Ink attack sparks India-Pak spat

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 13

The rise of the radical in India over the past few days returned to cast its shadow over the India-Pakistan ties on Tuesday. Following almost back-to-back ill-treatment of ghazal singer Ghulam Ali and Monday’s ink-attack episode, Islamabad aired its concerns over attempts to disrupt events of its prominent personalities, inviting a sharp reply from Delhi, which said: “India needs no lectures in pluralism.” India also said it was not a foreign policy issue.

“And Pakistan is an embodiment of tolerance and plurality? India does not need a lecture from Pakistan. Whatever issues there are…we are capable of taking care of those. In any case, this is not a foreign policy matter,” a top official source said today as Pakistan Foreign Office today “noted with concern the attempts to disrupt functions organised in respect of prominent Pakistani personalities on India visit”. The Pakistan Foreign Office said: “There is a need to ensure that such incidents do not recur.”

Pakistan’s reaction came after twin developments in India involving the cancellation of a Ghulam Ali concert in Mumbai and yesterday’s attempts by Shiv Sena volunteers to disrupt a function meant to launch a book by former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri.

Saying that “this was not a foreign policy issue”, a source said: “There is no country big or small completely in control of activities…and countries are capable of handling their issues.” India also said it was willing, just as it was in New York last month, to talk to Pakistan provided it recognised that terrorism could not be used as an instrument of statecraft. It reiterated its commitment to “neighbourhood first” policy but added that while this meant neighbours were a priority, it did not mean India pandered to them or closed its eyes to what was happening around.

On Pakistan, the source said: “The desire to continue along the lines agreed to in Ufa between the two Prime Ministers is still there.”

Sources said India was open to NSA-level talks on terrorism (as agreed on in Ufa) in New York last month but “they (Pakistan) were not open so the talks did not happen”. Making it clear that the recognition in Pakistan that “terrorism cannot be used as an instrument of statecraft” was central to talks between the countries, India said: “You can’t say it was only an attack in Gurdaspur and then it was only an attack in Udhampur and ask us not to react…There has to be some recognition that non-practice of terror is central to the relations between the two nations.”

On Pakistan inviting Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, sources said such conditions were unacceptable. “We would have been open in New York to NSA-level talks on terrorism. Our problem is when the other party starts putting conditions. It is not just a process demand. There is a message behind those conditions. You cannot take the centrality of terrorism away from talks. Perhaps their (Pakistan’s) domestic politics after Ufa took them in a different direction. Politics in some countries is not played by politicians alone,” sources said.