India should keep door open for talks with Pak

Maj Gen Ashok K Mehta (retd)

Military Commentator

Russia’s flirting with Pakistan and its deepening partnership with China following the Russian invasion of Ukraine must invite a rethink of our macro-diplomacy to limit adversaries. Setting muscular prestige aside, Islamabad must be courted to dilute a China threat which will grow.

US scholar Stephen Cohen, the last word on India and Pakistan relations, used to say that the two countries would end their hostility in 100 years. That would mean abridging the 25-year gap if one is to take Pakistan’s first Nuclear Security Policy (2022-26) seriously. A public version of the NSP states that Pakistan is not seeking hostility with India for the next 100 years. Fiction? Still, PM Imran Khan’s greatest ambition is to normalise relations with India and play cricket. Consensus is claimed between elected government and the army over the NSP though the goal of peace with neighbour contradicts the military objective of India being an existential threat. Khan has pontificated about Pakistan drawing geo-economic and geo-political benefits from its geo-strategic location once it is at peace with its immediate neighbours. Army Chief Gen Qamar Bajwa has also spoken about burying the past and focusing on geo-economy. Kashmir is a core issue in NSP, though Pakistan has tied itself in knots over it, especially after India annulled Article 370. Strategic ambiguity prevails over its demand for rolling back Article 370 before talks.

Pakistan is desperate to begin a formal dialogue with India which ceased in January 2013 after the beheading of an Indian soldier in J&K. Several constructive backchannels were opened, including one between NSA Ajit Doval and former ISI Chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, that led to the February 25, 2021, cease-fire. Islamabad is also pressing New Delhi to participate even virtually in the SAARC summit, in abeyance since 2016. India is not budging.

With Pakistan retained on grey list in FATF review this month and an impoverished economy, the hybrid civil-military government has decided to reorient its objectives and priorities, placing internal security high on NSP agenda which is the Bajwa doctrine. Pakistan wants a makeover of its image of being the fount of religious fanaticism and terrorism with congenital links to almost every terrorist attack outside its soil. When Khan became the Prime Minister, while speaking at the United States Institute of Peace, he admitted to Pakistan having 40-50,000 terrorists who had fought in Kashmir and Afghanistan. India and Pakistan's mutual sniping at the UNGA shows their pettiness. Last year, after Khan had called the Modi government ‘fascist, unleashing Islamophobia’, India rebutted: ‘The neighbour is an arsonist disguised as a fire-fighter…’ There were better days for almost the entire rule of Gen Musharraf when backchannel thrived, Kashmir was off limits for both sides.

India’s national interest in golfing parlance requires making the best of a ‘bad lie’ (Pakistan-China nexus, loss of Afghanistan as ally and post-Ukraine developments), given its own difficult internal and external situation. President Xi Jinping is now likely to harden position on the LAC with no chance of China reverting to the pre-April 2020 status. Instead it is possible that another Doklam-like contingency could arise in Chumbi valley given the Chinese rampant construction activities inside Bhutan. Clearly, the expanding two-front border confrontation reflects the failure of Indian diplomacy in which this government is heavily invested. With Pakistan having made the strategic choice of backing Russia vis-a-vis the US under evolving geo-political environment, India’s inflexible and unrealistic position of no talks till cross-border terrorism stops must be reviewed. The Balakot deterrence prevails with no major attacks in last three years. All previous governments engaged Islamabad due to the Kashmir dispute which will not go away even after its assimilation.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decided to restart talks with Pakistan even after the fatal Mumbai attacks because backchannel had come up with a mutually acceptable Kashmir solution. Mumbai killed it! Similarly and earlier, former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee took up the challenge twice: After Kargil, when he went to Lahore and following the terrorist attack in Parliament that resulted in backchannel which continued into the Singh era. Today, not only Track I is shut, even Track II is blocked. But the backchannel is open.

The current cease-fire on LoC — which does not preclude a two-front situation — is the result of one of the many effective backchannels. The scale and intensity of these contacts were unexpectedly fruitful, according to Adrian Levy and Kathy Scott-Clarke in their book Spy Stories: Inside the World of R&AW and ISI. Conversations have been variegated: between ISI and R&AW; NSA Doval and Gen Bajwa; NSA to NSA; and ISI and Doval. The last, held at Dubai facilitated by the UAE, resulted in the ongoing cease-fire. Pakistani business magnate Mian Muhammad Mansha confirmed last month that backchannel is operational.

The silver lining to the clouded out India-Pakistan relations came from the most unlikely quarter: Speaking at the Army Day media conference, Army Chief Naravane said that demilitarisation of Siachen was possible once Pakistan agreed to marking the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) on the map. In 1988, 1992 and 2006, the two countries came within a whisker of demilitarisation. Pakistan’s stated intent to end hostilities with India and New Delhi’s willingness to demilitarise Siachen constitute a trigger for another backchannel to restore the High Commissioners, and create conditions for normalisation and resumption of dialogue.

(The writer is the convener of the longest surviving India-Pakistan Track ll dialogue begun in 2003)

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