Daily Times

President Mamnoon Hussain’s address to a joint session of both houses of parliament on Thursday focused on the current state of Pakistan-India relations, underlining some issues that are constants from the past and dilating on Islamabad’s hopes for the future. The president stated that Pakistan is a peace loving country that wishes to have friendly relations with its neighbours on the basis of equality and mutual respect. Unexceptionable sentiments, except they do not fit the paradigm of Pakistan-India relations, whether historically or currently. The two countries’ dialogue is frozen. Instead, Islamabad and New Delhi are talking (if not snarling) at each other. Pakistan and India seem destined to remain Siamese twins joined at the hip, unable to live with each other but also unable it seems to live without each other. The foreign secretary level talks have stalled after the first tentative round in Islamabad, with Pakistan awaiting the invitation to New Delhi that has still to arrive. There is no dearth of reasons for the two countries to drag their feet on a sustained dialogue for peace in the subcontinent. One hopes some day they can also find some cogent reasons for talking seriously and in a result oriented manner for achieving solutions to vexed questions such as Kashmir and a whole host of other issues that divide them. Unfortunately, inexplicable and dangerously provocative statements such as the one by Indian Defence Minister Parrikar to fight alleged Pakistan-backed terrorism in India with terrorism has evoked strong statements of condemnation from the civilian and military leadership in Pakistan. Even if Parrikar’s provocative statement does not reflect India’s policy but his own adventurist opinion (and he has been criticised in India itself for this ridiculous stance that has put India in a poor light internationally), it brings grist to the anti-India mills in Pakistan that are now grinding away merrily from dawn to dusk. Unfortunately again, this is an all too familiar pattern. Whenever peace talks are broached between these capricious neighbours, and particularly if they seem to be making some progress, a spanner is thrown in the works to once again derail any attempt at a civilised dialogue. Domestic hardline lobbies on either side then have a field day tearing and clawing at eash other.

The invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for his inauguration last year appeared hopeful at first. Since then, things have gone rapidly and steadily south. Forgotten by Vajpayee’s party are his sentiments. Instead Modi’s hardliners rule the roost. It has become necessary to remind everyone that ever since Pakistan and India have demonstrated they are both nuclear-armed states in 1998, all out war is no longer an option unless someone wants the annihilation of the peoples of both countries. Even smaller wars or clashes a la Kargil or the daily dose of exchanges on the Line of Control or Working Boundary run the risk of a bigger conflagration ending up in a nuclear exchange that will not even leave cinders behind. Dialogue is an inescapable historic necessity for both countries that they ignore only at their own peril. The stakes are high and the risks enormous. Neither side can afford a war. The time demands that both countries act within the restraints of sense, wisdom and patience, bearing in mind the repercussions. A war could only result in Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Both countries’ political and military leaderships need to make astute decisions. Their and their peoples’ future depends on it. While Pakistan is fully equipped to deal with menacingly hostile threats and must keep its deterrent powder dry, the country also needs to look beyond the current bout of verbal ruction between the two countries to avoid escalation to a real ruction. *