India and Pakistan: A Dialogue to Nowhere?
D Suba Chandran
Deputy Director, IPCS
e-mail: suba@ipcs.org
The meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan - Manmohan Singh and Syed Yusuf Raza at Sharm el-heikh, Egypt, on 16 July resulted in a joint statement, signalling the resumption of the composite dialogue, which was stalled after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).
The joint statement’s declaration of the two countries’ “resolve to fight terrorism and to cooperate with each other to this end” is political rhetoric and a big joke. Can India and Pakistan really cooperate to fight terrorism, especially, when a four year-old composite dialogue that kicked off in 2004, was broken off by the terrorist attack last October?
Consider the recent record in the last one decade between India and Pakistan. In 1999, Pakistan sent it troops in the guise of mujahideen (remember the Afghan mujahideen in J&K immediately after Partition?) into Kargil, resulting in a limited war between the two countries. In 2001, Pakistan-based terrorists led by the Lashkar and Jaish almost succeeded in entering the Indian Parliament, which resulted in a year-long military stand-off along the Indo-Pak border. Since the composite dialogue started, there were terrorist attacks in New Delhi, Mumbai, Benares, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Ahmedabad – all of them considered to be involving militants based in Pakistan.
Leaving history aside, however, both Prime Ministers have resolved “to fight terrorism and to cooperate with each other to this end.” The entire civilised world should wish both the Prime Ministers well, for this is an ideal, none can find fault with. Will this work, in reality?
The threat to the two countries cooperating with each other on terrorism emanates, mainly from Pakistan. As Asif Ali Zardari, the President of Pakistan himself confessed, Islamabad in the past has used militancy as a state strategy vis-à-vis its neighbours. Has this policy changed now? How can India and Afghanistan, which have been at the receiving end of Pakistan’s militancy strategy believe that Islamabad has a changed perspective now on the use of terrorism as a state strategy?
Two parameters are worth considering from an Indian perspective, to find out whether Pakistan has changed its strategy. First, Pakistan’s policy and strategies towards the LeT, which many consider as the main organization, based in Pakistan responsible for terrorist atrocities in India. True, as the Lahore High Court has concluded, the Lashkar may not be involved in terrorist activities within Pakistan, but how is Islamabad going to respond to the organisation’s activities in India? Will Islamabad take any real action against the LeT, or hide behind excuses that India is not providing adequate proof? Action against the LeT should be a political decision, if Pakistan really wants to fight terrorism and cooperate with India. What proof did the US give to Pakistan, for the latter to take a U-turn against the Taliban and al Qaeda?
The second parameter to judge Pakistan’s seriousness will be related to how the proposed joint mechanism to fight terrorism between the two countries progresses. Will “the two countries… share real time, credible and actionable information on any future terrorist threats,” as claimed by the two leaders in the joint statement? When it comes to the US, there is an extensive cooperation between the ISI and the CIA, especially relating to those captured al Qaeda militants, who were silently shipped to Guantanamo Bay, with no questions asked. Will Pakistan pursue a similar strategy with those individuals, on whose names there have been red corner notices from Interpol?
If either of the above is not taking place, one can be reasonably sure, that the main section of the joint statement is simply rhetoric and goes against the first sentence of the statement that the “Prime Minister Singh reiterated the need to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice.” A nation that fails to learn from the mistakes of the past and let the killers of its citizens go unpunished is unlikely to raise its prestige either at the international level or at the national level, amongst its own citizens. Nor does it deserve to be respected, whatever may be, as some strategists fondly refer to, “the larger picture.”
The joint statement also states that “action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed.” What does this mean? After repeatedly stating that terrorist attack in Mumbai as the primary reason for suspending the composite dialogue, if India has to agree to such a statement, what does this refer to? Does this mean, India’s stopping the dialogue was a mistake? Or is India hinting that, New Delhi would not derail the composite dialogue, even if there are some more terrorist attacks on Indian soil?
In the last part of the joint statement, both leaders “agreed that the real challenge is development and the elimination of poverty” and that they “are resolved to eliminate those factors which prevent our countries from realizing their full potential.” This is again nothing but a pure rhetoric. Rickshaw-wallahs in Lahore and Delhi will know this; one does not need a learned man like Manmohan Singh to reiterate this simple fact, that too in a joint statement at the highest level.
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