Indo-Pak dialogue must go on for the sake of silent majority on both sides

Indo-Pak  dialogue  must go on for the sake  of silent majority on both sides

By Subhash Chopra

The  Indo-Pak dialogue  which seemed to open in the New Year with promises of redeeming hopes of easy  visa regime and expanding trade  relations suddenly suffered a wobble when it got caught in the LOC crossfire  in Kashmir. The new visa regime came to a swift end moments after coming into operation. The hanging of Afzal Guru, the Indian parliament attack convict, dealt the dialogue another  blow before it had time to recover from the LOC shock. Hopes of trade and sports  ties fell by the side.

Going by the hysterical media coverage in both countries, the Indo –Pak dialogue  looked like a dead-cert  casualty. Not just  a severe jolt , the events of the  new year  had  the potential of a massive interruption of the dialogue , even a. breaking  point if one were to be led by the ‘Breaking  News’ flashes on the television channels of both countries.

Tensions erupted towards the end of the first week of the new year as five soldiers were killed in quick tit-for-tat  skirmishes  on the LOC  in Kashmir – first a Pakistani soldier shot dead, then two Indian soldiers killed with one of them beheaded and his head carried away as a ‘trophy’ , followed by two Pakistani soldiers  losing their lives.

Pakistan’s straight denial of any of their soldiers involved in the beheading  didn’t help matters, leaving the  impression that some non-state actor or elements could have done it in pursuit of their avowed aim of ‘helping their brethren across the LOC.’ On the Indian side of the LOC such acts are viewed as plain terrorist attacks, with defence chiefs openly  reserving their right to take appropriate action in defending the national interest.

Far from cooling the situation, the utterances of Pakistani foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar in television interviews  and elsewhere in the US accusing India of ‘war-mongering’ stoked further suspicions in India.

Pakistan’s call for a reference  to UN observers was met with  swift rejection by India which instead called for a bilateral flag meeting of commanders on the LOC.  Pakistan’s delayed acceptance of  holding the flag meeting prolonged the pain on both sides. But once held, the flag meeting paved the way for talks between the two  Directors  General of  Military Operations  on their ‘hot line’ – a procedure  specifically established to cool such situations. And it worked.

The situation became so bad at one stage that that the normally taciturn Indian Prime Minister  Manmohan  Singh felt  compelled to pronounce  that as long as such circumstances  prevailed “there can be no business as usual” with Pakistan. His comment was followed by President Pranab Mukherjee’s  even  tougher message  to Pakistan that  India’s hand of friendship must not be taken for granted.’’

The dialogue has taken a sever hit  but  has not been abandoned , and  it may take some time  to pick up the momentum it has lost  in this round.   It is not the first time that it has suffered such a backward pull. There have been plenty earlier  setbacks but  they have not been able to snuff it out.  The so-called trust deficit between the two countries is essentially  a bogey created by the establishment that rules Pakistan, and that too by only half of it  as the establishment itself is a divided house. There is no trust deficit between the people of India and Pakistan. And at the civil/ political  level too there is not  much of that trust deficit. Quite the contrary, there is plenty of   two-way public trust. There is  a huge peace constituency of silent majority in both countries which must  be respected and further supported. The stakes are too high to be left to saboteurs.

In fact over the last two decades political parties in the two countries have pursued the peace dialogue despite Kargil war and the 2008 Mumbai  carnage. Unfortunately  time has not been on the peacemakers’ side.

What is often forgotten is that the political leadership across major parties in both countries has from time undertaken successive initiatives to push the peace dialogue though time has not been on their side so far. The 1990 dialogue between young Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi had created all the positive wibes but Bhutto lost power  before the dialogue  could have the chance to mature. In 1999 Indian  Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee accepted the invitation of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz  Sharif and took the peace bus to Lahore. But Pakistan army chief , General Pervez Musharraf, had other plans which resulted in the Kargil  war between the two countries. Yet in 2001 the same  General Musharraf  who engineered the Kargil war( as  revenge—by his own admission --  for India’s role in Bangladesh independence war) became a convert  to peace and came to Agra for a peace summit with Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee. But time was not on their side and the summit collapsed. Nearly five years later in 2006 Gen Musharraf   met the Indian  Prime Minister Manmohan.Singh. But time was not on the General’s  side and he got toppled from power  in 2008.

Notwitstanding huge  setbacks , including the current one set off by the skirmishes at the LOC in Kashmir and the hanging of Afzal Guru,  the ground for optimism and peace between the two countries remains solid. In spite of open and covert wars, the Indus Water
Treaty between the two countries has stood the test of time and
survived over the last 65 years. Even the 1947 ceasefire line, later
called Line of Control in Kashmir has survived in spite of open wars.
Both nations have also religiously exchanged information on nuclear
installations for the past 23 years on the first of  January every year.

Even in the current  dark  hour, the Indo-Pak dialogue remains on the table, however precarious it may look at present. . The upcoming  general elections in Pakistan and other developments there, including the possible  emergence of the new civilian and military policies on the same page,  holds out the inevitable promise of  peace and cooperation between the two nations."