Daily Times

Finally Pakistan, too, has taken its gloves off with the start of the New Year as far as the equation with India is concerned. There’s nothing new, really, to back the charge that ‘Pakistan has suffered state sponsored terrorism at the hand of India’ at least as far as intrinsic evidence goes. The trump card — Kalbhushan Yadav caught red handed — has been in the bag almost a year. And we’ve already delivered one dossier to the United Nations. Why would this time be different?

Yet the rhetoric, at least, is sharply different. It shows, among other things, that the Nawaz government has finally given up on even the outside chance of a thaw as long as the Modi government holds office in Delhi — which will be longer, at least, than the ’18 election in Pakistan. That is why Islamabad has decided to ditch the open arms approach; whereby it was ready to greet the Indians whenever they came to their senses. The warmth surrounding Modi’s visit to Lahore in the last days of 2015 was just such an example. Modi had badmouthed Pakistan all over the world, especially Dhaka where he reminisced about the ’71 war, yet Nawaz facilitated him to the point of keeping the army out of the loop.

Sadly for Nawaz, though, it was just another of Modi’s calculated drawdowns meant to keep the Pakistanis guessing. That is exactly what it accomplished. Now all Islamabad has done is show Delhi that the gambits will no longer work. However, expecting to catch the Indians by surprise would be wholly and completely wrong. Surely the Modi administration would have factored the about turn in as well. It wasn’t without reason, after all, that it opted for unprovoked as well as unprecedented, since the ’03 ceasefire agreement, shelling across the LoC and Working Boundary. To expect Pakistan not to react very strongly would have reflected very poor understanding of the situation they themselves have escalated.

This is especially true since the shelling is not an isolated dynamic. It follows not just the Uri attack but also, more importantly, the indigenous uprising across Kashmir. For once, India was just without the usual leverage of ‘cross border influence from Pakistan’. The uprising this time was through and through Kashmiri. And the response was at a level of aggression not seen even in Kashmir in a very long time. The use of pellet guns especially — that permanently blinded hundreds and injured thousands — was particularly gruesome and visible.

This is where Nawaz’s policy so far — of keeping a spare chair at the table just in case the Indians decide to join in later — was badly refuted. Precisely because Islamabad was still uncertain about its long-term posture towards Delhi, it could not expose Indian atrocities despite the Prime Minister’s usual, and usually ineffective, lecture at the UN.

However, just turning the policy will not ensure anything quantifiable. If anything, India has had more measurable gains in this confrontation. It has made enough, targeted, noise to unite Afghanistan and the like-minded around its favourite ‘Pakistan aids and abets terrorists’ slogan. If it weren’t for the Chinese and Russians, Pakistan would have very little, if any, say in regional security — beyond its own borders — in the months and years ahead.

And, more importantly as far as international diplomatic optics go — it successfully bulldozed the SAARC summit inside Pakistan. Again, if not for Chinese intervention, it would not only have made a huge stride forward by getting NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) membership even as Pakistan was brushed aside, it would also have got Masood Azhar black listed at the UN.

Pakistan will have to seriously improve its game now that it has chosen not just to duck Indian punches, but swing some of its own. It must first understand just why its policy of the last three years has been largely self-contradictory. One reason is that Pakistan’s Prime Minister, just like now, has been neck deep in his own political survival much of the time. When all his energies are taken up by wriggling to avoid one axe or the other, he naturally has less time for his core job — running the country. And, of course, the outside situation is also impacted since Nawaz Sharif continues to hold the Foreign Minister portfolio as well.

First and foremost, the government will finally have to give foreign policy far greater attention. It is simply not something that can be toggled in the PM’s spare time. And it definitely does not run on autopilot.

The writer is the Resident Editor, Daily Times, Lahore and can be reached at yourafiq@gmail.com