An unhelpful development

A spanner has been thrown into the works in the form of some distinctly unhelpful comments by Indian Defence Minister

After the weeks since the attack on the Pathankot base of the Indian air force on January 2, the governments on both sides have displayed commendable restraint. The traditional finger-pointing and name-calling has been largely eschewed for a more measured, indeed more statesmanlike, approach by both the leaders and the administrations of each state. The attack, as was surely intended, disrupted the talks that were ‘in process’ but did not actually derail them as would have been the case in the past. The work went on at secretary level behind the scenes and the expectation was that talks would be resumed in the not-so-distant future.



Now a spanner of an entirely different kind has been thrown into the works in the form of some distinctly unhelpful comments by the Indian Defence Minister — and senior cabinet member — Manohar Parrikar. It was he who informed the Indian Upper House, the Rajya Sabha, that militants could not have carried out the attack on the Pathankot air base without the support of the Islamabad government. This is a very serious accusation to make without anything by way of supporting evidence, at least not in the public domain.

Mr Parrikar’s comments came in response to a somewhat disingenuous question put by Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, who asked if the Indian government believed that this was “just a terror attack” or was it “done with the help of the Pakistan Army”. No comment could be more incendiary under the prevailing circumstances, and one wonders whether the purpose of the question was to derail the talks in the same way as those that carried out the attack sought to derail them. The reply contained the allegation that no non-state actor could operate in Pakistan without the support of the state — a scurrilous accusation at best, a destructive one at worst. Some oil was poured on troubled waters by the Indian minister of state for home in the Lok Sabha who pointed out that for the first time, Pakistan has taken affirmative action on the basis of information provided by India and registered a case. Unwise words cannot be unsaid, and we urge restraint and yes, some judiciously applied statesmanship.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.