146;Tis theatrical

As I write this morning of Monday, January 5, the SAARC summit at Islamabad seems to be rolling towards new horizons and India-Pakistan rela...

As I write this morning of Monday, January 5, the SAARC summit at Islamabad seems to be rolling towards new horizons and India-Pakistan relations seem poised to shift gear to a new plane. As an impassioned votary of both a South Asian identity and its essential pre-requisite, a sensible relationship between India and Pakistan, I can only hail the new dawn but regret the needless night into which we have been led these last five barren years. The same Musharraf who was excoriated as the Butcher of Kargil is now regarded as the indispensable bulwark of better India-Pakistan relations. The same military dictatorship that was denounced as the main obstacle on the path to progress is now being trusted as the guarantor of agreements once made being kept. And the same Pakistan that was portrayed as an incorrigible promoter of terrorism and Talibanisation is now being wooed as a partner in peace.

Good. But can we have some consistency please? If General Pervez Musharraf was the chief conspirator to undermine the Lahore summit, how is he today our favoured interlocutor? If Pervez Musharraf on October 12 1999, was an illegitimate usurper, how is he legit now? If Musharraf masterminded Kargil then, how is he the Man of Peace now? If Musharraf was the single-minded promoter of the Taliban then, is he now a new convert to secular democracy? If we could not talk to a military dictator then, is the CEO turned Chief of Military Staff and President of the Islamic Republic an elected democrat now? If we then said we could talk only with a democratic government but not a military authority, do we regard the Jamali government as Pakistan Shining? If, as Advani in particular keeps asserting, Pakistan is a theocratic state, then has Musharraf the Mullah now become the high priest of moderation and modernisation? If Musharraf then was the evil genius of cross-border terrorism, is he now the symbol of restraint? Moreover, if the Pakistan government was behind the December 13 2001 terrorist attack on our Parliament, as our government has steadfastly maintained these last two years, have the Pakistanis atoned now for their guilt 8212; or were they never guilty? And if Vajpayee8217;s great achievement at Agra was, in his own words, sending back Musharraf 8220;khaali haath aur moonh latkaye hue8221;, then what has fundamentally changed in Musharraf, in the Pakistan armed forces or in Pakistan itself for Vajpayee to now not leave Musharraf behind in Islamabad 8220;khaali haath aur moonh latkaye hue8221;?

The fact is that we are as much prisoner of our frozen mindsets as we love to accuse the Pakistanis of being of theirs. It is our government that has failed to bring on record the full facts of the attack on Parliament on December 13 2001. The country went along with the government in their assertion that this was an officially sponsored Pakistani assault on the citadel of our democracy. As a people, we had no alternative. We assumed the government knew a great deal we did not know, accepting the 8220;need-to-know8221; principle in regard to national security. Therefore, few questioned the deliberation with which the Government of India after Thirteen Twelve hacked away at one after the other of the links which had been so assiduously put together over decades to keep people-to-people contacts going, whatever our doubts or derision about the Pakistan establishment. It was India, not Pakistan, that banned overflights. It was India, not Pakistan, that stopped the Samjhauta Express. It was India, not Pakistan, that snapped the bus service. It was India, not Pakistan, that withdrew its High Commissioner. It was India, not Pakistan, that asked the Pakistan High Commissioner to leave, then expelled the charge d8217;affaires. It was India, not Pakistan, that slashed diplomatic staff strength and compelled the other to do the same. It was India, not Pakistan, that mobilised the bulk of its armed forces to go to the frontline and wait there for ten long months on full alert twiddling their thumbs. And it was India, not Pakistan, that said, 8220;No dialogue8221; till cross-border terrorism was ended and the infrastructure of terrorism dismantled.

Of course, Pakistan retaliated. Would India have done otherwise? And thus started the vicious spiral of tension-stoking between two nuclear weapons-armed neighbours, bringing in the world to twist both our arms. The progress made these last few months has been no more than the undoing of the unilateral decisions of our own government. Is this statesmanship?

Anyway, now that the excesses of our own government are behind us, can we get on with the dialogue? Or are we still going to insist on an end to cross-border terrorism and the dismantling of the infrastructure of terrorism? If we do not face up to the impracticality of our own conditions, we will remain frozen in previous postures. Cross-border terrorism will be ended when the dialogue reaches a fruitful conclusion. We are making the desired outcome the pre-condition. It has not worked all these five wasted years. It is not going to work now. The only thing that can and will work is a structured dialogue, so structured as to keep the dialogue going, uninterrupted and uninterruptible, till both sides discover the modus vivendi which will enable India and Pakistan and, therefore, South Asia, to live in peace and work together towards prosperity. Quick fix solutions of the kind Vajpayee hankers after will not work, as they disastrously did not work when he made his ill-fated journey to China as foreign minister or, worse, his bumbling initiative at Lahore, an initiative so flawed that Jaswant Singh forgot to mention 8220;cross-border terrorism8221; anywhere in the Lahore Declaration!

If the summit in Islamabad leads to the signing and ratification of long-initialled Indo-Pak accords, such as the agreement on Siachen, that would be real progress. And so would it be real progress for the signal to be given for the commencement of talks about talks. Alas, Vajpayee is primarily interested in theatre and grand standing. We will have to wait for the next government to move forward on India-Pakistan relations.