Zardari’s Delhi Yatra

Zardari’s Delhi Yatra

April 14, 2012

Shamshad Ahmad

President Asif Ali Zardari’s one-day private visit to India for an Ajmer pilgrimage was masterfully timed to divert the attention of his people who were beginning to pour out into massive streets protests against his government’s failure to control power outages and soaring prices.

Prime Minster Manmohan Singh’s gesture of oriental hospitality gave Zardari free lunch as well as a welcome photo-op to create a diversionary media stir putting everyone on both sides in a guessing mode. Zardari is known for staging ploys. Whatever his motivation or desired outcome, his India yatra was no more than a diversionary move. But his luncheon meeting with Manmohan Singh, unlike their last encounter in the Russian resort city of Yekaterinburg, on the sidelines of SCO Summit in June 2009, did serve some good purpose.

Any high-level political contact between India and Pakistan is always a welcome development. In that sense, Zardari’s photo-op with Manmohan Singh was a positive development not only in the bilateral context but also for a turbulent region where nothing seems to be going right ever since it became part of the US great game in this part of the world. In American perception, at a time when so many things have gone wrong in South Asia-and for US interests in the region-any positive development in this ill-fated region would appear as a ray of light in an otherwise darkening scene.

Zardari did take one calculated decision before embarking on this visit. He did not take Foreign Minster Hina Rabbani Khar along, knowing that the presence of glamourin his entourage will detract from the purposefulness of his visit. He knew it would divert everyone’s attention from him and instead shift the focus to non-issues as it did last year during Ms Khar’s own visit to Delhi. The Bollywood frenzy sparked by our foreign minister’s personal charm and elitist fashion accessories-Roberto Cavalli sunglasses, oversized Hermes Birkin bag and pearl jewellery-took away the focus from real India-Pakistan issues.

Not only that, her host, India’s foreign minister S M Krishna, in order not to miss some of the stolen limelight had to spend more time in dying his hair jet black than in reading his voluminous MEA brief on India-Pakistan issues. Zardari obviously could not risk his stature to any such vagaries. The media on both sides of the border still went into frenzy-like rapture, giving the event an importance it never deserved. It crossed all limits, overplaying its familiar euphoria. Zardari’s Delhi yatra instantly became a media festival. No one cared what would actually happen and what would it mean or what was the history of India-Pakistan relations.

In actual effect, nothing visible happened at the Delhi luncheon meeting. No new ground was broken. One would be best advised not to be overenthusiastic about this development or overoptimistic about its prospects. One thing is clear. Given the troubled history and complex nature of India-Pakistan relations, no single event in bilateral settings will ever bring about any change in the actual course of this complex relationship. Only a process of engagement with seriousness of purpose on both sides will bring genuine breakthrough in India-Pakistan logjam.

I know when we negotiated and finalised the Composite Dialogue in June 1997, it was never meant to be an event. It was conceived as a process with carefully structured framework to address the whole range of India-Pakistan issues including the Kashmir issue.

For this process to continue purposefully, India and Pakistan will have to develop through proper diplomatic engagement a clearer framework of principles on the basis of which to address their outstanding issues and organise their future relations. There has to be visible progress at least in some areas. To sustain the process, regular agenda-specific and result-focused contact between the political leadership of the two countries will also be needed.

Steady improvement of India-Pakistan relations requires not only confidence-building measures but also progress in conflict resolution which should be visible to the people on both sides, particularly on the doables. The areas in which some forward movement can be expected include the issues of peace and security including CBMs, Siachen, Sir Creek, the water issue, economic and commercial cooperation, promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields, visa liberalisation and terrorism.

A significant forward movement in these areas could set in motion an irreversible process of genuine India-Pakistan detente which would not only reinforce the constituencies of peace in both countries but would also promote an atmosphere conducive for future progress on the major issues, including Kashmir. In recent years, both sides have been claiming “flexibility of approach and sincerity of commitment” but the momentum of normalisation will be difficult to sustain in the absence of sincerity on both sides and serious and result-oriented dialogue with a clear road map for resolving the outstanding issues.

In the ultimate analysis, however, the success of this process would depend entirely on the freshness of political approach that political leadership on both sides would be ready to bring in with sincerity of purpose. There will be no quick fixes, and we should be ready for a long-drawn-out process which must not be interrupted by change of governments or personalities on either side nor should it be subjected to the vagaries of domestic politics.

Both countries must recognise that in today’s world there will be no military solution to their problems. They must reduce mutual tensions and encourage forums in media and civil society to reinforce the lobbies in both countries for peace and stability. Kashmir remains the overarching factor casting a shadow on the prospects of peace in the region. A solution of the Kashmir dispute will have to be pursued in a manner that is acceptable to both India and Pakistan and to the people of Kashmir.

This requires continuation of the “composite dialogue” to build up trust and confidence and develop mutually beneficial cooperation which would facilitate progress towards the resolution of disputes. Depending on progress on Kashmir and in mutual confidence-building through nuclear and conventional restraint, the two countries in due course could also explore a long-term mutually agreed mechanism for conflict-prevention, conflict-resolution and peaceful settlement of disputes.

For Washington, instead of cheering India-Pakistan overtures from the sidelines, it would be more befitting if its own engagement in the region was reoriented towards promoting strategic balance rather than disturbing it. If the turbulent political history of this region has any lessons, the US engagement must be geared towards developing a sense of security and justice in this region by eschewing discriminatory policies in dealings with India-Pakistan nuclear equation, the only one in the world that grew up in history totally unrelated to the Cold War.

Washington unfortunately has its own priorities for this region as part of its China-driven larger Asian agenda which is based on bolstering India’s military and nuclear power as a counterweight against China. It must understand what we need in this region is not the induction of new destructive weapons and lethal technologies but consolidation of peace, stability, development and democratic values that we lack so much. South Asia needs stability through balance, not asymmetry of power. Also the risk of a Pakistan-India proxy war in Afghanistan is fraught with perilous implications for regional and global peace and must be averted at all costs.

The writer is a former foreign secretary. Email: shamshad1941@yahoo. com

-The News