So the talks about the talks will have to wait till there is clarity about the arrest of Masood Azhar, the leader of the terror outfit, Jaish-e-MohammEd, which was behind the Pathankot attack. On Wednesday evening several TV channels, quoting a section of the Pakistani media, speculated wildly over the arrest of Azhar. Since the foreign secretary-level talks were originally scheduled to begin in Islamabad on Friday, January 15, there was keen interest on knowing whether these were still on schedule.
The news about Azhar’s arrest seemed to suggest that Islamabad was keen for the talks to go ahead as planned. When External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar met the Prime Minister late on Wednesday evening speculation regarding talks intensified further. But soon, as if to goad the Pakistani authorities to confirm the report about the arrest of Azhar, the MEA spokesman clarified that India had received no official word in this regard.
From the terse, one-line statement it was clear that India might be ready to hold the talks as scheduled if only Pakistan would officially confirm Azhar’s arrest. It did not. In fact, it was a Pakistani ploy to ‘plant’ a story in the local media about the detention of Azhar. It was meant to hoodwink the Indians into believing that Pakistan had proceeded against the mastermind of the Pathankot attack.
But the Modi Government was not ready to be deluded. In the absence of any concrete action against the masterminds of the Pathankot attack — the reported arrests of minor underlings of Azhar being of no consequence — India has chosen to postpone the talks, if not scrap them altogether. Whether these will be held, and, if yes, when, is not clear. Pakistan cannot behave as if it is helpless in acting against the non-State actors who operate from its soil and launch well-organised attacks against this country after long and intricate military-like practice with all other necessary back-up preparations.
Without the active involvement of the Pak army the so-called jihadis, who are otherwise ill-educated and generally come from dirt-poor backgrounds, cannot expect to carry out attacks involving the use of sophisticated weapons and gadgetry. Even though the name of the Pakistan Army is written all over the terrorist operation, a large number of Pakistanis have the gumption to not only deny its involvement but, most astoundingly, to accuse India of organising the terror attack against itself. The charge of ‘false flag’; also loud-mouthed by a Pakistani security expert, is so laughable that one can only recommend mental examination for all those making it.
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Pakistan Foreign Office confirmed in Islamabad that the foreign secretary-level talks were being ‘rescheduled.’ He did not hint at a new time-line. No reason was specified for the re-scheduling. Of course, it was not expected that the Pakistan Foreign Office would admit that the rescheduling had become necessary due to India’s insistence on concrete action against the perpetrators of the Pathankot attack and Pakistan’s failure to do so.
Rarely, if at all, does a mother kill her own children. Likewise, how can Pakistan eliminate the Terror Inc. rising whom it has spent a lot of time and money? The so-called ‘non-State actors’ are the crown jewels in the Pakistani armoury for exclusive deployment against India.
In the tortuous history of Indo-Pak relations every time there is a ray of hope, Pakistan and, increasingly, the so-called non-State actors nurtured by it, intervene to bring the two neighbours back to square one. Despite Modi’s bold and daring Christmas Day move, the Rawalpindi GHQ is not ready to discard its old and failed ploy of using terror to torpedo normalisation with India. Such normalisation would deprive the army of its very rationale, its right to strut as peacocks in Pakistan.
Therefore, it activates its extension service, that is, the Terror Inc., to inject itself into the midst of an Indo-Pak détente. However hard we might have wished the foreign secretary-level talks to start so that these could then pave the way for a comprehensive dialogue, we cannot but agree with the decision of the Modi Government to put them on hold. Talks for the sake of talks are meaningless. For them to be productive, both sides have to be ready to compromise, to be reasonable. Unfortunately, Nawaz Sharif has had to yield to Raheel Sharif, the all-powerful Army Chief. India can do nothing about it.
