the unprovoked heavy firing by Pakistani soldiers along the Line of Control and the border in Jammu & Kashmir for the past several days and nights is a command performance – with the command coming from Rawalpindi. Nothing done by Pakistani officials and Pakistani soldiers is without design and intent.

Clearly Pakistan’s design is to make it politically difficult for the NDA Government to move ahead with bilateral talks. For, that would be seen as placating a belligerent neighbour interested in neither peace nor a new beginning. The intent is to prevent relations from improving. The naysayers of Pakistan have triumphed yet again.

False hopes that may have soared when Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif accepted the invitation to attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s oath-taking ceremony on May 26 will no doubt be soured by this turn of events. But that is the way it was always planned to be.

Pakistan did not want to be seen as being cussed and we can be sure that there was sufficient American pressure on the politicians in Islamabad and the Generals in Rawalpindi to accept Narendra Modi’s invitation. For Pakistan, it was a tactical move: Now it can claim that despite that gesture of goodwill, India has stepped back from resuming bilateral talks.

Such claims are unlikely to persuade anybody. This is not the first time that talks have foundered on the rock of Pakistan’s hostility towards India and have had to be abandoned. Let us not forget that for all his willingness to overlook the Pakistani establishment’s perfidy, Manmohan Singh could not achieve any meaningful breakthrough.

If the Pakistani Army and the politicians in its thralldom think they can push the NDA Government around as they did the UPA Government, they have severely under-estimated Narendra Modi. He is no pushover. More importantly, he is not looking for American endorsement of his foreign policy. Monday’s decision to call off scheduled talks underscores this point.

That Narendra Modi has chosen to act firmly with Pakistan a month before he travels to Washington, DC for his first meeting with President Barack Obama tells its own story. The message is unambiguous: No matter what may have been the norm in the past with India giving in to American pressure, it would no longer be the practice.

In any event, talking to Pakistan at this point makes little or no sense. The Government headed by Nawaz Sharif is not sure whether it is in or out as huge protests led by Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri rock Islamabad. The former cricketer-turned-politician and the radical cleric are demanding fresh elections. The Army is watching from the sidelines.

It would be absurd to believe that with his Government precariously perched and its future uncertain, Nawaz Sharif would focus on improving relations or engaging in a substantive dialogue with India. He may or may not be responsible for the escalation in hostilities along the LoC and the border, but the Pakistani Army definitely is.

And so long as the Generals in Rawalpindi do not want Pakistan’s relations with India to improve, no politician in Islamabad would dare to embark upon the path of peace. This would be all the more true for Nawaz Sharif who has been scorched in the past for daring the Generals. It would be unfair to expect him to make the same mistake twice.

Where do we go from here? Frankly, nowhere. India does not need to demonstrate its sincerity towards forging peaceful relations with Pakistan again and again. We now need a positive political response from Pakistan. Unfortunately, that response continues to remain elusive.

What we have instead is a military response from Pakistan that causes more harm to that country, drowning it further in hate and dragging it deeper into hostility, than to India. Which is such a pity and a shame because it shuts the window of opportunity thrown wide open by Narendra Modi despite popular misgivings.