A decade lost

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke yet again of his desire to visit Pakistan. This has been a fairly regular refrain for the past 10 years in the prime minister’s speeches, leading one to ask: why, if he so desires, has he failed to make this important visit? After all, a prime minister’s ‘desire’ to visit a country cannot be mired in just personal reasons, and should emanate from sound politics and strategy.

So presuming that the politics the good doctor believes in supports such a visit, what then holds him back? The stridency of the BJP that then pressures the ruling Congress to stop all high level visits between India and Pakistan? The hysteria of sections of the media that insists hostility and war are the only determinants of the India-Pakistan relationship? The disdain of the bureaucracy that feeds into the conflict lobby and dismisses all efforts for peace? But then, the ‘desire’ that Prime Minister Singh so often speaks of is just an illusion, pedalled out to establish himself as a man of peace and not war, with no real commitment to follow through.

For 10 years, India and Pakistan, which should have worked over time to push through high-level visits and meetings to bring down levels of tension, and establish new and more effective channels of communication, have refused to meet. Ten years is a long time without prime ministerial level visits, and makes the politicians even more dependent on the vested interests of both countries, who are bent upon preventing direct political dialogue so that conflict can become the permanent status defining bilateral relations between the two countries. The stakeholders on both sides are well known, and have worked in tandem to prevent peace lobbies from dominating the India-Pakistan discourse.

Since the ball for a visit has been in the Indian court for a while now, and Prime Minister Singh has always managed to stir unnecessary debate with his rather frequent references to the ‘desire’ to visit Pakistan, he should, at the end of his tenure, at least enlighten us as to why he did not follow his ‘heart’. And what heavens would have fallen had he done so? Pakistan’s espousal of terrorism was cited as a reason each time, but any strategist conversant with the region and its politics, knows that a great deal has changed in this past decade. For one, Pakistan has become a direct victim of the terrorism, with the people reaching a zero-tolerance level.

A wise Indian government should have used the current public and political opinion in Pakistan to sharpen the larger campaign against terrorism, and the outfits working against India. By stopping dialogue, or reducing it to the level of officials, 10 valuable years have been lost with the clock of India-Pakistan relations moving backwards, rather than forward. This is absurd in this time and age.

Prime Minister Singh’s recent statement at his press conference in Delhi comes really as a non-starter. India is heading for the Lok Sabha elections and these last few weeks really represent a lame-duck tenure with the UPA government on its way out. A prime ministerial visit as such is of little consequence, and if made, will actually have little more than personal value. It will be a waste of taxpayer money as little will be achieved, and whatever is, will be negated almost immediately by the next government, in the game of political brinkmanship that we South Asian countries are famous for.

Meanwhile, those desiring peace as a strategic goal for India and Pakistan have no choice but to keep waiting. A new government has come to power in Islamabad, but the trust deficit between the neighbours persists. The result is that they do little more than sift the air, sometimes with disastrous results. A new government will be in power in Delhi, but clearly, given all the available choices, we will not see a dramatic shift in stance. People heading the governments, namely the prime ministers, need to show exemplary courage and work towards changing the strategic approach of both countries from terror and war to sustainable peace.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2014.

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