Opinion The limits of anger

The acid remarks made by President Ashraf Ghani in his inaugural address at the Heart of Asia summit in Amritsar on Sunday illustrate the growing rage over Pakistan’s crisis-inducing policies in the region. Thanking Pakistan for its $500 million pledge to help rebuild Afghanistan, the Afghan President suggested the country instead use the money “for containing extremism, because without peace, any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people”. The decidedly undiplomatic tenor of Ghani’s remarks was seconded by his co-chair, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who told the regional leaders gathered in Amritsar that “silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters”. Prime Minister Modi, for his part, has brushed aside widespread speculation of a meeting with Pakistan’s envoy, Sartaj Aziz. No one can dispute the legitimacy of the sentiments that underpin these actions. The question that needs to be asked, though, is if either government — and others like them, worried by Pakistan’s use of jihadists as proxies for its geopolitical interests — actually has a roadmap to deal with the problem.

Prime Minister Modi’s security advisors have a point when they argue against reflexive calls for dialogue with Pakistan. Talking, after all, is simply a tool; like all tools, it guarantees no particular results. Having said that, though, New Delhi needs to ask itself if disengagement is a useful policy, either. The experience of the weeks since the cross-LoC raids, which followed the Uri attack, ought to have made clear even to dyed-in-the-wool government supporters that Pakistan has not been deterred from backing jihadist operations in Kashmir. The raids did introduce elements of uncertainty into Pakistan’s military calculations — but the uncertainties are not so large as to lead the generals to change their approach. The bottom line is this: India’s actions have simply replaced one equilibrium on the LoC with another, somewhat bloodier one.

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Disengagement, just like engagement, will offer no results unless it is part of a creative strategy. New Delhi does have tools at its disposal, which rage should not lead it to throw away. India could, for example, be far more vigorous in its engagement of Pakistan’s civil society, rather than unite the entire country behind the generals through mindless hawkishness. It could do much more to revive its ties with Russia and the central Asian states — important actors in the regional chessboard, but for years now relative backwaters for Indian diplomacy. It could look for new ways to work with China in the shared objective of stability in Afghanistan and West Asia. The point is simple: Anger may be a satisfying emotion, but it is not a strategy.