Where is the political will?

As was to be expected, the recently concluded Pakistan-India talks ended with a whimper rather than a bang. What one fails to appreciate is Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s rather peevish (afterthought) comments. Why was he surprised, for instance, that India’s foreign minister was ‘selective’ and lacked a ‘brief’ to move forward? A bit of hindsight would make it clear that the Indian side was strictly following its brief.  Before the onset of the talks, Pakistan had commenced its hackneyed (there is no other word for it) practice of giving a positive spin to the whole rigmarole. Briefing the parliamentary committee on national security, the foreign minister was reported to have said that Pakistan would approach the dialogue process with a positive and constructive mindset and “with a view to resolving all bilateral issues with India including Jammu and Kashmir”. But then the minister went on to add that “resumption of the peace process” was an “important development”, as if he was in the know of more than us lesser mortals.

It is beyond comprehension as to why the need was felt by our side to present an overly rosy picture of the talks to come. The truth should have dawned on us by now that our view of the dialogue is hardly shared by our interlocutors. The Indian side has made no secret of its resolve to confine future talks to a single item agendum. A cursory look at the current status of our relations makes it obvious that there is little or no congruity between the two sides as regards the scope of the ‘talks’. There are those that look askance at the reason behind the indecent haste to rush to the (first foreign secretary level and then foreign minister level) talks table without bothering to first tie up the loose ends.

The talks and especially how the Indians reacted and behaved make it quite clear that they are interested only in discussing the issue of terrorism and nothing beyond that. Even otherwise responsible Indian leaders have harped on the mantra of ‘cross-border terrorism’. The Pakistan-India peace wagon – when it is not stuck in the proverbial groove – so far has had a peculiar ‘trudge’ all of its own. Its progress, if any, has hardly been in the forward direction.

The Indian side was never very comfortable with a ‘composite’ dialogue. Progress on the settlement of contentious issues has been stalled for quite some time. The CBMs, initially justified as essential means to an end, have been gradually allowed to don the mantle of an end in itself. The contentious issues were consequently pushed to the backburner. And now the spectre of these issues being consigned to cold-storage is visible on the
hazy horizon.

There are no two views regarding the need to curb terrorism, but the temptation to use this as a pretext to score points and to settle political scores needs to be eschewed. When the so-called composite dialogue process was set in motion, the list of contentious issues as well as a ‘mechanism’ to move towards their settlement was agreed upon. The CBMs did serve as an emollient for a while but in the process the two sides appear to have lost sight of the fact that more delay will only have an adverse impact on ties.

Both sides need to move beyond this so-called CBM syndrome. It is never too late to make amends. All that is needed is the elusive ‘political will’. Will the powers that be on both sides make a resolve to deliver? This is the least they owe their people.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 21^st, 2010.