The Nirupama Rao-Salman Bashir talks in Islamabad are no more than a dress rehearsal for foreign ministers meeting in New Delhi next month. Yet it has its significance. It has taken place when the all-powerful institution of Pakistan army is under open attack and some of the attack is part of a campaign to make the army chief to fall in-line with the trinity that guides the country’s destiny.
Actions like detention of Brigadier Ali Khan, who was posted at the GHQ, and some other army personnel for their links with Hizb-ut-Tahir, shows that the campaign has served its intended purpose. Any how in the way the Pakistan army is structured and nurtured there is no room for a ‘colonel coup’ but the point of interest is the powers that be in Pakistan felt the need to go public with the ‘purge’ while largely keeping off the media glare (particularly English media) the quite preparations underway for the Operation in Waziristan.
The HuT linkages don’t come as a surprise though. Pakistan army’s moto is Imaan, Taqwa, Jehad Fi-Sabeelillah (Faith, Fear of God, Jehad in the way of Allah). Its Islamisation and radicalisation are, however, a gift of Zia years.
Rao – Bashir talks have marked a qualitative change from the discourse the Shah Mehmood Qureshi introduced at the foreign ministers’ meeting (July 2010) and turned the post-meet press conference into a noora kushti for the TRP hungry private TV channels at home. Whether he had lost his ministerial berth for his loud mouth or because he had jumped the standard load line mark, a Plimsoll Mark of sorts in the L’affaire Raymond Davis is not germane to the present discussion.
The point of interest is, for the first time, in several years the likes of Qureshis have taken a back seat and this is what made the foreign secretaries wrap up their fresh round of peace talks in a “constructive and purposeful manner”. The civility and cordiality that marked the dialogue was very much in evidence at the joint press conference the two diplomats held.
Kashmir was very much on their agenda. So were the Cross- LOC CBMs and nuclear and conventional CBMs. Samjhauta Express also figured, as was the Mumbai mayhem. The 12 –point statement and the presser reflect a resolve to remain engaged in dialogue with the conviction that by talking out the two sides can overcome distrust of each other and pave the way for the emergence of South Asia as a power house on the lines of European Union.
Yes, as a leader in the sedate Karachi daily Dawn said, the talks were set in slow motion but then the important point is the Thimphu spirit survives, and that in itself is no mean an achievement. Mumbai of 26/11 cannot be wished away, and also the need to make the ‘heroes’ of that mayhem to pay for their sin. Long arm of law must catch up with them and Pakistan must be seen doing all it can to prevent another attack of similar nature or a much more gory one.
In the days and weeks ahead, observers will be keenly watching how both countries will manage to translate into action one particular area of Rao-Bashir agreement. Yes, the reference is to the agreement to take measures to cease hostile propaganda. In this Internet Age, where blogs do the talking rather than the ‘talk show’ hosts, conventional propaganda techniques have lost relevance. But the ingenuity of man is such that the new age propaganda tools come under the garb of comments and seedings to posts.
Dialogue at the end of the day is a part of a process, and small steps like trouble free visas, and humane approach to dealings with fishermen who neither know nor can see the boundary line on sea water will contribute to incremental progress in normalisation.
Ultimately, it is for Pakistan, as the Express Tribune (ET)said editorially, ‘to make a tough decision: Does it consider India a potential friend or a permanent foe?’ And that decision will be made not by foreign secretaries or the civilian leadership but by GHQ in Rawalpindi. So long as the Pakistan army is ambivalent about its support for militant groups, like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which stage attacks in India, peace will remain a mirage.
One may not like to go along with the ET’s leader writer, and argue that ‘It is now time for the (Pakistan) military to understand that its policy has been a failure, both on moral and tactical grounds. Until it comes to that realisation, peace talks will yield only marginal benefits and not a complete normalisation of relations’.
What holds hope and what, in fact, holds back the temptation to offer homilies is the calibrated roll back of ‘trust deficit’ in Pakistan-US and Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. And hence the conviction that the Sharm el-Sheikh initiative by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was and is worth the effort to keep the channels of communication open and to keep away the shadow of gun.
– Malladi Rama Rao
