One of the major problems faced by us in dealing with the LET’s acts of terrorism in different parts of the country has been due to the failure of our political leadership and the MEA to make it clear to the world through facts and figures-- and not through rhetoric-- that the LET’s acts have a much larger agenda and have no longer much to do with the Kashmir issue. Unfortunately, Pakistan has once again almost succeeded in making the US and the UK look at the LET activities through the Kashmir prism.
The Mumbai terrorist strike--the attacks on Israelis and other Jewish people, the targeted killings of nationals of countries having troops in Afghanistan, attacks on Western businessmenetc-- clearly illustrated the global agenda of the LET, but our political leadership and diplomacy failed to clearly draw attention to the much larger agenda. As a result, we are once again seeing references to the so-called linkages between the Kashmir issue and the LET’s acts of terrorism. Pakistan has profited from our inaction or inept action.
The meeting between Manmohan Singh and Zardari did not lead to a decision to resume the composite dialogue. It merely led to an agreement for a meeting between the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries to discuss the action taken by Pakistan after the Mumbai attack. Any decision on the resumption of the composite dialogue would depend on the outcome of this meeting.
Manmohan Singh is not a man of confrontation. He took the decision to freeze the composite dialogue mainly because of the fears of a likely adverse impact on the voting in the recently-held elections to the Parliament if he did not take a seemingly hard line against Pakistan. Now that the Congress (I)-led coalition has come back topower--with the Congress (I) improving its own individual position in the LokSabha-- he is unlikely to feel the need for maintaining the present hardline position on the composite dialogue.
In the meanwhile, there has been a window of respite in acts of Pakistan-origin jihadi terrorism in the Indian territory. There has been no act of terrorism by the so-called Indian Mujahideen since September last. There has been no major act of terrorism by the LET in the Indian territory outside J&K since November last.
If this respite continues, it is quite likely that Manmohan Singh will agree to a resumption of the composite dialogue in some form or the other even if the forthcoming meeting of the two Foreign Secretaries does not give satisfaction to the Indian investigators.
The US is equally interested in a resumption of the dialogue even if Pakistan does not act against the anti-Indian terrorist infrastructure in its territory. At the same time, in due regard to Indian sensitivities, it will continue to exercise pressure on Pakistan to improve the quality of its mutual legal assistance to India and to ensure that the present respite continues. This is an issue, which is likely to figure prominently in the discussions ofMrs Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State, with the Indian leaders in New Delhi during her forthcoming visit in July.
There have once again been warm references to India in the pronouncements of US leaders. We noticed it for the first time in the address delivered by Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, at the recent meeting of Defence Ministers at Singapore organized by the International Institute of Strategic Studies of London, and in the interactions of his officials with Indian journalists who had gone to Singapore to cover the meeting. One of the officials was reported to have referred to Indo-US relations as a three-stage rocket. According to him, the first stage was fired when Bill Clinton was the President and the second stage under George Bush. He spoke tantalizingly of the coming firing of the third stage under the Obama Administration. They sought to project the Indo-US relations as enjoying broad bi-partisan support and hence unlikely to be affected by the change of incumbency in the White House. Mrs. Clinton has now given some idea of the third stage the Obama Administration has in mind in her address earlier this week to a gathering of businessmen in Washington DC.
The earlier coming closer together of the US and China as seen during the visit ofMrs Clinton to Beijing in February last was partly warranted by the economic difficulties inherited by the Obama Administration from its predecessor. There are already some indications of the beginning of a possible recovery. If the recovery is maintained and strengthened, the USA’s opportunistic dependence on China for sorting out its economic ills would weaken and this could be to the benefit of India.
At this time, when winds of some change for the better seem to be blowing towards India from Washington DC, Manmohan Singh would find it difficult to reject suggestions from the US for a political gesture to thegovernment in Islamabad by way of a resumption of the composite dialogue.
The question is no longer whether it will be resumed, but when and how it will be projected to saveface for both India and Pakistan. The relevant question should no longer be whether we should agree to a resumption of the composite dialogue, but how to keep up the pressure on Pakistan on the issue of anti-Indian terrorism even if the dialogue is resumed. This needs some thought by our policy-makers.
Indo-Pakistan relations do not have an over-all strategy. We keep zigging and zagging and riding aroller-coaster depending on the anger, pressures and compulsions of the moment. The time has come to work out a strategy, which is transparent to our people, to the people of Pakistan and to the rest of the world.