Saturday, August 3, 2013

Indo-Pak Dialogue: The déjà vu Factor

Statecraft BY Happymon Jacob

The positive atmospherics 
India-Pakistan bilateral atmospherics are set for ‘yet another’ revival of their dialogue process. The stage is set and we might even see a grand ‘restart’ of the Indo-Pak talks: let us just hope that it lasts more than it usually does. But then, sometimes, it is not merely up to the two governments to decide that – the so-called non-states actors also have a stake in the destiny of the subcontinent and hence they might attempt to play their role all over again, a la 26/11, or the troops along the border might step up their adventurism. And the recent history of Indo-Pak relations tells us that such imponderables can and do derail the bilateral talks and destroy whatever achievements have been made thus far. 

India’s newly appointed Foreign Secretary, Sujatha Singh, has clarified what the UPA government’s foreign policy focus would be in the days to come: strengthening ties with the neighbourhood in general and Pakistan in particular. She has said that India would be willing to pick up the threads of the dialogue. India’s new High Commissioner to Islamabad TCA Raghavan echoed Singh’s sentiments saying: “We hope that the dialogue process will start very soon.” Raghavan is an experienced Pakistan hand and New Delhi has made the right decision to pick him as its top diplomat in Islamabad. He had served as deputy high commissioner in Pakistan from 2003 to 2007 and had headed MEA’s Pakistan desk in the past.

Yet another new appointee, Prime Minister Nawaz Shariff in Pakistan, has been signalling New Delhi with his unequivocal message on a regular basis that Pakistan would like to not just improve relations with India but also deepen it by doing business with its economically better-off neighbour. 

Besides the multiple track-two meetings that are on to smoothen the acrimonious relations between the two feuding states, the tremendously significant back channel negotiations are believed to have begun as well (well, we don’t know for sure. They are supposed to be held away from the public glare, after all!). Indian Prime Minister’s Special Envoy and New Delhi’s backchannel interlocutor SK Lambah had visited Islamabad to meet and greet Sherif on behalf of Dr. Singh, and his counterpart Shaharyar Khan recently also visited New Delhi and met Dr. Singh. 

Roadmap for talks 
Along with the right atmospherics, there seems to be a rough roadmap for the resumption of the dialogue process. The two Prime Ministers might have a chance to hold meetings in September when they meet each other on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. Thereafter, the two Foreign Secretaries are scheduled to meet in October this year. The decision to revive the dialogue process, suspended at the time of the LOC killings this January, is likely to be taken in the days to come. Pakistan is pushing for an immediate resumption of the ‘composite dialogue’. New Delhi seems to be undecided about the items that should be on the laundry list of the dialogue process. 

Will Manmohan Singh visit Pakistan?
It would certainly be a good idea for Dr. Singh to visit Pakistan to give a boost to the dialogue process, but will he? There is a section in New Delhi which thinks that he should not visit Pakistan till the perpetrators have been brought to justice. But that is clearly a minority view due precisely to the self-defeating nature of such an argument. There is yet another section that thinks that it makes no political sense for any senior Indian leader to visit Pakistan before the 2014 Parliamentary elections are over and new government is formed in New Delhi. What can Dr. Singh achieve by visiting Pakistan? Giving a boost to the peace process will deliver absolutely no political dividends at home and hence not a political priority for the Congress party which is now in the election mode. This view seems to be gaining ground in New Delhi. 

What lies ahead? 
India and Pakistan will continue to go through the ‘motions’ of the bilateral dialogue but nothing substantial can be achieved till a new government is formed in New Delhi. For instance, Pakistan has indicated its desire to purchase electricity from India but given the fact that selling electricity to Pakistan may not be very popular in India, which is itself under severe power outages, this government would not be able to sell electricity to Pakistan. However, a new government in New Delhi could take such a decision. 

While the dialogue process is likely to deal with a number of issues, the issues of water sharing and the future of Afghanistan are likely to dominate the agenda. But the most important question is what can frustrate the peace process? The answer clearly is ‘a crisis’. Even a small crisis such as the cross firing across the LoC can harm the dialogue process, like it happened in January this year, or a terrorist attack with Pakistan links could do the honours. Either way, unless and until the two governments seriously consider this possibility as a real one and put in place ‘diplomatic, political and military shock-absorbers’, the continuation of the dialogue process can never be guaranteed post-crisis. 

The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, recently said that US is not interested in third party mediation or brokering of peace between India and Pakistan. That makes New Delhi very happy given its traditional and well-known opposition to any third party mediation. But the picture of what really happens on the ground is something entirely different. Whenever there is a crisis in nuclear South Asia, both India and Pakistan look towards Washington to help them defuse the crisis. And Washington has been more than willing to do so thus far. But is it sensible for India and Pakistan to count on the US to do mediate among them whenever there is a crisis? Should they not start thinking about how to deal with their crises situations on their own, without damaging the dialogue process, especially given their recent history of crisis-induced suspension of dialogues?

(Source: Greater Kashmir, August 4, 2013. URL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Aug/4/indo-pak-dialogue-the-d-j-vu-factor-12.asp)