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Karamatullah K Ghori
Published: 07th October 2014 06:00 AM
When I wrote about the Pakistani people’s Sisyphean syndrome, sometime ago in these columns, I’d little inkling that India-Pakistan relations would soon be saddled with that same, damning, handicap.
The people of Pakistan are condemned to bear the burden of their leaders’ persistent follies and blunders because they are still clueless—67 years down their independence highway—how to elect the right leaders. So, as an old adage goes, nature may condone an individual’s occasional erring but never ignores the collective folly of a people. Anyone doubting its timelessness need only look at the charlatans still ruling the roost in Pakistan as its saviours, be they elected or self-imposed.
But must the India-Pakistan equation, howsoever tangled it may be, also be condemned to carry that cross? Has it been foretold in the Shastras, or any divine scripture, that it must be perennially condemned to suffer the Sisyphean syndrome, too?
PM Modi and PM Nawaz were both in New York last week for the annual ritual of UN General Assembly. But they didn’t meet with each other, confirming what had only been said in undertones till then, that relations between the two leaders, and the countries they lead, were losing their warmth, if not souring bitterly.
What a marked climbdown it was from the euphoria triggered just four months ago when a newly-elected Modi had his South Asian counterparts at his inauguration in Delhi and Nawaz Sharif was accorded a place in that conclave befitting celebrity status. So what went wrong in the weeks since then to let, what was then seen as the euphoric warming of long-estranged relations, out in the cold, once again? Strange as it may seem, the two South Asian neighbours have this curious chemistry to generate a chill even in the heat of summer.
Granted, that the first stone was cast by Pakistan when right on the eve of much anticipated foreign secretary-level talks in late August its high commissioner in Delhi had the gall to invite Kashmiri Muslim leaders to his enclave. It was a provocative thing, to say the least. Even Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan’s virtual foreign minister, had to concede in a recent interview with an Indian television channel that it was bad timing. I’d add to that—from my own 35 years in diplomacy—and say it was naïve, even stupid, on the high commissioner’s part to stick his neck out like that. He was dumb.
Did he do it off his own bat? You bet he didn’t. Knowing Pakistan as well as I do I can go out on a limb and say he must’ve been prompted by the forces in Pakistan allergic to any improvement in relations with India to throw a spanner in the works. He took the bait, regretfully, and Pakistan is paying the price of his naivety.
But should India have reacted with such super-sensitivity and pulled the plug on the building momentum with such alacrity? That’s what hurts a “dove” (maligned by many of his peers) like this scribe who’s been taking so much flak, lately, from so many quarters for his pie-in-the-sky vision (they call it a chimera) of an era of normal behaviour between India and Pakistan where the two—at the very least—wouldn’t be hoist on the petard of their never-ending misunderstandings. The point is there ought to be easily perceptible difference in behaviour and reaction between a struggling democracy (I call it democracy-lite) like Pakistan and a seasoned, firm-footed and mature democratic polity like India.
Nawaz isn’t a free agent on relations with India. No Pakistani PM has been since Zulfi Bhutto. Nawaz, like others before him, has to look across his shoulder, constantly, to make sure he doesn’t cross the line drawn in the sand by you-know-who; I would even hazard the guess that the HC in Delhi was “advised” behind Nawaz’ back. Wasn’t Nawaz kept in the dark on Kargil—a much larger and sinister venture? I feel sorry for the strait-jacket he’s in.
But Modi has no such handicap. He has been given a clear and categorical mandate by the Indians to lead them. They trust him as a leader, and anyone’s doubts on his hard-earned new status should’ve been put to rest by the warm welcome accorded him in Washington. The world’s lone superpower that once kept him at arm’s length is eager to court him.
What’s perhaps not being appreciated in Delhi is that given the awkward tangent at which Pakistan is caught at the moment, Nawaz is their best bet for a normal relationship between the two neighbours. He warrants support from India, although it may still be debatable for Cassandras on both sides of the Divide that Indian support for Nawaz could be a double-edged sword for him. But that’s a risk worth taking.
The peace process with India is one Nawaz initiative on which there’s little opposition in Pakistan; even the die-hards concede its efficacy, even if reluctantly. There’s near-consensus that it’s a thing whose time has come. But when momentum goes out of gear—and India is perceived as the villain for it—it gives the hawks a big stick to beat not only India; the Pakistani peaceniks are thrashed even harsher. Tongues start wagging: “didn’t we tell you India is unreliable, all the more under a tainted Modi?”
For a Nawaz already browbeaten by all kinds of backlashes, losing his bet with India is a huge setback—something the hobbled leader of a crisis-plagued country can ill-afford. I don’t know if the gravity of Pakistan’s plethora of problems is fully understood in India. The country is in all sorts of troubles. Its government has been paralysed since the ISI-induced Dharna of Imran Khan, now running out of steam but still a nuisance and a huge distraction for Nawaz.
Pakistan is sliding ever deeper into the muck of its own making. It’s being buffeted by the rising tide of militancy, religious fanaticism and the ugly face of terrorism. The twin scourge of religious frenzy and militancy is dragging its socio-economic torso into turbulent waters and threatening to drown it. Polio—to cite just one indicator of social malaise—is rearing its ugly head with vengeance. Religious fanatics from another Stone Age kill health workers daring to vaccinate their children with impunity. At least, 59 have been killed since 2012. Pakistan has just beaten its own record of 199 cases of polio recorded in 2000; the number has surged past 202 by early October. The day isn’t far when WHO and the rest of the world may declare Pakistan a pariah state as far as polio is concerned.
That’s why Nawaz needs a lifeline thrown to him. Let there, at least, be one feather in his cap: peace with India that may redeem him, partly
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