Access offer to Jadhav’s wife

Pakistan’s offer to allow Indian death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav to meet his wife should be taken at face value: a familiar public relations exercise by GHQ, Rawalpindi, to humour US President Donald Trump who touched upon Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan during a meeting with Xi Jinping, Pakistan’s no-questions-asked benefactor. It serves the Pakistani army well to appear reasonable at a time when the US is revisiting its policy for Afghanistan with a prominent role earmarked for India. The GHQ had pulled out a similar rabbit last month when it “recovered” a Canadian-American and his family, missing for five years in the outbacks of Pakistan-Afghanistan. 

Pakistan army’s claims to have battled the Haqqani network in rescuing the foreigners might have sounded credible if it did not maintain an engaged relationship with its patriarch Jalaluddin. Nevertheless, its PR exercise achieved its objective of extracting praise from Trump. This helped subdue domestic disquiet after an American dressing down on its “safe havens”. In addition, Pakistan has to reduce the possibility of militant attacks after it failed to anticipate and prevent the kidnapping and murder of two Chinese engineers working on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The offer to Jadhav’s wife could be aimed more at dissuading India-friendly militants in Balochistan from trying their hand at again disrupting work on CPEC. 

It may be tempting, as also self-serving, to interpret the offer to Jadhav’s wife as a Pakistani olive branch to India. A weak civilian government and an army that is not in firm control either hardly make for power centres that can give concrete and lasting concessions to India on terrorism. The impending elections to the International Court of Justice where Jadhav’s case is being heard and the presence of an Indian in the fray could also be supplementary factors. The gesture to Jadhav’s wife is in fact the normal diplomatic civility self-assured countries are supposed to observe. Jadhav is a pawn which the GHQ will be tempted to utilise often. Only his repatriation will establish that Pakistan is willing to turn the corner.