Getting to the table

Neither side is going to war again — though Joe Biden, the outgoing American Vice-President, said in a valedictory speech that the region we are in is the only place on Earth where a nuclear exchange could occur — but neither side can agree to talk either. There is occasional talk about talks between India and Pakistan, there are missed opportunities to talk and opportunities deliberately strangled at birth generally by India and whatever move towards talks Pakistan has made in the last year has foundered on the spiky reefs of resurgent Indian nationalism. The latest exchange comes courtesy of Adviser to the Prime minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, who noted the Indian attitude that it will not have any dialogue with Pakistan as long as Pakistan wants the Kashmir issue on the agenda, and further that the Indian Prime Minister wishes to establish his country as a ‘hegemonic power’ in the region.

All this comes at a time when there is the equivalent of a geopolitical churn in process, a process generally that moves with glacial slowness. Pakistan, said Mr Aziz, will not compromise itself for the sake of establishing peace, an indicator that the agenda on this side of the table is unchanged, that our claim to Kashmir is a non-negotiable item and the sooner India understands that then the better for all concerned. As ever India is blowing smoke over Kashmir, in large part to mask its own human rights violations since the death of Burhan Wani. The people of Kashmir remain trapped betwixt and between, largely voiceless and hugely oppressed.

The waters have been further ruffled by LK Advani, a former deputy Indian prime minister, who has mused that India is ‘incomplete’ without Sindh. Whilst there does not appear to be a desire for territorial gain in his remark it was poorly timed. There is a faint hope that the rhetoric may die back once the Indian provincial elections are over and that the attitude towards dialogue will change. President-elect Trump has offered to mediate which may not be as ridiculous as it sounds — an iconoclast to break the deadlock.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2017.

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