The Indian Rebuff

By Amir Zia

August 25, 2014

The News

Pakistan should not do anything more than maintain a prolonged period of cold peace with its big neighbour. Meanwhile, the national leadership must refocus the narrative of Pakistan-India relations on the core issue of Kashmir rather than pressing for secondary issues.

 

Pakistan’s civil and military establishment should be thankful to the hard-line Hindu nationalist Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, for making the rules of diplomatic engagement with Islamabad clear in the opening months of his five-year term.

The much awaited foreign secretary-level talks between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours – supposed to take place in Islamabad on August 25 – have been called off by New Delhi because of the Pakistani high commissioner’s consultative meeting with a moderate Hurriyat leader Sabir Shah.

The Indian foreign ministry declared the Pakistani envoy’s meeting with the Hurriyat leader ‘unacceptable” and called it an “interference” in India’s internal affairs. The crude message remains that Islamabad has to choose between Pak-India “dialogue and hobnobbing with the separatists.”

In a nutshell, it is the Indian way or the highway.

The Pakistani response to the latest Indian diplomatic snub has been lacklustre. The Foreign Office came out with a statement calling the postponement of talks a “setback” and underlining the fact that meetings with Kashmiri leaders have been a longstanding practice prior to the Pakistan-India talks. Similar views were expressed by the Pakistani high commissioner in India as he defended his meeting with the Hurriyat leader.

As the Indian side went on a diplomatic offensive, Pakistan’s political leadership – be it from the ruling party or the opposition – were missing in action and preferred to remain silent on the issue. Perhaps, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his close aides were too overwhelmed by the Azadi (freedom) and Inquilabi (revolutionary) marches and sit-ins by Imran Khan’s PTI and Dr Tahirul Qadri’s PAT in Islamabad.
The Indian rebuff must have jolted Prime Minister Sharif, who is keen to improve relations with India, especially in expanding trade and business ties. He went all the way to New Delhi to participate in the oath-taking ceremony of Modi in a bid to lay foundations of friendly relations with India. But Sharif’s ambitions and expectations of a breakthrough in ties with India are unrealistic and fail to take into account the priorities of the Modi government.

The beleaguered Pakistani prime minister is already getting a lot of flak from critics for showing an undignified haste in his one-sided attempt to improve relations with New Delhi. And in this bid to boost trade and business, he initially failed even to bring all the other key stakeholders, including the powerful military establishment, on board.

Indian inflexibility on the rules of engagement with Pakistan should also be an eye-opener for the ultra-liberal and business interest groups which want to have the “so-called good relations” with India at any cost. By this they mean: putting the core problem of Kashmir not just on the back-burner but forgetting it altogether. Siachen and Sir Creek – considered the much smaller of the disputed issues – in fact remain non-existent for the Pakistani doves.

The new Indian condition on holding talks with Pakistan aims not only to keep one of the key stakeholders – the Kashmiri leadership – out of the loop on any discussion regarding the future of the disputed Himalayan region, but also to shut the doors of any meaningful future engagement on this protracted problem in which the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people is a cornerstone.

But from the very onset, the Modi government intends to rewrite and dictate the rules of even ‘talks about talks’ in a firm departure from past convention in which Pakistan always consulted with the leadership of Occupied Kashmir before holding any negotiations with New Delhi. Such consultative meetings – as the recent one between Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit and Hurriyat’s Sabir Shah – have remained a norm even when BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister.

Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf had a detailed meeting with Hurriyat leaders in New Delhi ahead of his 2001 summit in Agra with Vajpayee. However, in recent years when Pakistan’s civilian representatives visited India, they were asked by their hosts not to meet the Kashmiri leadership – and they obliged.

While the peace lobbies in both Pakistan and India see the indefinite postponement of foreign secretaries-level talks a major blow to the efforts to normalise relations between the two countries, the Indian decision itself should not come as a surprise to those who have been closely following Modi’s election campaign promises to his supporters and the anti-Pakistan rhetoric he and his administration have been indulging in since coming to power in May this year.

The Indian decision of not engaging with Pakistan for any meaningful dialogue, let alone resuming the stalled composite dialogue, fits Modi’s domestic agenda in which he wants to push for the controversial move of abrogating Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which grants a special autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir. The Modi administration aims to win 44-plus seats in the Jammu and Kashmir state elections due later this year to form its government. It hopes to scrap the autonomous status for Kashmir if it wins the state elections with the help of its majority in the Indian parliament. Certainly, improving relations with Pakistan does not fit in the realisation of the dream of constitutionally making Occupied Jammu and Kashmir India’s integral part.

This explains Modi’s recent anti-Pakistan rhetoric during his recent visit to Kargil where he accused Islamabad of waging a “proxy war of terrorism” against India. This was the first visit to Kargil by an Indian prime minister since the 1999 mini-war with Pakistan in this treacherous region.

India’s well thought-out hardening of diplomatic stance came against the backdrop of an increase in cross-border firing incidents by Indian troops on the disputed frontier. According to military sources, the Indian Border Security Force committed 23 ceasefire violations at the working boundary during July and August. These unprovoked firing incidents occurred in Charwa, Harpal and Chaprar sectors near Sialkot. In August alone, Indian firing killed three civilians and wounded 12 others. Incidents of violation of ceasefire at the Line of Control by Indian troops have also intensified in the recent months.

These renewed tensions have effectively scuttled the little advances the two countries made to normalise their relations, especially on the trade front, during the previous Congress rule.

Even before postponement of secretary-level talks, the Modi government made its intentions clear through a statement in May that it wants to restart the process of trade talks from the point of September 2012 and not January 2014. This means all the gains made during this period on this front now stand nullified and the two countries are back to their previous positions – square one.

It has been a persistent policy of successive Indian governments to reduce the ambit of talks to lesser issues of trade, terrorism and trial of the suspected masterminds of the Mumbai attacks rather than resuming the stalled process of composite dialogue which aims to address all the core issues, including the Kashmir problem, that bedevil relations between the two South Asian neighbours.

India has effectively and proactively managed to set the agenda, pace and tone of its engagements with Pakistan. On the contrary, Pakistan’s civilian leadership is rudderless and appears to be pushing for the unrealistic goal of improved relations without taking account of the Indian mood.

Yes, good and friendly relations with all neighbours is a goal worth pursuing and is also the cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy. But the time for this great idea has not come yet – thanks to Indian rigidity.

So what are the realistic options for Pakistan? It should not do anything more than maintain a prolonged period of cold peace with its big neighbour. Meanwhile, the national leadership must refocus the narrative of Pakistan-India relations on the core issue of Kashmir rather than pressing for secondary issues. It should also aim for political stability, economic revival and peace which remain vital for the country’s strong defence. Only an economically and militarily strong Pakistan can hold meaningful peace talks with India.