Keep up the talk

India must sustain the dialogue with Pakistan to stop the ceasefire violations and improve ties.

India must sustain the dialogue with Pakistan to stop the ceasefire violations and improve ties.

A flag meeting between the Border Security Force and the Pakistani Rangers was finally held on Tuesday. That it could be held despite Tuesday mornings exchange of fire in Poonch adding to the 200-odd,all-time high violations of the decade-long ceasefire this year by Pakistan is good news,but it provides little comfort. It is unlikely to calm the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border (IB) because the rupture of the ceasefire is now so complete that it is overshadowing the larger process of normalisation of ties with Pakistan,something Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had invested much political capital in. Singh and his Pakistani counterpart,Nawaz Sharif,had taken a small step forward by meeting in New York last month,notwithstanding persistent bilateral problems and the fragility of the LoC. It is imperative for both leaders now to not let the inability of their armies to hold the peace on the LoC and IB snowball into lasting political damage.

Admittedly,neither Singh nor Sharif is at the peak of his power. On the Pakistani side,a big part of the problem is the infancy of Sharifs current tenure as PM and the fact that the Pakistani army is about to undergo a leadership change. Sharifs inability to deliver on the LoC a matter that has disappointed Singh is perhaps the result of the complex triangulation of relations between the new civilian government,the army and the India-specific terrorist infrastructure. However,New Delhi,for its part,has lost the political enthusiasm and will to resuscitate and pursue sustained talks with Islamabad. The soured public opinion and the hawkishness of TV anchors and opposition parties,coupled with the risk-averse foreign policy approach of the Congress,appear to have deterred the PM from pushing the case for dialogue. His room for maneouvre at home is limited.

What Delhi needs to do is to broaden its outreach and multiply the nodes of dialogue. While that would mean looking beyond the constrained civilian government in Islamabad and the military-to-military hotline,Delhis strategic thinkers have to abandon the false logic that argues for an end to the ceasefire violations before talking to Pakistan. Rather,India must talk in order to end the violations. That is a surer means of rebuilding trust. But without political backing for the process in Delhi,both the LoC as well as the whole gamut of steps to improve economic ties will be imperilled.