How To Fashion A Fork

he dominant reaction in India to the Wikileaks disclosures, cataloguing Pakistan’s serial misdemeanours and double-dealing in the war against terrorism, has been one of patent satisfaction. It is  reckoned that despite the general reluctance to confront Pakistan, this latest expose could hardly be explained away. But this is neither the first nor the last time when Pakistan’s double-dealing will be given a pass. Remember A.Q. Khan and his “private nuclear superbazaar”? That was a bigger camel that made it through the eye of the needle. As long as Pakistan’s friends determine that their interests are better served by playing along with Pakistan’s rulers than by confronting the latter on their double-dealing, not much is likely to change. We need to admit that the objectives of our Pakistan policy, in particular the cessation of cross-border terrorism and not merely its occasional remission, are unlikely to be delivered through the instrumentality of the US-led coalition. This is a challenge we will need to deal with ourselves. There are significant benefits that the Indo-US partnership has delivered, but compelling Pakistan to stop sponsoring terrorism against India as an instrument of state policy is unlikely to be one of them.

There is another assumption which needs to be jettisoned. Our posture towards Pakistan, in recent years, appears to implicitly accept the judgement that despite terrorist violence unleashed against us by a hostile military-dominated regime in Islamabad, our security is less threatened by such a regime being in charge than the alternative of a fundamentalist jehadi regime. This generates a certain hesitancy in confronting the prevailing Pakistani threat. Frankly, there is not much to choose between the two alternatives. Both are dangerous; any difference is one of degree. And Pakistan will stay united or fragment, or descend into a fundamentalist nightmare, irrespective of what India does. It is Pakistan’s internal dynamics and what its people want which will shape its destiny, not India.

Finally, we must accept the admittedly uncomfortable reality that there is a pervasive sentiment across Pakistan’s elite, civilian and military, that it is only terrorist violence which compels India to sit for talks, and hopefully deliver on Pakistan’s objectives, be they on Kashmir or on Afghanistan. Otherwise, it is argued, India would have no incentive even to engage with Pakistan. There may be differences over the levels of violence perpetrated against India, or its targets, but there is little questioning of the policy itself. The Pakistani army and the ISI are able to tap into this sentiment and ensure acquiescence to their strategy. The recent Pew public opinion poll, which reveals widespread perception of India as an enemy in Pakistan, corroborates this. This will not change in a hurry.

The formulation of an effective Pakistan strategy must, therefore, begin by putting aside certain long-held but invalid assumptions. We need to put in place a strategy with a full range of options; we should be ready to impose costs when our interests are being threatened. We should, equally, be willing to deliver benefits whenever there is a demonstrated willingness by Pakistan to meet our concerns. There is, for example, no reason for us to be defensive about our presence in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s claim for strategic depth in that country is good enough reason for us to deny it to them. We should reassert our claim to Gilgit and Baltistan, which we seem to have given up by default. There are other pressure points which could be explored, including working in concert with those who share our perceptions.

In parallel, India should utilise opportunities, however limited they may appear, to build upon commonalities—for example, in promoting trade and cultural affinities, in the better use of shared water resources, in tackling climate change and in ensuring energy security in a resource-constrained world. Our expectations must be modest, since India-Pakistan relations will remain adversarial for the foreseeable future.

India-Pakistan dialogue is the forum where we can pursue our objectives through nuanced diplomacy. Its repeated interruption is not an effective response to Pakistan’s involvement in terrorist violence in India. It only creates space for others to interject themselves into India-Pakistan relations, pursuing their own respective agendas.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is right that even during the depth of the Cold War, the US and the then ussr did not shun dialogue. As nuclear power states, neither should we. We must manage this relationship prudently, which would prevent the possibility of war and over time, yields an outcome which resembles the PM’s vision of a free flow of goods, peoples and ideas across borders that remain no more than lines on the map. This should be the guiding star of our strategy towards our neighbourhood, including Pakistan.

(Shyam Saran, a former foreign secretary, has been appointed special envoy to Kathmandu)