Now ‘go to Pakistan’ is not an abuse

Now ‘go to Pakistan’ is not an abuse

Anil SharmaUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 08:04 PM IST
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Hopefully when External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj makes a statement in Parliament about her visit to Pakistan, her cabinet colleague Giriraj Singh would be there to applaud her and concede that “go to Pakistan” is no longer an abuse. May be, it would be too much to expect her party president Amit Shah to concede that his statement about celebrations in Pakistan over a BJP defeat in Bihar was also uncalled for. But it is surely time that Giriraj Singh makes that amendment, or else Prime Minister Narendra Modi would find it more embarrassing to be in Islamabad next year for the SAARC summit.

The fact remains that India has no option but to engage with Pakistan in a diplomatic dialogue. This is something that has been known to anyone who has even an iota of understanding about the dealing between two sovereign countries. Even after a bloody war, there comes a time for talks. We have had four wars and countless skirmishes across the border without moving an inch in terms of dispute resolution with Pakistan. We are both nuclear armed countries with firepower to ensure the destruction of every soul several times over. There is no way we can just not talk. Thus it makes more sense when Swaraj uses the term maturity in the context of the Indian Pakistan relations and agrees that the process has to proceed at a pace at which Pakistan is comfortable.

One hopes that the last 18 months have been a good learning curve for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, though he must be  primarily abhorring the idea that someone in the world can impart him lessons in anything. But then his actions have shown that even an ‘unscripted 120 seconds’ meeting on the side lines of the Climate Change summit in Paris takes a lot of preparatory work, and that he is prepared to do the needful instead of making gestures that ‘no Indian prime minister has made in the last 60 years’ and hoping that these would deliver the goods. This is hardly the way forward in diplomatic matters. In some respects, there is no other way than the time tested and tried method of talks, talks and more talks in diplomacy.

It has to be remembered that the peace process requires more daring and courage than the act of war. For the former prime minister Indira Gandhi sending the troops across the border in 1971 was much easier than negotiating peace with Bhutto and agreeing to give back the 93,000 Pakistani troops held as prisoners of war. The jingoists are always there to allege a sell-out, and more so in the case of prime minister Modi who has to liberate himself from his campaign rhetoric of 56 inch chest and “doob maro” invectives that he used to hurl at the UPA leaders when they showed ‘softness’ in dealing with Pakistan. Sure, he needs all the machismo at his disposal but to make peace with Pakistan on the best possible terms, that is not an easy talk. Yes, no Indian prime minister has achieved it so far, and it is here that Modi has the chance of rewriting history.

In the context of India and Pakistan progress in the relationship is not measured in terms of deals signed or milestones achieved. That is a far cry. We have been too uncivilised to come up to these terms. We cannot even play cricket in a neutral country. We mull for weeks over the idea itself and still are not able to come to a decision. We do not allow a ghazal singer from Pakistan to come to our shores, and we blacken the face of a journalist who dares to play host to a Pakistani writer/diplomat. We may dismiss this as the fringe, but then can we ignore that this dominates our reality. More so when we have a lot to learn about ourselves from our neighbours.

For instance, it would be akin to blasphemy to suggest that Gavaskar is greater than Tendulkar, but the irony is that there is a world cup winning Pakistani captain Imran Khan who tells us that a Sunil Gavaskar is a better batsman than a Sachin Tendulkar because old man Sunny played against the most fearsome and hostile pace quartet (without a helmet) from West Indies whereas by contrast the young lad Sachin had hardly a pacer like Johnson to endure.

There is no room for sentimentality in international relations and the decisions must indeed be based on realpolitik but the overwhelming contribution of the people to people contacts and trade relations cannot be overlooked. No one is arguing that Pakistan is about to drop all its hostility toward India or that just one visit by the external affairs minister has changed all the history of the last 68 years. All the usual caveats will always apply with redoubled vigour, especially when there is an attempt to create a sense of peace security by the other side. At the same time, engaging with Pakistan without any roadmap for the sake of mere photo-ops or better optics is not a luxury that can be enjoyed by the country.

There can be durable peace only if a peace constituency is created in both the countries. Right now there are too many vested interests in both the countries that have profited from the troubled relations across the borders. The only way the two Germanys united were when the Berlin wall fall. True there is no Berlin between India and Pakistan, but there is a deep wall of distrust. The only known antidote to this distrust is sustained people to people contacts. Giriraj Singh does keep issuing the Go to Pakistan diktats, but then he does not know perhaps that it is tough for an Indian to cross the Wagah border – no one from the Indian side lets one go, and no one from the Pakistani side allows you in. Modi and Sharif have to make travel between India-Pakistan easier before they do anything else. That is the first step they need to take action soon.

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