PM’s great peace gamble

As with the move he began five years ago to end India’s nuclear isolation, so it seemed on Friday — that the Prime Minister’s vision of peace in his time is a policy gamble now driving dialogue with Pakistan. Here’s the gamble: A failure by Islamabad to take action against the perpetrators of Mumbai 26/11 or, worse, another major terrorist attack against India would immediately undermine Singh’s new policy, reports Pramitpal Chaudhuri.

As with the move he began five years ago to end India’s nuclear isolation, so it seemed on Friday — that the Prime Minister’s vision of peace in his time is a policy gamble now driving dialogue with Pakistan.

HT Image

That vision of change — pushed gently by the US, as the Congress privately admitted — clashed with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s insistence on continuity as the BJP walked out of the Lok Sabha, after calling Manmohan Singh’s agreement to decouple action against terrorism from bilateral talks “capitulation” to Pakistan.

Singh (77) repeated what he said yesterday in Egypt to both houses of Parliament: India’s stance on terror has not changed; there will be no “meaningful dialogue” without progress on terrorism against India.

Here’s the gamble: A failure by Islamabad to take action against the perpetrators of Mumbai 26/11 or, worse, another major terrorist attack against India would immediately undermine Singh’s new policy.

At the heart of the BJP’s disagreement with the PM were differing visions of Islamabad’s attitude toward terrorism. This had changed, Singh argued.

He quoted his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani: “There is consensus in Pakistan against the activities of these terrorist groups, that strong action is being taken and this is in Pakistan’s own interests.”

As an Indian official who has worked closely with Singh said: “There is an assumption Pakistan’s willingness to tackle terrorism will be weakened by the delinking. Critics should consider the possibility that the opposite will happen.”

Before leading his party out, BJP opposition leader L.K. Advani asked: "It is only because of Bombay that you stopped it (the dialogue). What has changed since then?"

The answer lies in Singh’s track record of ignoring the day’s realities, making major shifts in policy and sticking to them with a tenacity that belies his soft-spoken demeanour.

In Singh’s broad foreign policy vision, instability in India’s neighbourhood is seen as the primary obstacle to India’s economic and political rise.

The Prime Minister has come to believe that changing circumstances in Pakistan, most notably the country’s growing hostility to the Islamic militants it once sponsored, means India needs to move beyond the sterile debate of terrorism versus Kashmir. US pressure is apparent.

“I’m sure the US has made some commitment on behalf of Pakistan to India about dealing with the terror issue,’’ said a senior Congress functionary, requesting anonymity. “The PM has to move forward.”

The joint statement is being seen by some as part of a drive to find a new basis for the Pakistani relationship.

Besides decoupling, the joint statement had no direct reference to Kashmir.

The government struggled, however, to explain the statement’s references to the “threats” that Pakistan faces in Balochistan.

If Gilani, said Congress spokesman Manish Tewari, “wanted to put some information about Balochistan in it, India has no objection because we do not interfere in any country’s internal affairs and we are also ready to talk, if anybody wants.”

Pakistan has long accused India of fomenting insurgency in Balochistan, a claim New Delhi has denied.

Tewari said the statement in Sharm al Sheikh sent “a clear message to Pakistan that it will have to take action against terrorism unilaterally and this has nothing to do with composite dialogue”.

The BJP also accused the government of buckling to international pressure. Washington denied it had applied any pressure on India regarding talks with Pakistan, though it welcomed the joint statement.

The BJP walkout, and even the mildly critical stance of the CPI(M), that the Sharm-el-Sheikh episode had caused “confusion”, underlined the political risks that Singh’s reworking of the traditional Indo-Pakistani diplomatic dialogue represented.