Ripe for a breakthrough

Manmohan-Zardari talks

India’s approach should be to ignore the strains of the US-Pakistan reset and to give a new momentum to bilateral relations.

In the life of an individual or a nation, it could happen that a rude awakening summons up things past and helps the mind focus on all that went so very wrong and why a new beginning is necessary.

We owe it to the visiting United States undersecretary of state for political affairs Wendy Sherman for triggering an awakening when she announced in a brilliant act of public diplomacy – even ahead of informing Islamabad – that Washington has put a 10-billion dollar bounty on radical Islamist leader Hafiz Saeed.

It almost seemed that the proposed talks between prime minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani president Asif Zardari in New Delhi on Sunday would be horribly untimely. However, it now transpires that the bounty is not for killing Saeed or for locating him – he lives openly in Pakistan – but for the gathering of evidence that might incriminate him as a terrorist in a US court of law.

Our dossier on Saeed apparently doesn’t convince Washington. Plainly put, we are now free to go back to the Singh-Zardari talks. But Sherman’s visit helped clarify some things. One, this is a unique occasion when India-Pakistan dialogue is not born out of US mediation. Two, Washington would want India to go slow in hastening with its normalisation with Pakistan, even as it negotiates the reset of its own partnership with Pakistan, which is precariously poised at present. Three, the US’ capacity to influence Pakistan is at an all-time low level today – it’s virtually ‘nil’. The backdrop, of course, is the all-consuming Afghan endgame and the US’ priority to dovetail everything with the post-2014 matrix that is still work in progress. Anything outside the matrix in the corridor of time between now and end-2014 holds the danger of unraveling the matrix. In sum, India and the US have different priorities toward Pakistan at this juncture.

Clearly, the climate of India-Pakistan ties has steadily improved and the prime minister’s initiative to advance the dialogue process despite robust opposition from detractors stands vindicated. Most important, there is peace and tranquility on the border; graph of cross-border terrorism has dipped; J&K is distinctly a calmer place; India-Pakistan rhetoric and grandstanding has ceased; and there are stirrings in the air suggestive of a profound rethink within Pakistan toward relations with India. Both countries have avoided doing or saying anything that might exacerbate mutual suspicions regarding each other’s intentions vis-à-vis the Afghan situation. Any whichever way one looks at it, Pakistan took a bold decision to accord MFN status to India and in the context of the tortuous history of the relationship, desire to move forward in economic partnership needs to be taken as the litmus test of a major course correction.

New momentum

India’s approach, therefore, should be to sequester the dialogue with Pakistan from the vagaries and uncertainties of the US-Pakistan reset and to instead give new momentum to it. On the one hand, it means giving greater content to the relationship. The time is opportune to pick up the threads of the broad understanding that was reached with regard to the Kashmir issue. Pakistan’s willingness to revisit the understanding will also be an indicator of the mindset of its all-powerful military establishment. The odds are that Pakistan is willing. Second, there are ‘doable’ issues such as Sir Creek, which could be resolved. Third, India needs to reciprocate on the Pakistani decision on MFN. Finally, the time is opportune for a visit by the prime minister to Pakistan. Dr Singh reportedly told prime minister Yusuf Gilani when they met in Seoul last week that his visit needed to be pegged on some substantive outcome. Thus, a substantive agenda needs to be worked out urgently.

Why is a visit by Dr Singh to Pakistan so important? It is not only that he is the architect of the dialogue process with Pakistan, which will undoubtedly remain his historic legacy, but also that a sustained involvement at the highest level is desirable to ensure continued momentum for the dialogue in a new phase and format. The fact of the matter is that both India and Pakistan are major regional powers today and a forward-looking dialogue between them has a compelling regional dimension.

There is nothing like absolute security. Afghanistan is the theatre where, paradoxically, the old maxim is going to be proven in a near future. Neither Pakistan nor India would gain out of a radical regime coming to power in Kabul. Both are stakeholders – Pakistan even more so than India – in the stability of Afghanistan, which can only come from a broad-based power arrangement in Kabul. India would do well to encourage Pakistan to trust that Afghan problem is not a zero-sum game and that it recognises Pakistan’s legitimate interests. The Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India gas pipeline and Hajigak iron ore project could be two areas where on the practical plane the two countries can build up mutual trust.   

Above all, Indian and Pakistani regional strategies needn’t grate against each other. Pakistan has nurtured its friendship with China (despite the impressive leaps in Sino-India ties) and is making a determined effort to build up ties with Russia (with which India has a ‘privileged strategic partnership’) while steering clear of the US’ containment policy toward Iran (which is what India also is doing). Ideally, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is a forum where India and Pakistan could harmonise their regional strategies.

(The writer is a former diplomat)