Saturday, March 06, 2010
Mariam Chaudhry
Black and white. Green and saffron. Right and wrong. These are the boundaries within which India and Pakistan continue to view each other. Our topography of lofty peaks and pitless oceans does a good job of typifying the gaps in our sentiments. Yet more imagery in contrasts played out few days ago, when at the conclusion of the Indo-Pak talks, both the Indian and the Pakistani foreign secretaries addressed separated press conferences, ostensibly directed at each one’s home audience. Sharing the same podium, it seems, would have appeared too friendly, too conciliatory, surely too much like ‘giving in’. And appearances, of course, must be kept, even as both sides agreed on continuing the process.
The latest round of talks between the two countries took place under such unusually low expectations that terming them a success or failure would be pointless. It is, however, not at all unusual for the Indo-Pak interactions to be wrapped around semantics rather than substance. And true to its tradition, each side carefully worded its respective stand, took a bow and retired until the next valuable opportunity to repeat the same may be created.
Yet another lesson in semantics was dispensed recently when the newly anointed junior Indian minister for external affairs, Shashi Tharoor, was squarely rounded off for suggesting that Saudi Arabia could act as an ‘interlocutor’ between India and Pakistan. Mr Tharoor was ‘Tharoorly’ ill-informed; words such as ‘interlocutor’ may not be used as they resound too close to ‘mediation’- something that the government of India can’t, won’t and shan’t accept! No, Mr Tharoor, that would have upset the apple-cart of ‘bilateralism’ in which all discomfiting matters can be buried!
So, while India enters into talks on the US prompting and seeks Saudi help in dealing with Pakistan, all in the name of ‘non-mediation’, why is there no outcome after all? Semantics offer us one suggestion. The India-Pakistan relations are steeped in such brutal history that even the subtlest hints of reconciliation send paroxysms through the vast contingents of hardliners present on both the sides. This complicated emotional syntax of the subcontinent manages to overwhelm rationality. In India, Prime Minister Manmohan’s retort to President Zardari in Russia was to be celebrated, Sharm al Sheikh mourned and General Musharraf dismissed for his outspokenness in Agra. There was little by way of outcome at any of these gatherings, it was all about navigating the language. Self-preservation was tied to the ability of trouncing the other in a war of words. The upshot of such interactions is naturally limited then.
But there is another reason why talks between India and Pakistan amount to one step forward and then two steps backwards. A dialogue directly pitches India and Pakistan’s stance on the ‘core’ issue of Kashmir against each other. New Delhi doesn’t want to talk about Kashmir; it is quite content with the current status quo in which it controls over two-thirds of Kashmir with its army. It would happily accept the LoC as the international border or freeze the current status quo. The only concern is militancy, which India fails to acknowledge, stems from the disputed nature of the Kashmir issue and the recalcitrance of the Kashmiri leadership in clinging to their demand of ’self-determination’. When the going gets tough on these two counts then it is time to talk.
Thus, India comes to the talks table, but with a unifocal soliloquy on treating ‘terrorism’. And now there are other compulsions, of course. In the current milieu India also wants to preserve its role in Afghanistan which is currently in jeopardy. It would hugely gain if a transit trade agreement allows it to transport goods to Afghanistan via Pakistan. In fact, trade with Pakistan itself would benefit it immensely. These are all good reasons to talk, but its contentment with its asphyxiating clutch on Kashmir prevents it from a serious engagement which tackles the ‘core’ as well as the fringe variety of topics. It doesn’t want mediation either which would likely hold a more balanced view of the situation.
There is more than a degree of denial to this approach though. Wishing away problems doesn’t make them go away. The vocabulary of engagement is already changing in South Asia. On the west side, after years of battling the Taliban, the United States now talks of re-integrating them into the folds of society. In the east, the Indian Home Minister Chidambaram tells the Maoist rebels that he is ready to talk if they halt violence for three days. The Maoists in turn want a three day halt in what they term as ’state terror’ against them. Clearly, using force and obduracy to yield results has its limits.
Now, it would help greatly if we all came to that realisation earlier than later. If we invest less jargon and more meaning to the Indo-Pak meets, then perhaps we may finally end up with more than a stalemate at our hands.
The writer is an independent journalist.
Email: mariam.chaudhry@gmail.com