Editorial

A pleasant surprise

For Prime Ministers Modi and Sharif, this is a moment of both opportunity and threat, almost in equal measure

Editorial December 26, 2015

pm nawaz sharif shakes hands with his indian counterpart narendra modi upon latter 039 s arrival at the allama iqbal international airport in lahore on december 25 2015 photo pid

PM Nawaz Sharif shakes hands with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi upon latter's arrival at the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore on December 25, 2015. PHOTO: PID

The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a ‘surprise’ visit to Pakistan on December 25 — coincidentally the birthday of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, father of the nation. The decision to visit was apparently made at short notice, but there will have had to be at least some back-channel work before it happened — Indian aircraft do not land in Pakistan without some sort of forewarning. The media were certainly caught off guard, and some TV channels had to quickly adjust their rhetoric as pictures of the two leaders holding hands as they walked side by side, emerged. The Twitterverse went into meltdown on both sides of the border with both pro- and anti-comments and it was all over before most people knew it had started anyway.

Twenty-four hours later and looking past the surprise and hyperbole, the visit of Prime Minister Modi and the obvious warmth of his reception by Prime Minsiter Sharif, looks more like considered statesmanship than political grandstanding. How the relationship between these two men plays out, and how well or ill they are able to sell their aspirations to wary, cynical and mistrustful voters in two countries where the borders crackle with fire, is going to be crucial to the regional future.

Prime Minister Modi had come from Afghanistan where he had opened the new parliament building, built with Indian money. Afghanistan is chronically unstable and likely to become more so, an instability that bodes ill for every other country in the region, contiguous or not. Including India. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is becoming a reality as fast as the concrete can be poured; and there is a regional fulcrum on which Pakistan and India sit that will determine the quality of life for billons for generations to come, depending on which way the see-saw tips. For Prime Ministers Modi and Sharif, this is a moment of both opportunity and threat, almost in equal measure. At some point, they have to move beyond the symbolic, powerful as this latest example of symbology was, and into the realms of hard bargains and clear decisions. A move we would warmly welcome.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2015.

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