Daily Times

After a long
diplomatic drought Pakistan has finally seen two monsoon showers. I cannot call it rain as it is still too optimistic and early to hope for a peace spring.
First, on July 8, 2015, Pakistan managed to carve for itself the dream role of mediator in the Afghan government and Afghan Taliban peace talks in Murree. Secondly, after much fire spitting, Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi held bilateral talks with Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif on July 10, 2015 at the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Council (SCO) summit in Ufa, Russia. That was not the end of the Monsoon showers; on July 15, 2015, Iran signed a deal with the world’s powers, breaking its 36 years’ isolationist policy. Undisputedly, all these developments augur well for the people of the region. However, one can only be cautious about these positive developments as the taste of the pudding is in the eating.
Now, let us look at these developments from the peoples’ perspective. After many years of jostling, Pakistan has been successful in mediating talks between the Afghanistan government and Taliban, with Pakistan in the middle plus China and Russia, the major players of the region. The latter two were called observers but the Chinese official preferred to describe his country’s role as that of a facilitator. India has been kept out, fearing it might sabotage any peace deal led by Pakistan. Instead of cooperating with each other in building peace in Afghanistan in the peoples’ interest, both Pakistan and India compete to establish their control on this war-shattered country.
Those who created doubts about the Murree talks saying that it does not have Mullah Omar’s blessings were proven wrong within a week by the ameer (chief) of the Taliban who said talking to an enemy in war is Islamic. The Taliban website said that negotiations were a “legitimate” way of achieving the objective of ending occupation by foreign forces. It said that political means to achieve “sacred goals” could be pursued “concurrently with armed jihad”, under Islamic principle.
Implicitly, the role played by Pakistan suggests that by supporting the Afghan Taliban covertly it kept its leverage in Afghanistan’s bloody conflict. This also proved partially right those who used to say that the key to ending the Afghanistan insurgency is in Pakistan. It is also true otherwise. The key to ending terrorism in Pakistan is in Afghanistan and India. Perhaps the establishment has realised that we cannot use non-state actors to further our skewed security policy against our neighbours and not face the same ourselves.
But we have to be weary that old habits die-hard. The architects of our security policy believe that sponsoring the Afghan Taliban insurgency gave Pakistan leverage in the Afghan peace process and countered the influence of its traditional rival, India. At what cost? Pakistan’s active interference in Afghanistan since the 1979 Saur Revolution has destablised the country and added to the misery of the wretched people of the two countries. The same card — unofficial support to jihadi groups — is not going to work on the other table as the eastern neighbour has a stronger hand.
For the Afghan Taliban it is important to grab the deal now for two major reasons: one, Pakistan cannot support Mullah Omar any more without bleeding physically and financially and, two, the Taliban are likely to lose ground to Islamic State (IS) followers. The exponent of extremist ideology loses space rapidly to darker shades of extremism: al Qaeda shrinking with the rise of ultra-extremist, Salafi IS. The course forward is indeed arduous but the talks have a higher probability of success.
Now, coming to the Ufa talks. As soon as it concluded, too many co-evolutionists of the obese war economy dominated prime time on our channels. Their main concern was not whether the break in the impasse of the peace process would benefit over 1.4 billion of the two countries. Instead, these ‘analysts’ were more concerned about protocol optics; there was an absence of Kashmir and the Samjhauta Express case in the joint statement while the Mumbai case was not mentioned.
Let us analyse these concerns from a peoples’ perspective. Yes, the Indian PM could have walked a few steps forward to greet our PM but are these diplomatic gestures more important than Nawaz Sharif taking more steps for peace with humility? Nobody made it an issue when President General Pervez Musharraf, the commander of the Kargil adventure, walked across the table to shake hands with Indian PM Vajpayee at the SAARC summit to break the ice — the military handles its image better than the politicians.
Next, does it really matter to a common man whether the Kashmir issue is mentioned in the joint statement or not? In a country with dismal human development indicators revanchist claims are hardly at the top of peoples’ minds but our pundits try to instill a ruling class narrative in the masses all in the name of ‘national interest’. Can we dare ask these so-called pundits what comes first: fighting abject poverty at home or changing the geography of the country? In any case, India and Pakistan agreed to discuss all outstanding issues.
It was evident from BJP leaders that they are going to up the ante to make counterterrorism the most urgent issue for any negotiation with Pakistan. The fact is that Pakistan is more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than India. So, to move forward it is in our peoples’ interest to agree with India not to encourage terrorist groups in each other’s countries. The joint statement has thus rightly prioritised cooperation “to eliminate the menace of terrorism”. National security advisers of both countries are to meet in New Delhi to discuss all issues related to terrorism. The urgent issue was the cooling of tensions on the border, which was also discussed. Comparison between the Mumbai attack and Samjhauta Express case, though equally reprehensible, is not fair. The Mumbai carnage was planned and executed by a Pakistani terror lashkar (milita). The Samjhauta bombing was done by Indian terrorists on their soil, led by an army colonel. He was arrested by the Indian police. The delay in convicting the culprits is condemnable.
Let not peace be hostage to hawks who nourish these tense relations. They can be asked: if you guys are so smart why have our policies failed and the people continue to suffer?

The writer can be reached at ayazbabar@gmail.com