Opinion - News Analysis   

India, Pakistan need to move ahead

Amit Baruah

The two neighbours have too much at stake to allow the peace process to drift further.

— FILE Photo: V.V. Krishnan

DIFFICULT TIMES: Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and his Pakistani counterpart Riaz Muhammad Khan.

ARE INDIA and Pakistan on the brink of returning to acrimonious exchanges once again? Is the composite dialogue process between the two sides in danger of breaking down? Will the political leaderships be able to arrest the slide in the bilateral relationship?

After the July 11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai and the finger-pointing by India at Pakistan, a chill in bilateral relations had set in. In a sign of continued unhappiness, India decided to put off the Foreign Secretary-level discussions scheduled for July 21.

Since then, the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan, Shyam Saran and Riaz Muhammad Khan, had an opportunity to meet informally on July 31, on the sidelines of a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meeting in Dhaka. Both officials were careful and conciliatory in their brief remarks to the press after their meeting, stressing the importance of continuing the peace process. Mr. Saran also said the two sides had agreed to share information on the Mumbai blasts.

Also in Dhaka, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri told this correspondent that Islamabad was open to the idea of a meeting between President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Havana in September.

Days later, on August 5, it appeared India and Pakistan had frittered away the gains from the Dhaka meeting and "returned" to what was once the norm in their relationship — tit-for-tat expulsions. If Islamabad turned out Indian Visa Counsellor Deepak Kaul, New Delhi followed suit by sending back Pakistan Political Counsellor Syed Muhammad Rafique Ahmed a few hours later.

Around the same time, major Pakistani newspapers carried reports that Islamabad had informed Teheran that the Indian consulate in Zahidan was being used by New Delhi to foment unrest in neighbouring Balochistan. All this was a sign of a new aggressiveness on the part of Pakistan.

A couple of days later, on Monday, Indian High Commissioner Shiv Shankar Menon was invited by the Pakistani side to meet Mr. Kasuri in Islamabad. And then, on Thursday, came reports that Pakistan had placed Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed under "house arrest" for one month. Senior Indian officials pointed out that the meeting between Mr. Menon and Mr. Kasuri indicated that Pakistan was serious about addressing India's concerns. Also, it came immediately after the tit-for-tat expulsions that rattled both countries.

For some time now, these officials have been saying that Islamabad should take some action on the ground against anti-India terrorist groups operating from Pakistani soil. Also, India would have no problem if this "action" was seen as being de-linked from the concerns raised by New Delhi. It would appear that the "house arrest" of Saeed, a known India-baiter, who took on the mission of promoting jihad against India some years ago, is precisely the kind of action New Delhi would like to see. Here, one must hasten to add, that such "arrests" have taken place earlier, only to result in the release of leaders. For instance, another jihadi leader in whom India should be interested, Fazlur Rehman Khaleel of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, was recently beaten up and admitted to hospital.

Pakistan is right that India has little to show by way of a solid investigation into the July 11 blasts. In fact, Indian officials privately admit they have received no evidence so far that can connect Pakistan-based terrorist groups to the attacks in Mumbai.

However, it is equally true that the Government of Pakistan continues to tolerate the existence of groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, its parent wing, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and its splinter, the Jaish-e-Muhammad led by Masood Azhar. Recruiting jihadis and collecting funds is something these groups have continued despite the "bans" imposed on them by the Musharraf Government. A crackdown on the "open actions" of the jihadi groups is the least that can be expected from the Pakistani state.

Need for constant dialogue

At the same time, India needs to be specific about the action it seeks from Pakistan. The concerns relating to Pakistani action cannot be episodic; they must be based on a constant dialogue with Islamabad. India must come out with solid information about individuals and groups and seek deportation/extradition of individuals from Pakistan on a sustained basis. Islamabad may well reject India's contention, but New Delhi has no option but to keep raising concerns about groups such as the Lashkar and Jaish. Pakistani officials told this correspondent in Dhaka that India had not been able to convict Masood Azhar while he remained in an Indian jail, so New Delhi had to understand the problems faced by Islamabad on this issue.

Islamabad may well have its limitations, but the fact is that backing the jihadis was official government policy for a long time. The Pakistani state may have moved on since then, but it clearly needs to show where it stands vis-à-vis India on the anti-terrorist front.

India and Pakistan have too much at stake to allow the peace process to drift further. The time, it seems, has come for the political leaderships of the two countries to give rapprochement between them a new lease of life.

Given the long history of problems between the two countries, a temporary return to acrimony and bitter exchanges is, perhaps, inevitable from time to time. However, despite recent setbacks, it is entirely possible that the composite dialogue between the two countries would resume in the not-too-distant future.

Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf need to be reminded about the commitment they made to each other on April 18, 2005: "They [the two leaders] determined that the peace process was now irreversible."

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