Diplomacy as verbal gymnastics

In 1999 Nawaz Sharif and A.B. Vajpayee signed on the dotted line at Lahore for a composite dialogue on all issues, including Kashmir. But General Pervez Musharraf sabotaged the summit by staging Kargil.

Then came Agra in 2001. General Musharraf now went the extra mile and agreed to the need for a composite dialogue with India in which Kashmir figured as a central if not core issue. But Vajpayee put a dampener by preconditioning a halt to alleged cross-border infiltration by Pakistan.

As the two sides paused to consider their next moves, 9/11 changed the equations all over again. With Pakistan distracted by Afghanistan, India sought to exploit the situation by threatening war. But Pakistan weathered the storm and compelled India to change tack again.

In April 2003 Vajpayee offered his ‘‘hand of friendship’’ by resuming the bus service from New Delhi to Lahore. Pakistan sincerely reciprocated with a list of potential confidence building measures, including a return to the path of dialogue abandoned at Agra. But New Delhi would have none of it.

Now, many months later, India has claimed another ‘‘12-point historic opening’’. Some of the measures are uncontroversial. More rail and road links. A new ferry service between Bombay and Karachi. Restoration of overflight rights and air links. A liberal visa regime.

But the new proposal for a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad is transparently malafide. It is clearly meant to clinch a new state practice that treats the disputed Line of Control in Kashmir as a settled border between India and Pakistan.

Apparently, this proposal has the backing of the international community, keen to freeze matters in Kashmir so that the two sides can stop rattling sabres once and for all.

But India is still refusing a dialogue for conflict resolution. Islamabad has ‘‘calibrated’’ its response because it is irked by New Delhi’s attempt to make capital out of proposals originally advanced by it.

Adverse statements by India’s foreign and defence ministers clearly show how they were meant to placate the international community and lacked sincerity. Indeed, it seems the BJP would have loved nothing better than for Pakistan to reject the proposals and lose the PR game.

Of course, Pakistan has not fallen into that trap. But it has seemingly countered with a wish list of its own that runs into 13 points compared to India’s 12, a case of classic oneupmanship.

This impression is reinforced by offering to treat 40 Indian children free of cost in Pakistani hospitals compared to 20 Pakistanis in Indian hospitals.

Indeed, Pakistan has amended certain tricky Indian proposals ‘‘creatively’’: proposing UN officials at the immigration crossings along the LoC for Kashmiris with ‘‘UN documents’’ on the proposed Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus, offering 100 scholarships for Kashmiri students to study at Pakistani professional colleges, an offer to treat ‘‘disabled Kashmiris’’ and assist ‘‘Kashmiri widows and rape victims’’.

Islamabad has also decided to delay talks for restoration of bus and rail links until after talks on restoration of air links and overflights in the first week of December, suggesting that if the first round fails to satisfy Pakistani conditionalties, the second round may be postponed.

And so it goes on, payment back in the same khota coin, stupid bloody-mindedness by both sides. We would have liked to see transparently good and sincere proposals from India in the first place that could have been reciprocated by Pakistan in the same spirit.

What is stopping India from unilaterally restoring the rail, bus, air and diplomatic links it unilaterally cut off in 2001? What is stopping Pakistan from granting MFN status to India when India granted it to Pakistan many years ago? Is this time for rigid cost-benefit analysis or for generous give and take?

Unfortunately, this is neither the beginning nor the end of the seesaw game. The war in Kashmir is getting increasingly bloody. The fear is another big incident could throw a dangerous spanner in the works and make the current proposals look not just totally misguided but also misplaced.

What then? Will India mobilise its army all over again and threaten Pakistan? Will Pakistan respond by hinting at a nuclear holocaust?

There is no alternative to an immediate and composite dialogue between India and Pakistan on all disputes, including Kashmir. This is what India said for 10 years but Pakistan rejected by imposing pre-conditions on a dialogue. This is what Pakistan is saying now but India rejects by imposing pre-conditions on a dialogue.

How sad and unfortunate that both nations have been reduced to such puerile behaviour. (Friday Times)