Backchannels at risk

An essential ingredient of diplomacy is backchannel communication. In diplomatic terms, it has a history stretching back centuries and is the mechanism by which states, even states at war with one another, have a means of communicating. Everything via backchannels is deniable; states will rarely acknowledge the use of this means and they are generally robust. That said, they are not indestructible and are open to the ebb and flow of the tides of interstate tensions, and the backchannels between India and Pakistan are currently at risk. They had withstood the pressures of the Pathankot attack and both states remained committed to secretary-level talks, but a new set of pressures has emerged with the confessional statement of Kulbushan Jadhav who was arrested recently and exposed as an Indian intelligence agent working to foment unrest in Balochistan.

In Jadhav’s statement, a name has cropped up that has given Pakistan significant cause for concern, because it is a name closely associated with the backchannel network – Ajit Doval. If as Jadhav suggests Mr Doval was his handler, then India is playing a dangerous double game. Mr Doval is the Indian counterpart of Lt General (retd) Nasser Khan Janjua, and the two men held secret talks in Bangkok in December 2015, ultimately paving the way for more formal talks in 2016, talks which those who attacked Pathankot sought to derail. The Pakistani NSA has, on the basis of confidence building, shared intelligence with Mr Doval about militant infiltration into India — something that has never happened before. Pakistan is now re-evaluating the viability of the inclusion of Mr Doval in the backchannel work, and rightly so if Jadhav is telling the truth or a close version thereof — he is, after all, an intelligence officer and presumably not an amateur when it come to disinformation and deception. If as a result of this, backchannel communication breaks down, then the talks are as good as dead, or if not dead then deeply comatose. Duplicity of this scale at this level is unacceptable, and does nothing to inspire confidence in Indian assertions of sincerity regarding the peace process. Let us hope that repairs are both swift and effective.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2016.

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