Answering Hina’s prayers

With a week between them, how different Pakistan foreign minister’s message is going to be from what Americans left.

The monsoon has been so stingy with Delhi this year, sometimes I wonder why it even bothers. And then, you witness the gathering wind, the leaves soaking in the falling rain, the filtered play of light, and wonder if there’s some higher purpose.

Meanwhile, there’s the sound and fury accompanying the visits of two powerful women. Hillary Clinton and Hina Rabbani Khar have had a week between them, and one wonders how different the Pakistan foreign minister’s message is going to be from what the American left behind.

Hina was probably a student at university when Hillary lived in the White House, dealing with both power and peccadillo that was such an integral part of her husband’s personality. As America’s secretary of state, Clinton makes no bones about her views. She knows what she wants. She believes she knows how to get it.

Hillary’s determination was on display in Delhi and Chennai last week, both in her public spaces as well as in conversations with government officials. She made it clear at the press conference that Pakistan remained a key ally in the war against terror, but that “safe havens” for terrorists must be eliminated.

Hearing her, you would be forgiven for wondering if Hillary had borrowed the Indian Foreign Office’s brief. Eliminating safe havens in Pakistan? That’s India’s language. Other comments included, “We (stand) in favour of a stronger role for India in forums like the G-20” and “We look forward to a reformed Security Council that includes India as a permanent member.”

And then the clearest manifestation of the newly forged friendship: “My point today is (that) India’s rise is directly connected (with)… the cooperation we are forging to make both our countries stronger, more prosperous and better equipped to address the challenges we face.”

What’s going on here? India was supposed to be furious with the US for continuing to give Pakistan a long rope even after Osama bin Laden was found in the backyard of Pakistan’s military academy. The US was meant to be really upset with India for refusing to amend its legislation around nuclear commerce to allow US companies to make a ton of money.

Part of the answer can be found in recession-hit America’s desperation to cut business deals with India, as it continues to grow at a respectable 6-7 per cent. That is why Clinton publicly told India to lower its tariff barriers, open its market and buy US military equipment. In response, the Indians were tough on the visa embargo imposed on Indian software engineers — as many as 500,000 in the US already.

Clearly, it’s the economy, stupid. But you would miss the point if you didn’t catch the flavour of the India-US talks on the AfPak region. Evidently they were so ‘frank’ that the Indian side was frankly surprised. The gist of Hillary’s remarks seem to revolve around her wondering if the Pakistani establishment had made the complete connect between terrorists of all colours, between ‘good terrorists’ like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Quetta Shura, who could be controlled by the Pakistani state and ‘bad terrorists’ in the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, who couldn’t be.

It is in this light that Hina Rabbani Khar comes to Delhi this week. She has asked to pray at the Jama Masjid. One hopes she will include the improvement of the India-Pakistani political relationship in her invocation — and that her prayers will be answered.





Published in The Express Tribune, July 24^th, 2011.