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Journalism of Courage
The nations of the world would, no doubt, be in the throes of deep perplexity over the complexity of the Indo-Pak engagement. And who can blame them? Every now and then, when it appears that significant progress has been achieved in terms of sub-continental peace initiatives, there suddenly breaks out the distinct rat-a-tat-tat of sniper fire on the horizon. Truly is it said that Indo-Pak diplomacy is more inscrutable than the hieroglyphics engraved on pyramids, more complex than Einsteinian formulae, more difficult to fathom than the exact age of fossils embedded in carboniferous rocks. I have, therefore, in the interests of promoting international understanding on a intricate phenomenon devised what I would term a ‘Looney Planet’s Guide to Indo-Pak Diplomacy’.
l For one, diplomacy — as Wynn Catlin once observed — is the art of saying ‘‘Nice Doggie,’’ till you can find a rock. In the subcontinent, this sequence is somewhat reversed. Diplomacy here is the art of finding a nice rock — or a nice nuclear weapon with a nice missile delivery system — till both countries can actually bring themselves up to the point when they are ready to say ‘‘Nice Doggie’’ to each other. And then instead of just saying ‘‘Nice Doggie,’’ they snipe, snarl, shoot, scowl, smirk, fulminate, threaten, abuse, denounce, hawk and finally spit out the words, ‘‘Nice Vampire Battie’’ to each other.
l The world generally assumes that diplomats are people with good manners, who know all about the finer aspects of living and who cultivate an engaging manner. People, moreover, trained never to employ negatives in speech, and adept at generally spreading goodwill within the comity of nations. The subcontinental mandarin, however, more resembles those early mammal predators, the sabre-toothed cats of yore. Like their four-legged ancestors, they too come equipped with greatly enlarged canine teeth of the upper jaw, which they appear to have evolved as stabbing weapons for killing tough-skinned prey from across the border. These they bare at regular intervals during media briefings so that their messages are efficiently and forcibly conveyed to the other side with the evening news bulletins.
l The high point of diplomacy in normal international circles is when a treaty of understanding is reached and a glass of wine is raised to toast the health of that process. The high point of Indian diplomacy is when the leaders of the two nations, in their most stylish formal wear, enter into old-fashioned mud-wrestling bouts on UN podiums before the General Assembly and the rolling cameras of the international media.
l Confidence Building Measures, or CBMs, are understood in normal diplomatic circles to mean policy measures arrived at between two parties in a dispute to bring about definitive and substantive changes on the ground. In subcontinental diplomatic parlance, CBMs are short for Building Measures for elaborate Cons. Diplomatic innovation in such a context would demand the constant creation of measures — presented to the world with great elan and fanfare — that are designed to tease and tantalise but never achieve any lasting changes on the ground.
l In most other parts of the world, diplomacy is a constant search for common ground in order to achieve lasting peace. In its Indo-Pak variation, however, it is a committed, meticulous and interminable quest for divided ground in order to achieve lasting hostility.
l Unfortunately, diplomacy the world over has been known to fail occasionally, to general regret all around. Unfortunately, too, subcontinental diplomacy has always succeeded and that’s the precise reason why India and Pakistan have had three full-fledged wars, one war-like war and innumerable almost-wars to date.
