Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif must develop personal chemistry for India-Pakistan peace to succeed: Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri

This article was first published by Tehelka (www.tehelka.com) on 21 November 2014 under the headline So Near And Yet So Far.

INTERVIEW

Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri (Pix courtesy: Vijay Pandey)

For someone who was privy to the delicate details of the protracted India-Pakistan back-channel talks that straddled two governments in India, that of former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri would rather hide than reveal and understandably so. Given the sensitivities, neither country would want the painstaking effort that went into the talks to become a casualty of negative public perceptions without first preparing the ground for a grand reconciliation. However, the former Pakistani foreign minister wants the broad contours of the talks to be put on record and debated in the interest of a lasting peace on the Indian subcontinent. “I hope the current BJP government will give some thought to why Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee had concluded that talks should be the way forward,” he tells Ramesh Ramachandran in an exclusive interview.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

Your visit to India comes before a likely meeting between the leaders of India and Pakistan on the margins of the SAARC summit in Kathmandu. Also the anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks is coming up. Given that backdrop, how do you see the bilateral discourse or engagement evolving?

As somebody who has dealt with these issues for a very long time, I hope and pray that the two prime ministers meet and this despite the fact that I do not belong to Mr Nawaz Sharif’s party. I talk as a Pakistani. It is in our interest that the talks take place and I think Mr Vajpayee, the wise man of BJP, had gone through a lot of political journey before he reached the conclusion that he did. Nobody could be a better patriot than Mr Vajpayee. Nobody could doubt his wisdom. Nobody could doubt his loyalty to the BJP. So, he must have gone through a lot of experience, a lot of thought process, for him to reach the conclusion that he did. And that’s why he started the process and that’s why history will always accord that to him. We are lucky that Dr Manmohan Singh’s government followed it through. Previously, by the way, we were not certain that it would happen. So, when the BJP lost, we were very uncertain about the fate of the process that was begun by him would be. So, all I will say is that I hope the current BJP government will perhaps give some thought to why Mr Vajpayee had reached the conclusion that he did. Secondly, we have tried everything… war… near wars… nuclearisation; everything has been tried. I mean are we going to live like this? I think if you talk to a sane Indian privately, he is very angry with what Pakistan is perceived to have done. But when he is in a cooler moment, he says, after all, as Vajpayee rightly said, you can’t change your neighbours and we can’t change ours. There were people, by the way, not just in India, who said that they did not want to have anything to do with Pakistan; a lot of people in Pakistan said they did not want to have anything to do with India; that Pakistan is in the Muslim world… they were thrilled when the Americans came forward with the idea of an extended Middle East and included Pakistan in it. Now they can continue to extend the Middle East as much as they want but geography will not change. So, any Pakistani in his right mind will understand that he can be a part of the Muslim world or whatever he wants to be… he can be part of the Ummah but he can’t escape geography. And I go further as a positivist. I believe it is good for Pakistan. And I’m sure that there are a lot of good Indians who think it is good for India; that India, despite being a much bigger country than Pakistan, can achieve its potential truly when there is peace in the neighbourhood. And this is something that the Indians have said… Indian leaders are saying… I am not putting words in their mouth… they said it themselves. So, I think, keeping that in mind, let’s hope that the two prime ministers meet.

The India-Pakistan talks have a start-stop pattern to them. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to Nawaz Sharif for his swearing-in ceremony was followed by the cancellation of foreign secretary-level talks and, more recently, ceasefire violations across the Line of Control and the international border in Jammu and Kashmir. Is the atmosphere any more conducive for talks?

Let me put a counter question to those who put a question like this. When the peace process was serious, was ever a gun fired in the 2003-04 period? Not a single bullet was fired. So, I mean, the two things are linked. I agree entirely with Mani Shankar Aiyar when he talks about uninterrupted and uninterruptible dialogue… that’s, in fact, the reason why I support (a dialogue) because that is the nature of our relationship. And, of course, the famous Vietnamese bombing… the meeting in a Paris hotel between the Vietnamese negotiator and Henry Kissinger was not interrupted in spite of the bombing that was inflicted on the Vietnamese people, including phosphorous bomb, and you have seen the horrid photograph of the child burning… it is etched in my memory. So, when you talk of the state of the Pakistan-India relationship, it cannot be worse than that because no Pakistani or Indian government has in any war tried to burn people alive. I mean, to my knowledge, we have never used phosphorus. Both (India and Pakistan) have fought against each other and treated each other’s prisoners humanely. So, let’s look at the way we are different from a lot of other countries, luckily. Let’s build on it and my own feeling is that this is a temporary setback. I think Prime Minister Modi’s basic purpose is to develop India. This is what his winning slogan was and the people of India bought into it. He will have to deliver on it if he has to win the next election. In fact, in order to keep their aspirations, expectations and hopes alive, that they are not dashed, he will have to deliver and I don’t want to say anything more than what I am going to say to you. For that to be achieved to its full potential, there has to be peace in the neighbourhood. I have not seen any country develop, unless you are the United States of America, and have the capacity to literally do whatever you want to do with any other country and get away with it, but even they have paid a price. America has not got away with it. It has paid a major price for what it did to Iran and Afghanistan. Today, China has either overtaken or will overtake the American economy. Why? Because of these very distractions. So, it remains true that you need peace around if you want to develop.

There was a lot of talk about a ‘Four-Point Formula’ when Manmohan Singh and Gen Pervez Musharraf were in power. It envisioned cross-LoC movement of people, phased withdrawal of armed forces, a new model of governance and a joint mechanism for carrying the process forward. In your estimation, is that a template that governments in India and Pakistan can and must work upon?

You see, there are a lot of thoughts that I am going to say in my book. Why did we arrive at that (formula)? It’s easy to write in four lines about a four-point formula but there was a good reason: The Kashmiris didn’t wish to be divided. So, we wanted a joint mechanism where Kashmir won’t be divided. For the first time, it gave some experience to the Pakistani and the Indian leadership to interact with each other in a conducive and a productive manner, instead of trying one-upmanship in the United Nations fora. I know, I used to be thrilled when I used to be leading the Pakistani delegation because I saw young Pakistani foreign service officers work extra hard to get one paragraph brought into a NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) statement, about which I mention in my book. After keeping awake the whole night, they would tell me, ‘We have won a great victory, Sir.’ I’m sure the Indians were trying their best to ensure that the paragraph should not be included… (which talked about) a distinction between ‘terrorism’ and ‘war of independence’. What difference did it make? I used to then ask our young boys about the effort that they had made because ground reality does not change. You have to deal with India; it is your neighbour, a much bigger neighbour. What were we aiming at? A just peace. By the way, in the absence of a just peace, as I remarked to other people, even if one side wins, nothing can happen. The other won’t accept it; it will wait for a better day. That’s what happened to Germany and the result was Adolf Hitler. So, therefore, I think what we started, and I have staunchly believe and I have never changed my mind on that just as Mani Shankar Aiyar doesn’t change his mind, what’s more important for the current government is the journey — intellectual and mental journey — that Mr Vajpayee went through.

Like it or not, a lot more depends on personalities than systems or processes in the Indian subcontinent. Do you think personal chemistry matters, too? How important is it or will be for a dialogue among political leaders such as a Modi in India and a Sharif in Pakistan? Is there a critical mass on both sides to take the peace process forward?

You will be surprised that I devote an ­entire chapter in my book to personal relationships and Mani also figures in it. I strongly believe in it. It matters but is it a Berlin Wall that you cannot overcome? Not at all. My way of dealing with the Indians was first to accept that they are as human as I am. Their instincts are the same as mine. I was able to ­convince them… at least three foreign ministers of India I dealt with… that they could take me at my word, that I would do my best. I was not a dictator of Pakistan, but they knew if I made a commitment I will try my best. Human relationships matter, but it doesn’t mean human relationships are always among people of similar backgrounds. People who are entrusted vast responsibilities by their nations are ­under extraordinary compulsions to ­actually break the Berlin Wall and try and develop that empathy, because in the absence of that empathy I agree with you it’s very difficult to do any constructive work. If perpetually you are thinking the other ­fellow is out to do you in, then it won’t work. So I think Prime Ministers Modi and Sharif or whoever comes to power in Pakistan, they must develop that chemistry. But that is not going to happen overnight. Sometimes you (know some people)… Mani Shankar Aiyar and I knew each other but it doesn’t mean that I knew every interlocutor of mine. I didn’t know Natwar Singh or Pranab Mukherjee but I developed very good chemistry with them. They knew they wanted to serve India’s cause, I wanted to serve Pakistan’s cause. We have to first convince that our cause was not so completely in conflict. What was the common factor? The 600 million people living below the poverty line while the Chinese have lifted 600 million above the poverty line. The ­Chinese were behind Pakistan and India in 1949; this is something that we should try and emulate.

If I were to now talk about the domestic politics in Pakistan, we see your party and its leader Imran Khan agitating and mobilising public opinion against the Sharif government. Where do you think the domestic political discourse in Pakistan lies vis-à-vis India?

Here’s the good news. Nobody can contradict me. And I put it in my book. I have quoted him (Imran Khan), so when he comes to power, all those speeches of him will be quoted back to him. I have said in the book the areas where I disagree with Imran Khan but the area where I entirely agree with him is on India. And there are many statements that I have quoted and hopefully Imran means what he says and I have no doubt that he means what he says. I have seen a lot of goodwill for him in India, by the way. Although some people may not agree with his current politics, they have goodwill for him as a person. So, my own feeling is that Imran wants peace with India. He wants a just peace, as I do. And then I did something clever. I actually briefed him before he was going to Mirpur to deliver a speech. He went on record that I have briefed him and he supports that. I’m interested in making sure that it comes in my book. So, that means that the next government after Nawaz Sharif’s will be our government.

So, am I correct in presuming that you remain an incorrigible optimist about the India-Pakistan peace process?

As I said, I have no option; the other is a disaster I am not prepared to confront. And for the Pakistan-India relationship with the history that it has, you have to be an optimist. But it’s not that I am a foolish optimist. I am an optimist based on what I saw at close hand. I could see people regarded as hawks like Brajesh Mishra (the late national security adviser) meeting me in Munich; we interacted as human beings. We have had hawks on the Pakistani side. Hawk or whatever, everybody is human on the inside. The point is to touch the right chord and everybody should know, Indians and Pakistanis, that beyond a certain point the other side cannot be pushed. If you realise that, no mountain is insurmountable.

So, the moment that came some few years ago is not entirely lost. Peace is eminently possible and doable?

Whenever there are statesmen in power, hopefully soon; if unfortunately not soon, whenever; they will have a blueprint before them. They will know this is the bottom line for both the governments. Beyond that neither government will relent. So, the good thing is that the work that has been done is on record. There’s no poker anymore. You can’t pretend to ask for the moon because the other side already knows what you have agreed and this is institutional memory by the way. Regardless of posturing, it remains in institutional memory. I can’t believe that Dr Manmohan Singh was not consulting the Indian Army and somebody in the (Indian) foreign office must have been in his confidence.

In hindsight, do you think Manmohan Singh erred in not seizing the moment and travelling to Pakistan in 2006?

It was just bad luck. You had elections in Uttar Pradesh and some other states. I wish he had come (to Pakistan)… hindsight, they say, is 20/20. If I think Dr Manmohan knew what was going to happen in March 2007, he would have strained extra hard despite the elections. So, I give him benefit of the doubt. I didn’t know what was going to happen in March (the protests by lawyers after Musharraf suspended the chief justice of Pakistan’s supreme court), so why should Manmohan Singh have known? I thought we were there for the next five years. That’s the next thing I have learnt in politics. Never make that mistake. When for the first time my name was mentioned as foreign minister, I accompanied Asghar Khan to Tehran and they thought he would be the prime minister and I would be foreign minister… this was several decades ago. And we were with the Shah of Iran and I say in the book how he was holding forth on Mozambique to Angola but didn’t know a thing that was happening in Tehran. And five months after we met, he was out. And he was at the height of his power. With all the American might behind him, the Americans didn’t provide him (Shah of Iran) with land for a grave. He had to go to Egypt to be buried. So, things change dramatically.

* * * * * * *

SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR
Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri thought “Interrupted Symphony” should be a good title for his forthcoming book about India-Pakistan relations, but settled for Neither Hawk Nor Dove on the advice of his publisher.

The former Pakistani foreign minister, who has since joined Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, would not reveal whether he was inspired in part by how he found in a relative hawk like Brajesh Mishra, the late national security adviser to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a reliable and honest interlocutor. “My book sends a hard message to Pakistan but delivered softly to India,” is all he would venture to say.

Kasuri, 73, recalls with great fondness and detail that the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours had come “very near” to an agreed framework on the Kashmir issue when Manmohan Singh and Pervez Musharraf were in power. Kasuri would know for he served as Pakistan’s foreign minister between 2002 and 2007; he was among a handful of persons on either side who have seen the contours of the back-channel talks between India and Pakistan start and evolve, only to be put in a deep freeze as, like most things in the subcontinent, the political climate changed without notice.

“Sir Creek was a signature away,” he says at a luncheon hosted by his dear friend Mani Shankar Aiyar in New Delhi, with a tinge of sadness mixed with exasperation at the glacial pace at which this roller-coaster of a peace process has meandered from the time both sides sat down for meetings, including in third countries, in order to gain an appreciation of each other’s bottom line. (Sir Creek is an estuary of about 100 km in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, which forms a maritime boundary with Pakistan’s Sindh province.)

The paradox is unmistakable: India and Pakistan had come very close to a resolution of the Kashmir issue at a time when their bilateral ties were at their frostiest, following the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament and the 1999 Kargil conflict before that. Alluding to former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger’s remark about “balanced dissatisfaction” as a possible means to resolving the Ukraine crisis, Kasuri insists that the personalities involved in the India-Pakistan back-channel talks could claim with a degree of pride and satisfaction to have achieved “better than balanced dissatisfaction” and arrived at a template that could easily be sold to various stakeholders in both countries, including, but not limited to, the peoples and legislatures. “Hundred percent (agreement) was never possible,” he says, adding on a note of caution that a minuscule “religious right” in Pakistan might not relent.

A strong votary of Congress parliamentarian Aiyar’s push for an “uninterrupted and uninterruptible” dialogue between India and Pakistan, Kasuri says it behoves of the prime ministers of both countries to renew political and diplomatic contacts when they grace the 18th SAARC summit to be hosted by Nepal on 26 November, which, incidentally, will mark the sixth anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

This year’s summit will be held after a three-year gap; the last summit was hosted by Maldives in 2011. While some South Asian diplomats cite this anomaly to question the efficacy of SAARC as a regional grouping, some others believe that the eight-member bloc could be meeting too frequently (annually, in the case of SAARC, where the member-states host it in the alphabetical order) for its own good.

Sheel Kant Sharma, a former Indian diplomat and a former secretary-general of SAARC, feels that the annual summits attended by the heads of state or government leave their respective bureaucracies with little or no time to act upon or follow up on the declaration adopted towards the end of a summit.

Gowher Rizvi, the international affairs adviser to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, suspects the SAARC has been “designed not to succeed” given how underfunded it is and how more attention could be paid to strengthening its secretariat. Rizvi, who was recently in New Delhi, said at an event organised by a privately-run think-tank that the SAARC secretary-general’s post should be elevated to a ministerial rank in order to allow greater access to the political leaderships of the member-states. Shyam Saran, the chairman of the National Security Advisory Board and a former foreign secretary, in turn, feels that India should take the lead to make SAARC work.

The first SAARC summit was held in Dhaka in 1985. At the time, it had Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as its members. Since then, it has grown to include Afghanistan as a full member and many more countries and multilateral organisations as its observers.

India-Pakistan peace: So Near And Yet So Far

This article was first published by Tehelka (www.tehelka.com) on 21 November 2014 under the headline So Near And Yet So Far.

Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri (Pix courtesy: Vijay Pandey)

Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri thought “Interrupted Symphony” should be a good title for his forthcoming book about India-Pakistan relations, but settled for Neither Hawk Nor Dove on the advice of his publisher.

The former Pakistani foreign minister, who has since joined Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, would not reveal whether he was inspired in part by how he found in a relative hawk like Brajesh Mishra, the late national security adviser to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a reliable and honest interlocutor. “My book sends a hard message to Pakistan but delivered softly to India,” is all he would venture to say.

Kasuri, 73, recalls with great fondness and detail that the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours had come “very near” to an agreed framework on the Kashmir issue when Manmohan Singh and Pervez Musharraf were in power. Kasuri would know for he served as Pakistan’s foreign minister between 2002 and 2007; he was among a handful of persons on either side who have seen the contours of the back-channel talks between India and Pakistan start and evolve, only to be put in a deep freeze as, like most things in the subcontinent, the political climate changed without notice.

“Sir Creek was a signature away,” he says at a luncheon hosted by his dear friend Mani Shankar Aiyar in New Delhi, with a tinge of sadness mixed with exasperation at the glacial pace at which this roller-coaster of a peace process has meandered from the time both sides sat down for meetings, including in third countries, in order to gain an appreciation of each other’s bottom line. (Sir Creek is an estuary of about 100 km in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, which forms a maritime boundary with Pakistan’s Sindh province.)

The paradox is unmistakable: India and Pakistan had come very close to a resolution of the Kashmir issue at a time when their bilateral ties were at their frostiest, following the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament and the 1999 Kargil conflict before that. Alluding to former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger’s remark about “balanced dissatisfaction” as a possible means to resolving the Ukraine crisis, Kasuri insists that the personalities involved in the India-Pakistan back-channel talks could claim with a degree of pride and satisfaction to have achieved “better than balanced dissatisfaction” and arrived at a template that could easily be sold to various stakeholders in both countries, including, but not limited to, the peoples and legislatures. “Hundred percent (agreement) was never possible,” he says, adding on a note of caution that a minuscule “religious right” in Pakistan might not relent.

A strong votary of Congress parliamentarian Aiyar’s push for an “uninterrupted and uninterruptible” dialogue between India and Pakistan, Kasuri says it behoves of the prime ministers of both countries to renew political and diplomatic contacts when they grace the 18th SAARC summit to be hosted by Nepal on 26 November, which, incidentally, will mark the sixth anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

This year’s summit will be held after a three-year gap; the last summit was hosted by Maldives in 2011. While some South Asian diplomats cite this anomaly to question the efficacy of SAARC as a regional grouping, some others believe that the eight-member bloc could be meeting too frequently (annually, in the case of SAARC, where the member-states host it in the alphabetical order) for its own good.

Sheel Kant Sharma, a former Indian diplomat and a former secretary-general of SAARC, feels that the annual summits attended by the heads of state or government leave their respective bureaucracies with little or no time to act upon or follow up on the declaration adopted towards the end of a summit.

Gowher Rizvi, the international affairs adviser to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, suspects the SAARC has been “designed not to succeed” given how underfunded it is and how more attention could be paid to strengthening its secretariat. Rizvi, who was recently in New Delhi, said at an event organised by a privately-run think-tank that the SAARC secretary-general’s post should be elevated to a ministerial rank in order to allow greater access to the political leaderships of the member-states. Shyam Saran, the chairman of the National Security Advisory Board and a former foreign secretary, in turn, feels that India should take the lead to make SAARC work.

The first SAARC summit was held in Dhaka in 1985. At the time, it had Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as its members. Since then, it has grown to include Afghanistan as a full member and many more countries and multilateral organisations as its observers.

* * * * * * *

INTERVIEW

‘Modi and Sharif must develop personal chemistry for peace to succeed’

For someone who was privy to the delicate details of the protracted India-Pakistan back-channel talks that straddled two governments in India, that of former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri would rather hide than reveal and understandably so. Given the sensitivities, neither country would want the painstaking effort that went into the talks to become a casualty of negative public perceptions without first preparing the ground for a grand reconciliation. However, the former Pakistani foreign minister wants the broad contours of the talks to be put on record and debated in the interest of a lasting peace on the Indian subcontinent. “I hope the current BJP government will give some thought to why Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee had concluded that talks should be the way forward,” he tells Ramesh Ramachandran in an exclusive interview.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

Your visit to India comes before a likely meeting between the leaders of India and Pakistan on the margins of the SAARC summit in Kathmandu. Also the anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks is coming up. Given that backdrop, how do you see the bilateral discourse or engagement evolving?

As somebody who has dealt with these issues for a very long time, I hope and pray that the two prime ministers meet and this despite the fact that I do not belong to Mr Nawaz Sharif’s party. I talk as a Pakistani. It is in our interest that the talks take place and I think Mr Vajpayee, the wise man of BJP, had gone through a lot of political journey before he reached the conclusion that he did. Nobody could be a better patriot than Mr Vajpayee. Nobody could doubt his wisdom. Nobody could doubt his loyalty to the BJP. So, he must have gone through a lot of experience, a lot of thought process, for him to reach the conclusion that he did. And that’s why he started the process and that’s why history will always accord that to him. We are lucky that Dr Manmohan Singh’s government followed it through. Previously, by the way, we were not certain that it would happen. So, when the BJP lost, we were very uncertain about the fate of the process that was begun by him would be. So, all I will say is that I hope the current BJP government will perhaps give some thought to why Mr Vajpayee had reached the conclusion that he did. Secondly, we have tried everything… war… near wars… nuclearisation; everything has been tried. I mean are we going to live like this? I think if you talk to a sane Indian privately, he is very angry with what Pakistan is perceived to have done. But when he is in a cooler moment, he says, after all, as Vajpayee rightly said, you can’t change your neighbours and we can’t change ours. There were people, by the way, not just in India, who said that they did not want to have anything to do with Pakistan; a lot of people in Pakistan said they did not want to have anything to do with India; that Pakistan is in the Muslim world… they were thrilled when the Americans came forward with the idea of an extended Middle East and included Pakistan in it. Now they can continue to extend the Middle East as much as they want but geography will not change. So, any Pakistani in his right mind will understand that he can be a part of the Muslim world or whatever he wants to be… he can be part of the Ummah but he can’t escape geography. And I go further as a positivist. I believe it is good for Pakistan. And I’m sure that there are a lot of good Indians who think it is good for India; that India, despite being a much bigger country than Pakistan, can achieve its potential truly when there is peace in the neighbourhood. And this is something that the Indians have said… Indian leaders are saying… I am not putting words in their mouth… they said it themselves. So, I think, keeping that in mind, let’s hope that the two prime ministers meet.

The India-Pakistan talks have a start-stop pattern to them. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to Nawaz Sharif for his swearing-in ceremony was followed by the cancellation of foreign secretary-level talks and, more recently, ceasefire violations across the Line of Control and the international border in Jammu and Kashmir. Is the atmosphere any more conducive for talks?

Let me put a counter question to those who put a question like this. When the peace process was serious, was ever a gun fired in the 2003-04 period? Not a single bullet was fired. So, I mean, the two things are linked. I agree entirely with Mani Shankar Aiyar when he talks about uninterrupted and uninterruptible dialogue… that’s, in fact, the reason why I support (a dialogue) because that is the nature of our relationship. And, of course, the famous Vietnamese bombing… the meeting in a Paris hotel between the Vietnamese negotiator and Henry Kissinger was not interrupted in spite of the bombing that was inflicted on the Vietnamese people, including phosphorous bomb, and you have seen the horrid photograph of the child burning… it is etched in my memory. So, when you talk of the state of the Pakistan-India relationship, it cannot be worse than that because no Pakistani or Indian government has in any war tried to burn people alive. I mean, to my knowledge, we have never used phosphorus. Both (India and Pakistan) have fought against each other and treated each other’s prisoners humanely. So, let’s look at the way we are different from a lot of other countries, luckily. Let’s build on it and my own feeling is that this is a temporary setback. I think Prime Minister Modi’s basic purpose is to develop India. This is what his winning slogan was and the people of India bought into it. He will have to deliver on it if he has to win the next election. In fact, in order to keep their aspirations, expectations and hopes alive, that they are not dashed, he will have to deliver and I don’t want to say anything more than what I am going to say to you. For that to be achieved to its full potential, there has to be peace in the neighbourhood. I have not seen any country develop, unless you are the United States of America, and have the capacity to literally do whatever you want to do with any other country and get away with it, but even they have paid a price. America has not got away with it. It has paid a major price for what it did to Iran and Afghanistan. Today, China has either overtaken or will overtake the American economy. Why? Because of these very distractions. So, it remains true that you need peace around if you want to develop.

There was a lot of talk about a ‘Four-Point Formula’ when Manmohan Singh and Gen Pervez Musharraf were in power. It envisioned cross-LoC movement of people, phased withdrawal of armed forces, a new model of governance and a joint mechanism for carrying the process forward. In your estimation, is that a template that governments in India and Pakistan can and must work upon?

You see, there are a lot of thoughts that I am going to say in my book. Why did we arrive at that (formula)? It’s easy to write in four lines about a four-point formula but there was a good reason: The Kashmiris didn’t wish to be divided. So, we wanted a joint mechanism where Kashmir won’t be divided. For the first time, it gave some experience to the Pakistani and the Indian leadership to interact with each other in a conducive and a productive manner, instead of trying one-upmanship in the United Nations fora. I know, I used to be thrilled when I used to be leading the Pakistani delegation because I saw young Pakistani foreign service officers work extra hard to get one paragraph brought into a NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) statement, about which I mention in my book. After keeping awake the whole night, they would tell me, ‘We have won a great victory, Sir.’ I’m sure the Indians were trying their best to ensure that the paragraph should not be included… (which talked about) a distinction between ‘terrorism’ and ‘war of independence’. What difference did it make? I used to then ask our young boys about the effort that they had made because ground reality does not change. You have to deal with India; it is your neighbour, a much bigger neighbour. What were we aiming at? A just peace. By the way, in the absence of a just peace, as I remarked to other people, even if one side wins, nothing can happen. The other won’t accept it; it will wait for a better day. That’s what happened to Germany and the result was Adolf Hitler. So, therefore, I think what we started, and I have staunchly believe and I have never changed my mind on that just as Mani Shankar Aiyar doesn’t change his mind, what’s more important for the current government is the journey — intellectual and mental journey — that Mr Vajpayee went through.

Like it or not, a lot more depends on personalities than systems or processes in the Indian subcontinent. Do you think personal chemistry matters, too? How important is it or will be for a dialogue among political leaders such as a Modi in India and a Sharif in Pakistan? Is there a critical mass on both sides to take the peace process forward?

You will be surprised that I devote an ­entire chapter in my book to personal relationships and Mani also figures in it. I strongly believe in it. It matters but is it a Berlin Wall that you cannot overcome? Not at all. My way of dealing with the Indians was first to accept that they are as human as I am. Their instincts are the same as mine. I was able to ­convince them… at least three foreign ministers of India I dealt with… that they could take me at my word, that I would do my best. I was not a dictator of Pakistan, but they knew if I made a commitment I will try my best. Human relationships matter, but it doesn’t mean human relationships are always among people of similar backgrounds. People who are entrusted vast responsibilities by their nations are ­under extraordinary compulsions to ­actually break the Berlin Wall and try and develop that empathy, because in the absence of that empathy I agree with you it’s very difficult to do any constructive work. If perpetually you are thinking the other ­fellow is out to do you in, then it won’t work. So I think Prime Ministers Modi and Sharif or whoever comes to power in Pakistan, they must develop that chemistry. But that is not going to happen overnight. Sometimes you (know some people)… Mani Shankar Aiyar and I knew each other but it doesn’t mean that I knew every interlocutor of mine. I didn’t know Natwar Singh or Pranab Mukherjee but I developed very good chemistry with them. They knew they wanted to serve India’s cause, I wanted to serve Pakistan’s cause. We have to first convince that our cause was not so completely in conflict. What was the common factor? The 600 million people living below the poverty line while the Chinese have lifted 600 million above the poverty line. The ­Chinese were behind Pakistan and India in 1949; this is something that we should try and emulate.

If I were to now talk about the domestic politics in Pakistan, we see your party and its leader Imran Khan agitating and mobilising public opinion against the Sharif government. Where do you think the domestic political discourse in Pakistan lies vis-à-vis India?

Here’s the good news. Nobody can contradict me. And I put it in my book. I have quoted him (Imran Khan), so when he comes to power, all those speeches of him will be quoted back to him. I have said in the book the areas where I disagree with Imran Khan but the area where I entirely agree with him is on India. And there are many statements that I have quoted and hopefully Imran means what he says and I have no doubt that he means what he says. I have seen a lot of goodwill for him in India, by the way. Although some people may not agree with his current politics, they have goodwill for him as a person. So, my own feeling is that Imran wants peace with India. He wants a just peace, as I do. And then I did something clever. I actually briefed him before he was going to Mirpur to deliver a speech. He went on record that I have briefed him and he supports that. I’m interested in making sure that it comes in my book. So, that means that the next government after Nawaz Sharif’s will be our government.

So, am I correct in presuming that you remain an incorrigible optimist about the India-Pakistan peace process?

As I said, I have no option; the other is a disaster I am not prepared to confront. And for the Pakistan-India relationship with the history that it has, you have to be an optimist. But it’s not that I am a foolish optimist. I am an optimist based on what I saw at close hand. I could see people regarded as hawks like Brajesh Mishra (the late national security adviser) meeting me in Munich; we interacted as human beings. We have had hawks on the Pakistani side. Hawk or whatever, everybody is human on the inside. The point is to touch the right chord and everybody should know, Indians and Pakistanis, that beyond a certain point the other side cannot be pushed. If you realise that, no mountain is insurmountable.

So, the moment that came some few years ago is not entirely lost. Peace is eminently possible and doable?

Whenever there are statesmen in power, hopefully soon; if unfortunately not soon, whenever; they will have a blueprint before them. They will know this is the bottom line for both the governments. Beyond that neither government will relent. So, the good thing is that the work that has been done is on record. There’s no poker anymore. You can’t pretend to ask for the moon because the other side already knows what you have agreed and this is institutional memory by the way. Regardless of posturing, it remains in institutional memory. I can’t believe that Dr Manmohan Singh was not consulting the Indian Army and somebody in the (Indian) foreign office must have been in his confidence.

In hindsight, do you think Manmohan Singh erred in not seizing the moment and travelling to Pakistan in 2006?

It was just bad luck. You had elections in Uttar Pradesh and some other states. I wish he had come (to Pakistan)… hindsight, they say, is 20/20. If I think Dr Manmohan knew what was going to happen in March 2007, he would have strained extra hard despite the elections. So, I give him benefit of the doubt. I didn’t know what was going to happen in March (the protests by lawyers after Musharraf suspended the chief justice of Pakistan’s supreme court), so why should Manmohan Singh have known? I thought we were there for the next five years. That’s the next thing I have learnt in politics. Never make that mistake. When for the first time my name was mentioned as foreign minister, I accompanied Asghar Khan to Tehran and they thought he would be the prime minister and I would be foreign minister… this was several decades ago. And we were with the Shah of Iran and I say in the book how he was holding forth on Mozambique to Angola but didn’t know a thing that was happening in Tehran. And five months after we met, he was out. And he was at the height of his power. With all the American might behind him, the Americans didn’t provide him (Shah of Iran) with land for a grave. He had to go to Egypt to be buried. So, things change dramatically.

REMOVE THE BLINKERS

This article was published by Asia Times Online (www.atimes.com) on 17 October 2013 under the headline: "Singh takes a lonely road on Pakistan". Here is the link to it.


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif in
New York on 29 September 2013 (Pictures courtesy: www.pmindia.nic.in)

New Delhi
16 October 2013

The Prime Minister of India met with his Pakistan counterpart on the margins of the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 29 September 2013, defying public sentiment and in spite of an overwhelming body of evidence of Pakistan’s complicity in allowing its territory to be used for mounting terrorist attacks against India and Indian interests, at home and abroad alike. The discourse leading up to the meeting was dominated by whether the talks should at all be held in the immediate backdrop of the 26 September 2013 twin terror attacks in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir in which Indian soldiers, police personnel and civilians were killed. It was not an isolated incident: In January this year an Indian soldier was beheaded at the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan; in August five more Indian soldiers were killed; and, in between, several more such killings and infiltrations were reported. As it became known later, the Indian Army was engaged in an operation to repulse an attempt from the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) to push a tranche of infiltrators across the Line of Control even as the two premiers shook hands and posed for the cameras. It took the army a fortnight to successfully conclude the anti-infiltration operation. If the government dithered on calling Pakistan’s bluff, the army chief made it eminently clear to anyone who would care to listen that it is impossible for terrorists to carry out any activity along the LoC without the knowledge of the Pakistani Army.

By the Indian government’s own admission, the expectations from the New York talks had to be toned down given the terror arm which is still active in the Indian subcontinent. And as it predictably turned out, there was not much to show by way of outcomes except for the two sides deciding to task their respective Directors-General of Military Operations (DGMOs) to meet for suggesting effective means to restore the ceasefire. Even that looks remote now. The two DGMOs last met in 1999 although they speak fairly regularly. The New York meeting could at best be described as a photo-op. If anything, it once again reaffirmed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s, and by extension his government’s, adamantly consistent but questionable position on talks with Pakistan. After the 26 November 2008 Mumbai attacks, too, he had similarly disregarded public opinion to first meet with the then President of Pakistan at Yekaterinburg in Russia on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, and later with the then Prime Minister of Pakistan at the Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit. It was at Sharm-el-Sheikh that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his team agreed to a joint statement with Pakistan that said: “Action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue Process and these should not be bracketed”. Also, in another first, Balochistan was allowed to creep into the text of an India - Pakistan joint statement. Pakistan has since conveniently used the bogey of Indian involvement in stirring up trouble in Balochistan as a stock response to India’s assertions of a Pakistani hand in fomenting unrest in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

All of which begs the question: Talks to what end, and at what cost? Is the life of an Indian – be it a soldier or a civilian — so cheap that talks with Pakistan should continue at any cost and in spite of a spate of terrorist attacks, as evidenced most recently in the twin terror attacks in the Samba and Kathua sectors of Jammu and Kashmir? How many more brave Indian soldiers should be killed in cowardly terrorist attacks before the decision-making apparatuses of the government proactively seek out the military’s views? How many more families should lose their loved ones at the hands of the terrorists and their masters outside our borders before the government of the day begins to pay heed to the sentiments of the common man whom it claims to represent? Why are no visible attempts being made to restore the delicate civil-military balance and to uphold the dignity and morale of the soldier? Instead, what we are witnessing today is a government that is playing with fire and it needs to stop now. External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has since clarified that while the two Prime Ministers met in New York the stage has not been reached where the two sides have indicated any dates, timeline or perspective on resuming the dialogue. And with a post-2014 Afghanistan looming large on the horizon it is anyone’s guess as to how much time and effort Pakistan, given its proclivities, will be willing to spare and/or invest in preserving the incremental peace dividends and insulating the bilateral relationship from external influences.



Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of
Pakistan Nawaz Sharif in New York on 29 September 2013. Also seen in the picture
(on the right) are External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, National Security
Adviser Shivshankar Menon and Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh

What the discerning stakeholders in India today need be understand is that this government’s blind faith in dialogue with Pakistan has not disproved those who have little or no faith in talks under the present circumstances. The history of India – Pakistan bilateral engagement over the past decade and more is replete with an unending series of terrorist attacks interspersed with peace talks, an overwhelming majority of which were held in third countries on the margins of multilateral summits. The New York meeting is but one in a long list of bilateral engagements starting with the 2006 NAM summit at Havana in Cuba, the 2008 Asia –Europe Meeting (ASEM) at Beijing in China, the 2008 United Nations General Assembly session in New York, the 2009 SCO summit at Yekaterinburg in Russia, the 2009 NAM summit at Sharm-el-Sheikh and the 2010 SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit at Thimphu in Bhutan. Add to it former Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s visit to New Delhi in 2005 and former Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s visit to Mohali in 2011 for watching cricket or the private visits by Pakistani heads of state/government to Ajmer and you have a veritably uninterrupted dialogue that can be traced further back to Lahore, 1999; Agra, 2001; and Islamabad, 2004. Importantly, these bilateral engagements have survived multiple terrorist attacks and conflicts dating back to Kargil and Kandahar in 1999, Parliament in 2001, Mumbai train bombings of 2006 and the 26/11 terrorist attacks again in Mumbai, in 2008. But what has come of the talks so far? Are we any closer to a breakthrough than we were before? Have terrorist attacks diminished appreciably? Unfortunately, after every terrorist attack the government of the day mouths platitudes and employs boilerplate language such as ‘It cannot be business as usual’ or ‘Patience is not inexhaustible’ only to go back on them at the first available opportunity! This government has tied itself in knots over its Pakistan policy but it has only itself to blame for it. Its inability to think out of the box has exposed its bankruptcy of ideas on how to deal with an increasingly intransigent neighbour. And Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s personal quest for a lasting legacy insofar as Pakistan is concerned has only further compounded an already intractable conundrum.

The government needs to remove its blinkers and begin to appreciate that terrorism and talks cannot go hand in hand. It is imperative that the government shows zero tolerance to terrorism, takes strong steps to prevent terror attacks and imposes costs on the perpetrators of terrorism. Most importantly, the government must heed public opinion. The time has come for the government to start calling Pakistan’s bluff, to act firmly and decisively and if that involves putting a moratorium on future talks with Pakistan at the highest level, “so be it.” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has used this specific language before, albeit to a domestic audience in the run up to the India – United States nuclear cooperation agreement in his first term in office when the Left parties parted ways with the UPA; there is no reason why in the instant context Pakistan cannot be told “So be it”; that India will be free to pursue its course of action if Pakistan does not intend to reciprocate peace overtures; and that consequences will follow if it does not give satisfaction to India on what India considers to be its core interests. Saying no to talks now is not the same as saying no to talks ever and it certainly need not necessarily mean or come to represent an escalation of tensions. A range of other equally effective options is available to the government of the day to execute its Pakistan policy and these must be explored. Above all, the government must forge the broadest possible national consensus on the way forward for a détente with Pakistan.

India says CBMs will be a success only if Pakistan creates right atmosphere by taking prompt 26/11 action; Fai's arrest a "very important development"

New Delhi

23 July 2011

The "climate" for confidence building measures (CBMs) and people-to-people contacts across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir would be best served if Pakistan creates the "right atmosphere" for a dialogue by bringing the 26/11 trial to a transparent and expeditious conclusion, an Indian government source said.

The observation should be seen in the context of the forthcoming talks between external affairs minister SM Krishna and his Pakistan counterpart, Ms Hina Rabbani Khar, to be held in New Delhi on July 27.

India was expected to announce some CBMs, some unilateral, others bilateral on a reciprocal basis, after the Krishna-Khar meeting, the agenda of which would be firmed up on July 26 when foreign secretary Nirupama Rao meets with her counterpart, Salman Bashir.

The CBMs could extend to increases in the number of days for cross-LoC trade and duration of entry permits, improvement in the Srinagar - Muzaffarabad and Poonch - Rawalakot bus services, and facilities such as telephone fortraders. Islamabad was hesitant about introducing banking services for traders.

By October, Pakistan was likely to shift from a positive list of items that can be imported from India to a system of trade based on negative list of items. In other words, Pakistan would effectively be implementing Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status for India.

Some items on the agenda of the India - Pakistan Joint Commission, such as agriculture, education and telecommunications, could fall in the purview of future discussions.

The source maintained that no dramatic, big-bang announcements should be anticipated. Even if the bilateral relations were to improve incrementally, India would at least be satisfied at having pulled the dialogue out of life support, post-26/11, and draw confidence from the fact that the sequence of bilateral meetings was sustained despite the odds.

It was pointed out that India would be willing to talk on "all" issues, including, but not limited to, Jammu and Kashmir. However, the source noted, it takes two hands to clap, and Pakistan needs to take a call on that.

Meanwhile, New Delhi has described the arrest of Ghulam Nabi Fai as a "very significant development". Fai is accused of having links to a decades-long effort that allegedly funnelled millions of dollars from the Inter Services Intelligence (IS), Pakistan's external intelligence agency, to fan anti-India sentiments and push Pakistan's subversive agenda over the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

New Delhi did not discount the possibility that Fai's arrest could have something to do with the recent tensions in the US - Pakistan relations, but from India's point of view the "die has been cast".

The source said it was a "good thing" that enlightenment has finally come to the US, and it will hopefully come to other countries such as Britain and Belgium, too. Certain individuals and groups are known to be carrying out anti-India activities from London and Brussels.

Fai's arrest also validates India's position that the separatists' agenda in Jammu and Kashmir receives most of its sustenance from Pakistan. In the same breath, the source said that Pakistan's foreign minister should seek to impress upon the separatists she would be meeting in New Delhi to speak the language of peace and reconciliation.


Stapled visas by China upsets India, again

India has expressed disappointment over the issue of stapled visas by China to five sportspersons from Arunachal Pradesh in spite of a recent understanding reached between their officials.

"We are still searching for a de-stapler. We are obviously not amused" by the fact that they continue to issue stapled visas for our nationals, a government source said.

Recently, the Chinese embassy in New Delhi issued stapled visas to five karate players from Arunachal Pradesh, a step that ensured that they could not take part in an international championship in China as these documents were not valid for travel.

The action by China came close on the heels of the claims made by officials here that the issue has been resolved and was also reflected in the resumption of the Indo-China defence exchanges.

India says peace talks with Pakistan will continue

New Delhi

4 May 2011

India has let it be known that the peace talks with Pakistan will continue as usual, and that the India-Pakistan narrative should be seen divorced from the killing of Osama bin Laden.

"[Osama's killing] does not change the universe of discourse" between India and Pakistan, an official source said, adding that the forthcoming official-level talks could be expected to proceed as per plan.

This newspaper had reported Tuesday that Prime Minister Singh was indeed likely to stay the course in spite of pressure on him to reappraise his Pakistan initiative. In doing so he would be guided by the desire not to fritter away the gains made in official and unofficial (track-two) talks with Islamabad in recent years.

The source defended the government's position by saying that India had to engage Pakistan in order to make any progress on issues such as trade, people-to-people contacts, and Jammu and Kashmir.

Adopting a multi-pronged approach, India would look to strengthen the hands of democratic forces and civil society in Pakistan even as it makes efforts at multilateral levels to address the issue of terrorism directed against India.

Those efforts would involve proscribing, or naming and shaming, the terrorist groups by the United Nations security council's "1267 committee", and expediting the process of adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

On Pakistan foreign secretary Salman Bashir's comment that India's demand for action against the 26/11 terrorists was "outdated", the source said "that cannot be a serious statement."

Speaking in Islamabad, Bashir had said Tuesday, "It is a familiar line (and) outdated. It is some part of the old system repeating itself[.] This line of thinking is mired in a mindset that is neither realistic nor productive. Such statements are not very helpful [to the peace process]."