Mr Congeniality

His brief during the recent Indo-Pak foreign ministerial was to get a sense of the Congress government and how far it was going to continue the peace process started by the BJP.

Petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, who gave him a private lunch and who he has known for 43 years, has said in the past that Kasuri is a ‘‘man of honour, a man of his word.’’ Both of them went to Cambridge university in 1961.

Kasuri is also believed to be related to the Loharu princely family of Rajasthan (Begum Noor Banu of Rampur is really a Loharu), through his maternal side. He’s from Kasur, a town on the India-Pakistan border, from where comes the herb ‘kasuri methi.’ It all goes to explain his vibrant Indian connection.

He often says that if he wants, he can rouse his constituency to a passion by just pointing an accusing finger across the mustard fields at India. And that he has always refused the temptation to stoop so low.

Since the time he returned to centrestage as Musharraf’s foreign minister over a year ago, Kasuri has insisted that there’s no alternative to ‘‘talks’’ between India and Pakistan. But as the master of the slippery phrase, Kasuri knows well the importance of the sound bite that says nothing really. One such command performance took place last week in Delhi.

Perhaps it’s his degrees in political science and public administration or the fact that he was born with a silver spoon (Grandfather Maulana Abdul Qadir Kasuri was a leader of the Indian National Congress, father Mahmud Ali Kasuri was briefly a member of Bhutto’s Cabinet when in 1973 he helped write Pakistan’s Constitution) that have inculcated in him the air of someone who knows that politics is the art of the possible. His degree from Gray’s Inn, London, could have only helped.

He never practised law, politics is his bread and butter. For a long time, he was in Air Marshal Asghar Khan’s party, Tehrik-e-Istiqlal. In 1997, he contested from a PML-N ticket, won, and got very close to Nawaz Sharif. After Sharif was overthrown, he mended his bridges with the Musharraf lot.

For the best part of the year, then, he has been exhorting New Delhi to do a deal with the General, before he steps out of his army uniform at the end of this year. But New Delhi refused to bite.

In the last round of talks, he proposed the upgradation of the Foreign Secretary dialogue on Kashmir to one between ‘‘high representatives,’’ possibly K. Natwar Singh and himself. He also pointed out that Pakistan would be much happier if New Delhi would agree to a representation of the Kashmiris on the table for two that had already been set for India and Pakistan.

It’s another matter that India said no on both counts. ‘Never say die’ Kasuri was right there at the SAFMA (an organisation of pan-South Asian journalists) meeting, promising reciprocity on a visa-free regime for journalists.

Meanwhile, he has stood by the General’s side as the American whiplash after 9/11 forced Pakistan to change its policy on the Al-Qaeda completely. Like his President, he has protected Islamabad’s national interest, by supping with both the Americans and the Taliban. He determinedly lives in the present and knows how to use the media to his advantage.

Many say that Kasuri can be counted upon to deliver. In the past he has spoken about the importance of the Simla agreement and how it offers a ‘‘bilateral route’’ to dialogue. Perhaps the Indians should take him on his word. The rhetoric may yield real-time solutions.