Daily Times

The very prospect of a holocaust between two nuclear-armed states sends chills through one’s being. That is exactly what General Bipin Rawat seemed to be provoking.

By stepping into the midst of escalating tensions in the wake of India backing off from its earlier commitment for a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries on the sidelines of the UNGA session in New York, he took the confrontation to a threatening level. It was a poor demonstration of crass jingoism which has little space in the existing environment, given the prospect of a harrowing fallout of an armed adventure between the estranged neighbours.

In its eventuality, what had started as a ray of hope to help the two countries along the path to reconciliation ended in further incensing the seething tensions.

The reasons offered by India for this volte-face are hardly convincing. In the first instance, these reasons were there when the Indian government agreed to the meeting and nothing really had changed in the intervening twenty-four hours for it to back off.

“The coming to power of a new government in Pakistan had provided a rare opportunity for Modi to come good on the prospect of peace. That having been squandered needlessly, it is time for fresh moves to be initiated in both countries to remedy the situation and, instead of beating the drums of war, serious efforts are made to transit to the negotiating table”

The story of the alleged Pakistani attack on an Indian post, resulting in the death of six soldiers and beheading of two, is not new. It was extensively covered by the Indian media when it supposedly happened. Its occurrence has been repeatedly denied by the Pakistani side.

The printing of the commemorative stamps for Burhan Wani is the other reason referred to in the press release of the Indian External Affairs Ministry (EAM) for cancellation of the meeting. This happened prior to July 25, before the induction of the new government.

Prime Minister Khan had indicated in his speech immediately after winning the elections that relations with neighbours would be a priority item on his agenda, and he had specially talked about improving relations with India. It was in fulfilment of that promise that he approached Prime Minister Modi for a meeting of the foreign ministers of the two countries in New York as part of initiating a process of ‘constructive engagement’ — a term that the Indian Prime Minister had earlier used in his congratulatory letter to his Pakistani counterpart.

What made the break even worse was the tone of the press release of the Indian EAM which alleged that “behind the proposal for talks to make a fresh beginning, the evil agenda of Pakistan stands exposed and the true face of the new Prime Minister Imran Khan has been revealed to the world in his first few months in office”. This is an unusually undiplomatic and crude verbosity which could have been avoided even if the Indian government had decided not to proceed further with the proposed meeting.

Multiple reasons could have contributed to pressurising Modi to step back and none of these appear to relate to Pakistan.

The fact that Prime Minister Modi has been cultivating the Hindutva vote in winning the elections back in 2014, through the elections for the state legislatures and in trying to retain power in the elections next year, he has weakened himself to becoming a virtual captive in the tentacles of religious regression. On the one hand, it has adversely impacted India’s secular pretensions and, on the other hand, it has rendered him exceedingly vulnerable. Such is the crass power of religious encapsulation in politics, and no one knows it better than us here in Pakistan.

It is all the more painful because previous Indian leaders, encompassing the ones hailing from the BJP ranks like former Prime Minister Vajpayee, had endeavoured ceaselessly to enable the country retain its secular posturing which helped it enormously in its engagements with the outside world, winning it many admirers along the way. That image having been grievously damaged through Modi’s years in power, he needed to latch on to Khan’s offer for initiating a “constructive engagement”. He did this to begin with, but quickly fell afoul of the religious sentiment which he has so laboriously aroused in his bid for power as also in his effort to further perpetuate it.

The allegations of corruption within India in the context of Rafael deal may have constituted another key factor prompting Modi to call off the meeting.

It is, therefore, apparent that religious-cum-political compulsions drove him to squander an opportunity to initiate a much-awaited process of healing the India-Pakistan rift and putting their relations on a remedial course. It is possibly because of this reason why his move has elicited a vastly negative response from saner voices within India also.

An editorial in The Hindu states that “the government’s reaction to Friday morning’s killing of three policemen thus appears puzzling. Equally bewildering is the subject of the stamps of Kashmiri terrorists. While there is no doubt that they are offensive, they were issued back in July before Mr. Khan came to power”.

In her piece for The Print, Jyoti Malhotra says that “the cancellation (of meeting) is viewed as yet another aspect of the Modi government’s flip-flop policy against Pakistan. Over the past four years since it came into power, the BJP-led NDA government has wildly careened in one direction or another — from Modi visiting Lahore for the wedding of the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s grand-daughter to the current cancellation after confirmation”.

India and Pakistan cannot deny the need and reality of talking to each other. Notwithstanding the setback, war is neither an option, nor will it ever be as it would virtually spell destruction of both countries. The effect of the Indian mantra of staying away from talks on the plea that Pakistan is ‘sponsoring’ terrorism is also waning.

In a round of track-II India-Pakistan dialogue organised a couple of years ago in Islamabad by the Regional Peace Institute (RPI), the Indian legislator Mani Shankar Ayar had proposed the concept of ‘uninterrupted’ and ‘uninterruptible’ dialogue as the means for moving forward to sort out the India-Pakistan conundrum.

This still remains the only option for both countries. The coming to power of a new government in Pakistan had provided a rare opportunity for Modi to come good on the prospect of peace. That having been squandered needlessly, it is time for fresh moves to be initiated in both countries to remedy the situation and, instead of beating the drums of war, serious efforts are made to transit to the negotiating table.

The writer is a political and security strategist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute — an Islamabad-based think-tank. Email: raoofhasan@hotmail.com. Twitter: @Raoof Hasan

Published in Daily Times, September 25^th 2018.