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| India-Pakistan |
| Time to move on, Dr Singh |
| 2009-06-20 |
| By Zafar Hilaly A bonhomie that is contrived, praise that is mostly hollow and gestures that are excessive and exaggerated are the usual features of India-Pakistan summits. To an outsider observing the leaders of India and Pakistan together it would appear that the two countries are firm friends rather than enemies. But for a change none of this was evident when Mr Zardari met Dr Manmohan Singh in Yekaterinburg. And, notwithstanding the grin Mr Zardari sported, it was noticeable that all Dr Singh could muster up was a rueful smile as they shook hands for the benefit of the press. Dr Singh's demeanour was not surprising. Pakistan has made little progress in apprehending those involved in organising, funding and planning the Mumbai attack and the Indian prime minister is not prepared to let matters rest. The release by a Pakistani court of the Lashkar-e-Taiba chief, for want of evidence, added salt to India's wounds. One can sympathise with India. Having convinced herself that the Pakistani establishment was somehow involved in the Mumbai mayhem, India wants her pound of flesh. The problem is that even if elements of the Pakistani establishment were involved, to expect a mea culpa from Pakistan is being naive. Intelligence agencies everywhere, including RAW and the ISI, never admit wrongdoing even if they were to be caught with their hands in the till. That is standard operating procedure for intelligence organisations the world over. We need to move on. Of course, that is not to say that Pakistan must sit on its hands till the memory of the Mumbai outrage subsides in India. The terrorists who almost succeeded in precipitating war, possibly a nuclear conflict, must be brought to book and, if guilty, hanged, drawn and quartered. But the longer India refuses to engage constructively with Pakistan the greater the opportunity she will provide to those who wish to add further grist to the mills of hate. One is disappointed therefore that Dr Singh, possibly the steadiest hand on the helm that India has had, has made constructive engagement between the two countries hostage to Mumbai. It is as short-sighted and self-defeating a stance as Pakistan's decades-long insistence that unless the Kashmir dispute was resolved to its satisfaction India and Pakistan would remain at daggers drawn. Dr Singh's statement that Pakistan must not allow its territory to be used for attacking India was uncalled for and understandably not well-received in Pakistan. If the truth be told it was not only tasteless to have made it in the presence of a roomful of journalists while greeting Mr Zardari but also needless considering the difficulties Pakistan is confronting in preventing terror attacks against itself, what to speak of India. Dr Singh does not need to trumpet publically what can be communicated privately. He should resist the temptation to play to the gallery, unless he wishes to revert to the kind of invective and name calling that have sadly depicted relations and which he has sensibly thus far avoided. Besides, how does it help? Mr Zardari in his meeting with the Indian prime minister apparently asked for more time (since denied) to deal with the terrorists. But while more time may help Pakistan in uncovering the Mumbai attack it will not ensure that such an attack won't recur. That will depend on how Pakistan fares in her ongoing battle against the extremists who are now present in every major city in Pakistan. A battle that India is complicating by retaining the bulk of her forces in a threatening mode on Pakistan's eastern borders. In fact the more time that elapses in settling disputes between the two countries, all of which barring Kashmir, are easily resolved given the will and a mite of common sense, the wider the chasm that separates the two countries will grow the more intractable the disputes will become. Dr Singh and Mr Zardari are, if truth be told, on the same side when it comes to opposing terrorism and establishing peace in the subcontinent; and the sooner they act in unison, helping rather than carping at the other, the quicker and more effectively will those opposed to India-Pakistan amity be thwarted. There are many in India who feel that at the moment India has the upper hand and should, nay must, drive a hard bargain with Pakistan. Others go further and actually advocate an activist role for India in the 'impending' break-up of Pakistan. Indian meddling in Balochistan suggests to some that the Indian establishment concurs with the latter view. Yes, India seems well placed to compound Pakistan's difficulties but India is neither so influential to decisively affect events nor the situation in Balochistan so dire that it cannot be reclaimed. Hence for India to believe that until a terrorist-racked, bleeding Pakistan eats crow and delivers up the Mumbai killers there is absolutely no need for the Indian premier to relent is wishful thinking. And, ironically, it is a mistake that those Pakistanis whose lives and livelihoods depend on continued tension between India and Pakistan are banking on India to commit. For India to adopt such a policy would therefore sow the seeds of a graver and more dangerous confrontation than exists at the moment. Dr Singh would do better to drive not so much a hard as a fair bargain; and strive for a just rather than a one-sided peace. He has a choice; he can remain, and be forgotten, as a transactional leader or aspire to become a transformational one. If the chance for peace that exists today is squandered, as it was on at least one earlier occasion, it is unlikely that another opportunity will arise for another generation. Faced by a hostile India, Pakistan will likely revert to the path on which it had been launched by a number of military dictators with, in due course, the current febrile democracy giving way to authoritarian government, militarism and eventually a national security state that will depend as its raison d'etre on continued confrontation or worse with the eternal enemy India. Surely that is a prospect that India neither relishes nor desires for the subcontinent. And surely to avoid that prospect taking a chance at forging peace, even if it amounts to bucking the establishment at home, is worth the effort. Dr Singh and the Congress have an opportunity to rewrite the sad saga of relations that has plagued our lands and if they decide to rise to this challenge then among the people and the present government in Pakistan they will find willing partners. |
| Posted by:john frum |