Lines (out) of Control

Only way to address the issue is to engage each other, conveying a loud message to detractors of peace in subcontinent

Abiding peace continues to elude people in India and Pakistan as talks between the National Security Advisers (NSA) of the two countries were recently called off. The Line of Control (LoC) is in a state of constant tension, with both sides suffering unremitting casualties. A war of words goes on in the media with leaders on both sides blaming each other for putting up pre-conditions for the talks at the last minute. The Nawaz-Modi meeting in the Russian city of Ufa was at the time seen as a breath of fresh air. Soon after the joint statement that agreed to talks between the NSAs of the two countries was issued, snags in the process emerged. Both sides started giving their own spin to the construction of the joint statement.

With the breakdown in talks, the process of diffusing tensions along the LoC has plunged into further uncertainty — what if trigger-happy machines on both sides lead the two nuclear powers into a serious showdown with communication channels put on hold?

During the heyday of the Cold War when Europe was a theatre of nuclear arsenal build-up, there were continued and visible efforts to establish a strict nuclear control regime and avoid border skirmishes. Mechanisms to prevent any mishap were very much on ground. The situation in the subcontinent, on the other hand, is ominous. The two nuclear powers are not only pounding the Working Boundary and the LoC, but there is also the dangerous element of cross-border incursions and acts of terrorism complicating the whole picture. Nuclear stability in the region is under serious threat and there is no structured mechanism between the two countries to address this situation. The Indian stance of going for surgical strikes is instantly matched by the fear of Pakistan's response through tactical warheads of long-range trajectory.

Narendra Modi's mantra of no talks if terrorism is not the only agenda on the table does not make much sense as he is seeking assurances from a country on an issue by which it has already been hit very hard. A full blown war within the country has already overstretched the Pakistan Army. The only way to address the issue is to engage with each other, conveying a loud message to the detractors of peace in the subcontinent. The BJP's coercive diplomacy, unfortunately, is squeezing space for peaceniks in Pakistan, which is equally worrisome. Driven by the RSS agenda, hard posturing against Pakistan may augur well for Modi on the domestic front, but it will take him nowhere near subduing Pakistan into acting in a way that fits the BJP's calculus. Successive moves along the periphery have emboldened the BJP government in stiffening its stance against Pakistan. Unwarranted statements in Dhaka and Dubai by the Indian prime minister were aimed at creating a wedge between the host countries and Pakistan, without realising that transactional issues between states often do not have any substantive bearing on bilateral relations.

Despite all the differences, Pakistan and India have a rich reservoir of commonality which can enable them to pick up the thread in the right direction. We will remain neighbours, whether we like it or not.
The breakdown of the NSA talks is palpably being attributed to a divergent reading of the Ufa joint statement, which underlined terrorism and all issues connected with it as the foremost agenda item. One is at a loss to understand how Pakistan agreed to such a statement and now is at pains insisting that ‘all issues connected with terrorism’ as being a reference to Kashmir. How could a core issue be tackled in an adjunct manner? Whatever spin the foreign office continues to give to this, it was very much implicit in the joint statement. Sartaj Aziz, in an interview, did concede that specific reference to Kashmir was dropped in the statement on India’s insistence. This would not have been Aziz's decision and must have been cleared with the prime minister whose 'generosity' in this regard was evidently misread by India. It was taken as an excuse to block even peripheral discussions on Kashmir during the proposed talks.

Pakistan should have realised that the NSA platform in the past had been conducive for back channel diplomacy, while for front line parleys, a time-tested, well-structured foreign secretaries’ framework was available. We should have known that India's NSA was not a suave diplomat like Shivshankar Menon, the former adviser. Dovel's presence at the helm should have given Pakistan food for thought regarding the agenda for the talks and the litany of allegations which he surely would have brought to the meeting. How could someone like him be seen in a peacemaker's role, especially as he had spent a lifetime spying on and fiddling inside Pakistan? He publicly brags about his overt operations in the country, spending quite a few years sniffing around Data Darbar in Lahore, while carrying out espionage activities.
As Pakistan pulled the Hurriyat card, the initiative slipped out of India's hands and it was forced to go on the back foot and indulge in some bizarre posturing: terming Hurriyat as a third party, and bringing in the Simla Agreement, knowing well that the presence of Kashmiri leaders over a cup of tea at the Pakistan High Commission would have no bearing on the course of the parleys. The move not only gave buoyancy to the Hurriyat, but also provided Pakistan an opportunity to make amends for the faux pas at Ufa. It also reflected poorly on India and exposed the way a nuclear power was looking at the complexity of Indo-Pak relations and showed its desire, or lack thereof,  to strive for enduring peace.

The lessons from Ufa are loud and clear. Such meetings require a lot of preparatory work. There should be professional input and advice on every word that is spoken and every word that is reduced to writing. The protocol regime needs to be revisited, especially with regards to India, whose prime minister stood still like a statue while Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif walked towards him for the handshake. For future formal engagements, we need to revert to the framework of foreign secretaries’ meetings and dispense with the approach in which the NSAs are at the helm. One was amazed to see Sartaj Aziz flashing copies of dossiers in the media. Diplomats do not act like this. On a personal note, I recall that in a similar moot, my Indian counterpart wished to exchange dossiers with me. He requested for a discreet moment for this. We walked into a side room, brought out our dossiers from our briefcases and exchanged them. The other key lesson is this: Pakistan needs and deserves a full-time foreign minister capable of leading from the front, taking this office to a higher pedestal. It is not pleasant to see the rich legacy of the likes of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Agha Shahi being frittered away.


Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th,  2015.

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