Motive behind India’s offer?
Mohammad Jamil
India’s proposal for talks at foreign sectary level sounds intriguing,
because since the dialogue was stalled after Mumbai attacks, Pakistan
had been fervently trying to persuade India to start the dialogue, but
India took the position that first of all the mastermind of the attack
should be tried and executed, evidence or no evidence.
Anyhow, Pakistan has accepted the Indian offer for foreign
secretary-level talks with the caveat that it should be a step towards a
full engagement on important issues, including Kashmir and terrorism.
Analysts and commentators are speculating as to what has made India to
change its mind. Is it on American prodding or India has realized that
the way to reach Afghanistan and Central Asian republics is through
Pakistan? Or in view of forthcoming Commonwealth Games, it wanted to
create an atmosphere so that other countries should not feel security
concern. Whatever the case may be, Pakistan must insist that the
secretary-level meeting should set the dates for resumption of composite
dialogue, and that India should stop building dams on Pakistani rivers –
Chenab and Jhelum, because it would make Pakistan a wasteland. And it
could lead to war between the two nuclear states.
Though India managed to force President Barack Obama to procrastinate
his vision on South Asia yet Obama after weighing all the options have
made a move in that direction and unveiled his plans in a televised
speech from the US Military Academy at West Point stating that his new
policy was designed to bring war in Afghanistan to a successful
conclusion. The most significant part of Obama’s speech was his
acknowledgement that “success in Afghanistan was inextricably linked to
Washington’s partnership with Pakistan”. Some analysts were of the
opinion that this was a piece of rhetoric, but President Obama had
expressed his resolve “to have partnership with Pakistan built on a
foundation of mutual interests, mutual respect, and mutual trust”, which
is the only way that the US can salvage its position. There is no
denying that American leadership takes decisions to advance its global
interests, however some change is visible in Obama administration’s
policy as compared with former president George Bush’s policy, as the
latter had put India on a very high pedestal.
In fact, India understood its place in the international arena, when
President Obama and President Hu Jintao met in November 2009 in Beijing.
A paragraph in the joint communiqué had welcomed Chinese involvement in
South Asia and mentioned about “Beijing’s ability to promote peace,
stability and development in the region”. Many analysts in India and
elsewhere see India having lost the centrality it enjoyed during the
period when former president George Bush was at the helm, who had
asseverated to make India not only a regional power but also a world
power. Though Chinas has recently expressed its displeasure over the US
arms deal for more than $ 6 billion with Taiwan, yet America considers
China as an important trading partner and a creditor having invested
almost a trillion dollars in US Treasury Bonds and other portfolios. B
Raman a former top Indian intelligence official and head of the Centre
for Topical Studies in Chennai said: “The ground reality is India at the
moment does not count for the US in the same way that China and Pakistan
do”. The recent London Conference on the future of Pakistan has ignored
India considering that it has no role so far as Afghanistan is
concerned.
There is a lot of frustration in Indian leadership hierarchy because
international community did not see any role for India in the new policy
which was obvious from the communiqué released after the London
Conference on the future of Afghanistan attended by about 70 countries.
In fact, it was India that had rejected with disdain President Obama’s
policy for the region when he announced Richard Holbrooke as envoy for
Afghanistan Pakistan and India. Perhaps now it has realized that
American presence in Afghanistan is not going to last very long. And
Pakistan could become a conduit to the reconciliation between the Afghan
government and the Taliban, provided they are ready to give them
rightful share in the government. In other words, whatever scenario
emerges it does not have any role in Afghanistan. In this backdrop,
India will try to sabotage the reconciliation efforts clandestinely
using its clout over the Northern Alliance. Nevertheless, it had no
choice but to announce its decision to back the efforts for talks with
the Taliban to showcase its desire for peace in Afghanistan. There is a
perception that India’s initiative is damage limitation exercise in view
of Deepak Kapoor’s ‘two front war’ statement.
An English daily has carried the news quoting a source close to Friday’s
meeting between Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and Pakistan’s
High Commissioner Shahid Malik that foreign secretaries level meeting is
on cards, adding that the venue was not an issue and only the timing was
being tweaked, possibly for late February. According to Indian reports
Ms Rao’s proposal to discuss “all outstanding issues affecting peace and
security, including counter-terrorism” was made in a telephone call to
her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir two weeks ago. Even before the
call Ms Rao had etched out India’s revised stance on the resumption of
talks with Pakistan. In a TV interview in mid-January she stated that
dialogue was “obviously the way forward for normalisation of relations
and to resolve outstanding issues between the two countries”. Diplomats
keenly watching the resumption of talks between the two countries feel
that there may be little to write home about because Indian foreign
secretary had recently hinted that increase in violence in Kashmir was
due to the infiltration from Pakistani side. It has to be remembered
that Indian leaders were not willing to even talk about local connection
in the Mumbai blasts.
Though India’s Home Minister P. Chidambaram has conceded the other day
that investigators had known for some time that attackers had local
handler, yet he tried to create confusion by adding that “the handler
could have infiltrated into India and lived enough to acquire an Indian
accent and learned Indian Hindi words”. In a way, he again blamed
Pakistan. Problem is that on every terrorist act in India, its
government, opposition and the media start propaganda blitz to mobilize
the world public opinion that Pakistan is behind all acts of terrorism
in India.
On the other hand Pakistani foreign office, government functionaries and
political leaders are all on the defensive. And even when Pakistan has
substantive proof of India’s involvement in its support to insurgency in
Balochistan, they keep mum. Our foreign minister and interior minister
have many a time said that Indian RAW is involved in acts of terrorism
but they would not be discharging their duties unless they present this
proof to the international community. So far as Indian offer for
dialogue is concerned, it could be only posturing to the world that
India is a peace-loving country and wants to resolve issues through
dialogue. But there is no speck of evidence of India’s good intentions.
Anyhow, there is no way out but to restart the dialogue and keep the
fingers crossed.
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