Peace a la carte!

It has never been easy to look dispassionately at the Sub-continental equation and separate the grain from the chaff! This situation has been further complicated by the ham-handed action in India-Occupied Kashmir (IOK) by PM Modi’s government. The water has since been further muddied by our government’s equally ham-handed reaction. But let us begin at the beginning.

What appears to have totally escaped the attention betimes of our Foreign Office whiz-kids and in particular Track II denizens, is that prior to the Indian elections there was a clear-cut “policy blue-print” in BJP’s manifesto relating to IOK’s future dispensation. Had our chaps done their sums betimes, what followed the BJP election victory should not have caught them on the wrong foot. Why should it have come as a surprise that the re-elected government should opt to carry out its own pre-election blueprint to the letter? It goes without saying that the precipitate crackdown in IOK could and should have been anticipated by our FO gurus and policymakers if only they had paid due attention. It was hardly rocket science! Had this been done we should have been ready with a counter-narrative and a cogent reaction rather than groping aimlessly in the dark.

As things turned out, this region has been plunged once again into a state of sixes and sevens. Aiming for peace is one thing; hankering after it at all costs, another! Peace in order to be enduring needs to be honourable, equitable and fair. Merely reaching out for an elusive peace without weighing the consequences is like trying to race a cart with square wheels.

There can be no hope for peace if one side is bent upon scoring debating points at the expense of the other. Another ingredient could be the prior tackling and elimination betimes of the root causes of tension. Unless the disease itself is identified and cured, mere suppression of superficial symptoms is neither here nor there. An “interim peace” may be worse than no peace at all.

At this point, a good, hard look over the shoulder may be in order. Peaceniks and the Track II stalwarts had never quite anticipated the shape of things to come — always a dangerous denouement. Overall, it is unwise to surmise that peace simply can be brought in piecemeal. Either peace comes as a package or doesn’t come at all. Each side should be required to put its shoulder to the wheel in order to make the process credible and credit-worthy. The time to play out a charade merely to gain time is long past. In the changed World Order, the stakes are too high to be trifled with.

Coming back now to the aftermath of the Indian elections and to PM Modi’s precipitate midnight strike in IOK. Matters have reached a critical phase. The events aforementioned are bound to impact the shape of things to come. The question that presents itself begging for an answer is: where do events go from here? For one, it is high time for the government of this blessed land to come out with a balanced and cogent narrative of its own to counter that of Modi’s government. This shouldn’t have been too difficult but is the one variable that has been conspicuous by its absence from the equation.

So far, all that has been evident is that we have been merely making jingoistic noises and — to make matters worse confounded — floundering around like a headless chicken. This defeatist attitude just won’t do. Where are our foreign policy whiz-kids when we need them most? The name of the game is to be circumspect, positive and to come up with credible options. We appear to be still groping in the dark; our professed friends have forsaken us, preferring pecuniary gains over ephemeral kinship! One lives and learns. Maybe a slight course-adjustment is what the “doctor” would order. Meanwhile, it must be put on record that there is little to be gained by either jumping the gun or, alternatively, in being over-complacent.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2019.

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