Time to move out of square one!
Khalid Saleem
The media is making quite an issue of the outcome of the meeting between
the President of Pakistan and the Prime Minister of India. Screaming
headlines have it that the two neighbours have agreed to “open four
trade routes”, including two across the Line of Control in Kashmir. The
two leaders valiantly resolved to work for “an early and full
normalization of relations”. In addition they agreed that, “the forces
that had tried to derail the peace process must be defeated”. All this
is well taken. What is not understood is why we must re-immerse
ourselves headlong in the sea of CBMs. Is not our cup already full of
them as it is?
While on the subject one may well be within one’s rights to pose the
question: what happened to the much-vaunted back channel diplomacy? In
the words of a screaming headline in a newspaper quite a while back, it
(back-channel diplomacy, that is) was “back to square one”. One has
little choice but to respectfully beg to differ. How can the two
possibly ‘come back’ to square one when they had never intended to leave
it in the first place? The sorry state of affairs is that the two
interlocutors appeared to have expended all their precious energy in
merely marking time. The stage of leaping out of the starting blocks is
apparently yet to become part of their training lexicon. Now that a new
dawn is reportedly on the horizon, it may perhaps be in order to peep
over the shoulder and try to assess the trail traversed so far.
In so far as the so-called composite dialogue is concerned, any movement
so far has neither been forwards nor backwards, but rather sideways,
more like that of hermit crabs on the beach. The only difference is that
the crabs in question at least have a definite goal in mind. In our
scenario, this is the one thing that is conspicuously missing. The
Indian side has all along been crowing about the Confidence Building
Measures (most emanating from India!) that have been on and off the
bilateral table. This strategy – devoid though it is of much substance –
sells well in the West that represents the target audience of Indian
spin-doctors. Meanwhile the pseudo intellectuals on both sides of the
border have been overly enthusiastic over the prospects of more CBMs in
the offing.
None have paused to reflect, though, as to where – if anywhere – these
CBMs are leading the two countries! It is a sad state of affairs when an
“accord” merely to “continue the dialogue” should produce exultant
headlines in a section of the press as has happened several times over
the past few years. All this was time serving. It should be high time
for us to abandon the rather futile habit of desperately clutching at
every drifting straw. Time and again, our spokesmen have expressed
‘satisfaction’ over the ongoing dialogue, adding for good measure that
Pakistan ‘is fully committed to this process’. This is all to the good.
Expressions of optimism and manifestations of good intentions are, no
doubt, positive signs and should not be discouraged. However, much like
the “flexibility” that the Pakistan side has so often been calling for,
optimism too cannot be one-sided. It would be advisable, therefore, to
take a good hard look at what the other side is conjuring up. What pains
one though is not so much the Indian tactics (one has got used to these
tactics by now) as the somewhat inexplicable optimism that has been
oozed by our side over the past few years. Our spokespersons have often
bent over backwards to give a positive spin to India’s (negative)
assertions. Why, in heaven’s name, should we have felt the need to
indulge in this essentially self-defeating exercise?
The staggering number of CBMs notwithstanding, precious little appears
to have been achieved in the nature of settlement of outstanding issues.
One would have thought that with the easing of tension the various
outstanding issues would by now have been well on the way to equitable
and lasting settlement. The sea change that the world has gone through
since nine/eleven had lent credence to certain wooly assumptions that
have, regrettably, turned out to be illusions as time passed. In making
the above assertion, one is not alluding for the time being to the Jammu
and Kashmir dispute that is admittedly somewhat complicated. What one
fails to comprehend, though, is what stands in the path of progress on
other contentious issues, like Sir Creek, Wullar barrage, division of
waters, Siachin and the like. Given a modicum of political will, some of
these issues should have been well on the way to equitable and lasting
settlement. That this has not happened, points to only one conclusion:
that political will is lacking. Most of the CBMs agreed so far have
entailed unilateral concessions on the part of Pakistan. It is about
time that the other side too showed some semblance of flexibility if
only to establish its credibility. Here it may be of some relevance to
quote an example or two of some assertions of our spokesmen in the not
too distant past, if only to give an idea of what not to do in
situations as delicate as the one between these two countries. In
January 2005, APP reported that the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman
made the following assertions in an interview with Chinese television
CCTV-9: a) Talks between Pakistan and India “are neither détente nor
rapprochement but a serious quest for peace and security in the region
by seeking solutions to the outstanding issues”; b) Jammu and Kashmir
and Peace and Security are “at the top” of the eight-point agenda of the
composite dialogue; c) The two sides had “agreed that Kashmir would not
be relegated to the backburner”; d) Both countries had “agreed to pursue
the agreement between the leaders to explore all possible options for a
peaceful negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue”.
Looking at it by hindsight one shudders to contemplate what distorted
picture this interview must have conveyed to our Chinese friends at what
can be seen as a critical juncture. If one were sitting in Beijing, one
could hardly be blamed for concluding that all was hunky dory in
Pakistan’s ties with India. No prizes for guessing what impact this
interview must have had on the Chinese policy makers. This is just one
stray example. The Foreign Office of that time has a lot to answer for.
If one has gone through all the aforesaid, it is merely in the hope that
our new policy makers will see through the simulations and
dissimulations that have characterized our past conduct. The new
dispensation can hardly afford to traverse the same distorted path again
much as some lobbies may wish to. The name of the game is to beware of
the snares. |
