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Time to move out of square
one!
Khalid Saleem
Email: binwakeel@yahoo.com
A newspaper item the other day said something about the Indian Prime
Minister planning to pay a visit to Pakistan in a couple of months’
time. One would not take this ‘disclosure’ too seriously though. All
kinds of speculations are being bandied about these days and those
writing about foreign affairs are having a field day; so one would do
well to take such things with the proverbial pinch of salt. 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 some months 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 was 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 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 President of Pakistan 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 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, Wuller barrage,
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 accepted 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 President Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh in New York …. 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.
