A festival, and an elusive peace

In an unlettered society where one rarely comes across people who are genuinely into writing or reading, where bookstores are fast getting converted into video shops and burger stands, where art galleries and cinema houses are becoming shopping malls and where culture itself is being commercialised with no originality left anywhere, the appearance of the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) as an annual event since 2012, is no doubt a breath of fresh air for this great city known for its historical character and civilisational affluence. It is good to see the elite intellectuals getting together in a healthy discourse, seeking to revive the pluralistic cultural tradition of this great city.



The event also serves to promote people-to-people contacts between India and Pakistan. We get to hear different voices in almost the same tone and tenor, all pleading for peace between India and Pakistan and for liberalisation of visa regimes. No doubt, there is a genuine desire on both sides of the border for peace, which inevitably also finds expression in the hopes and aspirations that one gets to hear from the participants in this festival during their mutual interaction. “I want to go to Hadali, the birthplace of my father, and I believe that the profound desire will be fulfilled by the hospitable government of Pakistan.” This was the wish of Rahul Singh, son of the late Khushwant Singh, an internationally acknowledged writer and columnist.

I can’t understand why Rahul Singh’s desire cannot be fulfilled. Perhaps, he has never requested the Pakistani government to arrange a visit to Hadali. Now that he has spoken at the LLF, I am sure somebody must have heard him. Yes, the question of liberalisation of visa regimes must receive immediate attention of the two governments. They have agreed in the past on several confidence-building measures, including simplification of their visa procedures, but somehow just could not show the needed sincerity of purpose in implementing them. In recent years, they even stopped talking to each other. The process of India-Pakistan dialogue and engagement remains stalled mainly because India chose to follow a deliberate policy of keeping Pakistan under pressure on the issue of terrorism.

An eminent LLF participant from India, Shekhar Gupta, who is considered an expert on India-Pakistan affairs, did confirm this reality. Speaking on the future of India-Pakistan relations, he reportedly said, “Only a genuine political will of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government to combat terrorism and an indiscriminate pursuit of all forms of terrorism in Pakistan can lead to good relations with India.” With all his experience in journalism, it was amazing for a man of Gupta’s stature to be so ignorant of the India-Pakistan reality. He unabashedly claimed that a Nawaz-Modi meeting is possible only if Pakistan takes anti-terror steps. Gupta is mistaken if he considers a ‘Nawaz-Modi meeting’ as the goalpost.

Such a meeting cannot be considered a goalpost. Dialogue is only a means towards an end, not an end in itself. India-Pakistan peace is the ultimate goal. But peace in this region will remain elusive as long as India-Pakistan problems remain unaddressed. These problems are real and will not disappear or work out on their own as some people on both sides of the border, pursuing an illusory Aman Ki Asha, have started believing. Dialogue and constructive engagement is the only way to address these issues. India has been pursuing a different game plan. It wants dialogue but on its own terms. This has been a familiar pattern in India’s calculated policy towards Pakistan since 9/11. There is a background to this policy. While the post-9/11 world was focused on the US military campaign in Afghanistan, India thought it could also take advantage of the global anti-terror sentiment to transform Kashmir into an issue of terrorism. It staged in quick succession the attacks on the Srinagar assembly building in October and the Indian parliament building in Delhi in December 2001. Blaming Pakistan for both incidents without any investigation or evidence, India in what appeared to be a show of brinksmanship, moved all its armed forces to Pakistan’s borders, as well as along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. South Asia was instantly dragged into a confrontational mode.

Intense diplomatic pressure by the US and other G-8 countries then averted what could have been a catastrophic clash between the two nuclear states. It was again due to the constant pressure from the same influential outside powers that the stalled India-Pakistan dialogue was resumed in January 2004 on the basis of “6 January 2004 Islamabad Joint Statement”.

In that ‘Joint Statement’, Pakistan implicitly accepted India’s allegations of Pakistan’s involvement in cross-border activities by solemnly pledging that it will not allow any cross-border activity in future. Since then, the India-Pakistan peace process has remained hostage to India’s opportunistic mindset. And that’s where we are stuck today.

As part of its sinister campaign, India has sought to implicate Pakistan in every act of terrorism on its soil and has kept the dialogue process hostage to its policy of keeping Pakistan under constant pressure on the issue of terrorism. It blamed Pakistan for successive attacks on a train in Mumbai in July 2006, on the Samjhauta Express in February 2007, on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008 and finally the Mumbai attacks on November 26, 2008, on which the investigations are yet to conclude. In a calibrated diversionary campaign, India is only seeking to redefine the real Pakistan-India issues by obfuscating them into the ‘issue of terrorism’ and through sporadic incidents of violence across the LoC.

In India’s reckoning, the time is ripe for it to pressure Pakistan to an extent where it can surrender the Kashmir cause. Somehow, after Narendra Modi’s emergence on the scene, Nawaz Sharif’s unilateral overtures did create the impression as if he was desperately looking for dialogue. The latter’s sincerity was misunderstood in Delhi. Modi responded with arrogance. Perhaps, he never realised that with its nuclearisation, South Asia’s problems were no longer an exclusive concern of the region itself and now had a worrisome global dimension. The world knew the reality. The deteriorating situation on the LoC has been an alarming catalyst.

US President Barack Obama’s magic wand seems to have worked. Modi is sending his foreign secretary to Pakistan but only under the cover of a Saarc yatra. That shows how purposeful this visit is going to be. In any case, every direct engagement between the two countries is a welcome development. One hopes this will at least break the ice. While we should remain committed to an honourable peace, there is no room or cause for complacency or over-optimism.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th,  2015.

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