Words of wisdom

Ambassadors tend to be selected as much for their sagacity and the ability to deploy a safe pair of hands when needed than the ability to be platitudinous non-entities. Thus a meeting of ambassadors is likely to be a gathering of some of the more able minds, and so it has proved with the ambassadors of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the Economic Cooperation Organisation at their recent moot in Islamabad. The assembled luminaries met for three days to review a basket of regional issues, among them the ossified nature of relations between Pakistan and India. They have recommended — perhaps ‘cautioned’ is a more appropriate word — that the government of Nawaz Sharif is not pushed off-track by the sulphurous rhetoric emanating for India currently and to stick to the “peaceful neighbourhood” policy. Not to fall into the trap being laid by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the firebrand nationalists, and to rise above the crudities being hurled right and left.

We lend our support to the ambassadors. There have been sharp reactions from the Pakistani leadership to the fulminations of Mr Modi, but they are likely to be little more than a strategically-deployed poke with a sharp stick designed to derail the rapidly developing, and very positive, relationship that Pakistan has with China. Specifically, what has India rattled is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the prospect that opens up for long-term growth and stability for Pakistan.

A wealthy, stable Pakistan has not been on the BJP government’s agenda, and the pot is kept simmering. The CPEC, however, is a game-changer for all concerned — and not only the signatories to the agreement. It is not in the interests of Pakistan to play into the hands of Mr Modi. Pakistan should ideally be taking a position of masterly inactivity rather than engaging in ill-judged knee-jerk reactions that only add accelerants to Mr Modi’s fire. There is no humble pie to eat, but much to be gained by the fielding of judicious statesmanship, and deny Mr Modi the oxygen of publicity.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th,  2015.

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