It’s that time for raised hopes
By Meena MenonEven without SAARC, India and Pakistan will have to engage with each other within the very framework of the SCO. So why not that bilateral meeting between South Asia’s midnight’s children to start afresh.
There is that sense of expectation again. Now that elections in both India and Pakistan are over and the new leaders have been chosen, the question uppermost is – will they meet, won’t they meet, will they, won’t they talk? At the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit on June 13-14 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, while the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be meeting Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin from China and Russia respectively, a meeting with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has not figured so far on the list. The right noises have been made by Khan who offered dialogue in a proper letter to the Indian Prime Minister after the latter’s win. The letter also said Pakistan was keen on resolving all issues including Kashmir and he spoke of overcoming poverty and working together for regional development. The larger issue of peace in South Asia also figured in his congratulatory tweet to Modi.
While these polite noises are made, both India and Pakistan have been testing weapons. Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) looked set to sweep the elections on May 23, the Pakistan military tested Shaheen II which can carry conventional and nuclear warheads up to a range of 1,500 km. The Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) spokesperson Asif Ghafoor tweeted “ Shaheen-II fully meets Pak’s strat needs towards maintenance of desired deterrence stability in the region.”
A day earlier on May 22, India had successfully test-fired its supersonic missile BrahMos and even launched a version from the combat aircraft Sukhoi 30. After this missile flexing, a triumphant Modi too responded on twitter saying he wanted peace in the region. These friendly tweets need to translate into ground reality in terms of a path to peace. So far that remains invisible.
The main question is whether the governments of both countries can use their renewed mandates to address the challenge of peace not only bilaterally but in the region as well. When Modi won in 2014 there was a lot of expectation in Pakistan that as a BJP leader he would tread Vajpayee’s path and make concrete peace moves and have a dialogue. Despite a surprise visit to meet then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and the launch of a comprehensive dialogue in 2015, nothing really happened. Things in fact went from bad to worse till the Pulwama attack on 14 February, 2019, killing 40 paramilitary forces, two months before India was about plunge into the general elections to vote its 17th Lok Sabha into power.
The retaliation for the Pulwama attack, laid at the door of Jaish e Mohammed, was in the form of the surgical strikes on February 26 and the claim of 300 casualties at a terror camp in Balakot. Even if the numbers were vastly exaggerated, the attack and revenge were both milked for their not insignificant electoral value, as also the notion that Modi brought back wing commander Abhinandan, a move that won him much accolade.
In 2014, Sharif was invited to attend Modi’s first swearing in; this time round, Pakistan did not get the red carpet. The BJP’s oft- repeated stand of no talks unless the issue of terror is resolved is being played out once again. This combined with the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, where the BJP won three of the six Lok Sabha seats, and is going all out to win the state assembly elections in a few months, could create a situation where the party has the mandate to enforce its agenda of removing the special status for Kashmir.
Pakistan has laid its cards on the table by expressing its desire for peace and dialogue on all issues. After his victory, Modi made the time to visit Maldives and Sri Lanka. He seems to be making the right moves now, which are stopping short when it comes to Pakistan. No doubt, his earlier experience has cast a shadow. During Modi’s first term as prime minister, a month after the decision to have comprehensive talks, came the attack on the Pathankot air base in January 2016, which India claimed was carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed. A joint investigation was launched but little seems to have come of it.
The issue of Kashmir is linked to the formation of terror groups backed by the Pakistan army and each time there is an attack, the fingers are pointed at these groups. After Pulwama, Pakistan did arrest Masood Azhar’s associates but really such actions are meaningless like the arrest of Hafeez Saeed of the Lashkar e Toiba. On May 1, after much pressure from the US and other countries, China had to agree to Azhar being designated as a UN global terrorist, which India sees as a major victory.
When it comes to peace talks or negotiations, India will not allow Kashmiri groups in the process. . The unrest in the Valley which is now witnessing renewed violence with an increasing number of young men attracted to various jihadist groups fighting for Kashmir. The Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent has an increasing presence there in the form of Ghazwat ul Hind, established in 2017. Its leader local youth Zakir Musa was killed by Indian security forces in May. While it numbers are small, the AGH has a new emir and is hoping to cash in on Musa’s death to draw more followers. The strategy of the gun has failed in Kashmir , yet dialogue is not the preferred option. For Pakistan, with the dismal state of its economy, the internal fissures, and increasing pressure from the international community surely means that there are far more urgent concerns for the country than fomenting jihad in Kashmir.
Instead of moving ahead, the trust deficit between the two countries has worsened in the last five years which have seen many new lows in the relations between India and Pakistan. Iftar parties were sought to be disrupted, visas are denied, ,and so on–a bizarre business as usual in the life of our countries. But it needn’t be this way for the two nations who have much to talk and resolve, and need to get beyond the baggage of history. This time Modi has a stronger mandate. Now that surgical strikes have been demonstrated and effectively at that, why not launch another diplomatic offensive?
As they go, the right moves are being made. There are the talks between the NSAs of both countries. Even without SAARC, India and Pakistan will have to engage with each other within the very framework of the SCO. So why not that bilateral meeting between South Asia’s midnight’s children to start afresh. Or would that be raising our hopes too high?
(The author, an independent journalist, was earlier The Hindu correspondent in Islamabad. She has encapsulated her experience there in ‘Reporting Pakistan’, Penguin Random House India.)
