The Great Showman has taken yet another turn upon the stage. By fetching up from Kabul in Lahore on his way back to India on the day we celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif - not to mention Good Governance Day! - Modi has certainly ensured that the spotlight remains on his highly personalized style of diplomacy.
Institutionalized foreign policy has given way to a cult of personality on which is stamped the imprimatur of one and only one man. This has short-term advantages - and damaging long-term consequences.
So, thank you for your last round of applause, ladies and gentlemen, but let us move from the last trick to a serious evaluation of the drama. That Modi stepped for a few moments on to Pakistani soil - albeit on a personal visit that has involved little beyond conveying birthday greetings to the Pak PM and blessings to his grand-daughter on the eve of her wedding - is not to be faulted. But can such a visit be taken as a benign visit by a fond uncle to his niece - or is there more to it than meets the eye?
Till just a few days ago we were being told no talks with Pakistan till it mends its ways. Specific conditions were being laid down for a dialogue to commence: return Tiger Memon; deport Dawood Ibrahim; tape up Hafiz Saeed's foul mouth; bung Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi back into jail; stop cross-border firing; end terrorism forever; and, above all, stop talking to the Hurriyat. Now, all of a sudden, with no progress on any of these fronts, Sushma Swaraj and Narendra Modi follow each other in quick succession to Pakistan.
What is going on? Do we have a policy towards Pakistan or just a series of improvisations?
Just three months ago, in the last week of September, Modi was so frosty towards Nawaz Sharif that he would not even shake hands with him at the UN; a distant wave was all he could bring himself to do. Now, under a hundred days later, we see him embracing Nawaz Sharif. What explains the change? It was also only three months ago at the UN that Sushma Swaraj, denouncing Sharif's 4-point proposal for a way to peace, thundered that one point alone would suffice - end terrorism and we will begin talking. Pakistan has not ended terrorism but we are being treated by her to the homily, "Padosiyon se aise rishte hone chahiyen (these neighbourly relations are important)". Kaise rishte? Sitamabr ke rishte ya Disambar ke? (the September or December variety of relations?)
The only change that one can perceive in the last one hundred days is that Modi has met with Obama, Cameron, Hollande, Merkel and Putin. Each of them has rapped Modi on the knuckles and told him that he must resume discussions with Pakistan. So, under "advice" (read pressure) from those with wider chests than his own, Modi has buckled and started a dialogue process. Nothing else can explain this sudden transformation of yesterday's lion into today's lamb.
And this is most worrying. For if it is not of the government's own volition, but in an attempt to appease others that the dialogue is being initiated, with what confidence can one look forward to the dialogue leading to a permanent settlement? The problems between India and Pakistan are myriad. There is no quick or easy solution to any of them. Therefore, the single most important quality to bring to the talks is sincerity. Can sincerity be assumed in talks that were wiped off the agenda but a little while ago and are now apparently taking centre-stage? The other quality required is persistence. How long will talks imposed on us be continued without finding some excuse to break them off?
Our Foreign Minister has conceded that the talks should be "uninterrupted" but explicitly ruled out making the talks "uninterruptible". The prospect of interruption will hang like Banquo's ghost over the heads of the negotiators, especially as the question of the Hurriyat has not been squarely addressed. The background of "stop-start" is there in talks being initiated in May 2014 only to have them called off in August for specious reasons. Then came Ufa and the sleight of hand in trying to delink terror from Kashmir and to prioritize "Terror" over "Kashmir", only to suffer the blowback a month later. What we need is a structuring of the talks to make them "uninterrupted and uninterruptible". Till then, all dialogue is hostage to our accident-prone relationship with Pakistan. Some incident somewhere - and the game of snakes-and-ladders will bring us back to "Start".
Moreover, where should we begin? Where Dr Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf ended their backchannel talks in 2007 - or by reinventing the wheel? Nothing said by the successor BJP government indicates any acknowledgement of how far matters were moved between 2004 and 2007. The progress made is in the public domain as a result of Ambassador Lambah's speech in Srinagar on 13 May 2014 and Khurshid Kasuri's Neither a Hawk nor a Dove, published a few months ago. In any case, all the relevant papers are in the possession of the Prime Minister's Office. If good faith is not displayed in recognizing the achievements of the past, can we consider the new round as having been initiated in good faith?
Foreign policy cannot be conducted whimsically. It needs a clear enunciation of goals; the preparation of a strategy to arrive at the goals; a roadmap to show the way to the attainment of the goals; and tactical flexibility to factor in the unexpected as we go along. The inconsistency of the Modi government in its approach to Pakistan belies the absence of a strategy. The inconsistency displayed reflects the lack of a carefully thought out roadmap. The personalization of such policy as exists does not bode well for the institutional processes. National interest cannot be mixed up with the individual preferences of the high and the mighty. We have gone way beyond the stage where the Rajaalone would decide questions of war and peace.
These are worrying concerns to have a fortnight before the Foreign Secretaries begin their long haul. And it is going to be a long haul, a very long haul indeed - calling for trust, patience, persistence, sincerity and dedication to longer-term national interests than passing, petty annoyances. Only time will tell whether India's suddenly altered Pakistan policy has truly been transmogrified - or whether, having shown the powerful world leaders that we have done their bidding, we revert to type and look for excuses to drag the dialogue back to its starting point. I am not sanguine.
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