Making A Difference

Those Bad Apples

Will India's love-hate policy games with Pak hold up till elections?

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Those Bad Apples
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What does India want from Pakistan?

Short-term
Should take visible action against the Mumbai attack perpetrators, hand over one or more of the masterminds to it or a third country.

Long-term
Should dismantle its terror infrastructure and isolate pro-jehadi elements in the establishment.

What’s the flaw in India’s Pakistan policy?
It’s a queer, confused mix of love-hate. Doesn’t have a basket of options.

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Ten Years Of Love-Hate
  • Feb 20, ’99: PM Atal Behari Vajpayee takes the peace bus to Lahore.
  • May ’99: India discovers intrusions by Pakistan in Kargil. India launches an offensive. The US compels Pakistan to withdraw.
  • Dec 24, ’99: Indian Airlines IC-814 is hijacked. In a hostage-for-militants swap, India frees three hardcore Pakistani militants.
  • Jul 15, ’01: Vajpayee invites President Pervez Musharraf to Agra. The thaw begins.
  • Dec 13, ’01: Indian Parliament attacked. India begins to mobilise troops on the Indo-Pak border. The US, once again, intervenes.
  • Jan 6, ’04: Vajpayee-Musharraf talk on the sidelines of SAARC meet in Islamabad. Pakistan commits to stopping anti-India activities. Two sides announce a ceasefire and launch the ‘Composite Dialogue’ process.
  • Apr 17, ’05: Musharraf visits Delhi and meets Manmohan Singh. Dialogue continues, people-to-people contacts enhanced, many CBMs signed, trade across the LoC begins.
  • Nov 26, ’08: Mumbai attacked by sea-borne terrorists. India mounts pressure on Pakistan.
  • Feb 12, ’09: Pakistan admits that the Mumbai conspiracy was hatched on its soil.

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F

Pranab was justified in feeling triumphant. Who would have thought in the wake of the Mumbai horror that the Congress-led UPA government could compel Pakistan to acquiesce? The external affairs minister’s explanation must have riled the BJP members, who had seen their Vajpayee government engage Pakistan eyeball-to-eyeball for months, only to retreat without extracting any concession from the latter.

In his moment of triumph, though, Pranab also decided to be generous—and a touch boastful. He said war wasn’t an option, and took the high moral ground that his government respected human rights. He then went on to spell out India’s objectives—bringing the Mumbai masterminds to justice and the total dismantling of the terror infrastructure in Pakistan. His remarks dispirited policy wonks who began to wonder whether the UPA government, like others before, was back to playing the love-hate game all over again.

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The more political of them had their own question: isn’t the UPA guilty of premature celebrations, particularly as elections are still many weeks away? The logic of political rhetoric demands that the incumbent regime always has a new achievement to crow about. But really, can Pakistan continue satisfying India—and the UPA?

The foreign policy establishment feels Pakistan’s admission has indeed provided a glimmer of hope on the anti-terror front, but instead of preening about its success, New Delhi must not lose the opportunity to consolidate its gains. A few feel Pranab’s statement reflects a confusion typical of India’s ties with Pakistan. As the man he replaced in the MEA, K. Natwar Singh, told Outlook, "What did he mean earlier by saying all options are open? Did it include the N-option? By saying that war is not an option now, he’s only contradicting himself."

Ministry officials, however, feel Pranab was right in lowering the pitch against Pakistan, essentially a subtle way of conveying to it that decisive action against terror groups will be appreciated. This, they say, has also been the cue from foreign leaders to the Indian leadership. Second, they say New Delhi must take into account the developments in the Swat valley and the increasingly disharmonious relationship between different sections of government there. Pranab’s remarks did indeed please the Pakistanis. A senior Pakistani diplomat told Outlook, "We’re very happy that Mr Mukherjee made it clear that diplomacy, not war, is the way out between the two countries."

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Yet, in the same breath, Indian officials say New Delhi is only giving Islamabad the benefit of the doubt—and Pakistan shouldn’t consequently become complacent. They say Pranab’s statement in Parliament was a way of explaining to members, particularly those of the nda, why the demand for a military response couldn’t have achieved the result as diplomacy has. "We have neither added nor taken off any option from the table. India has never spelt out its options and it remains that way," an MEA official said.

New Delhi is also waiting to see how the developments in Swat valley play out. The Asif Ali Zardari government has struck a deal with the Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) there that allows the imposition of Shariat in return for its militant followers, closely linked to the Taliban, restoring peace. "If there’s a fire in your neighbourhood, you are bound to feel the heat," a senior MEA official told Outlook.

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The Swat deal not only marks an abject surrender by the Pakistani army to the Taliban, but could also embolden them take their jehadi passion to other parts of Pakistan. Some MEA officials even feel the Pakistan establishment could have brokered the deal to shift the international community’s focus and delay the action that India has been demanding. There’s also apprehension in India that Zardari took the US into confidence before signing the deal, persuading Washington that an army free from the burden of Swat could focus better on the Pak-Afghan border. With the US playing a vital role in pressuring Pakistan on Mumbai, it was thought prudent not to force the pace of the Pakistani investigation now.

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But the slowing down, insist MEA officials, will be temporary. To begin with, India has to answer the questions Pakistan has submitted formally. It also has to mull over whether it should allow Pakistan’s investigatingteam here and give consular access to Ajmal Kasab, the lone survivor among the Mumbai attackers. There’s also a possibility of Pranab meeting his Pakistani counterpart on the sidelines of the SAARC meet in Colombo (Feb 27-28). He’s expected to tell the Pakistani foreign minister that they will have to take the investigation to its logical conclusion—take "visible and verifiable" action against the Mumbai masterminds.

All these will generate headlines and portray the UPA as a government taking effective action against terror, an image the BJP had cultivated for itself. This pressure on Pakistan is also aimed at reducing the chances of another terror attack before the elections. Indeed, the UPA’s electoral dream is to get Pakistan to hand over one or two of the Mumbai masterminds to India or a third country. But what options does New Delhi have to pressure Pakistan into acting? "The best option to deal with Pakistan is through international pressure," says former foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh. He says this because whenever New Delhi has tried to raise the pitch at a bilateral level with Islamabad, its only response has been a calibrated hostility. "Under international pressure, however, Pakistan turns friendly to India." Agrees Natwar Singh, "The only thing that is working so far is the pressure from the US."

But there are limits to what international pressure can achieve. "It is unrealistic for us to expect the US or some other country to deliver Pakistan to us," says a prime ministerial aide. Elections apart, he suggests it is time India develops its own set of levers to deal with the recalcitrant neighbour. Over the last 10 years, India’s love-hate games with Pakistan have begun to tax the people’s patience, not to talk of the fact that it doesn’t diminish India’s susceptibility to terror attacks, while strapping its economic growth and preventing it from playing a bigger role in global affairs.

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The prime ministerial aide, therefore, argues that India’s Pak policy must be delinked from electoral rhetoric. "We have to acknowledge that we have adversarial relations with Pakistan and it will remain so for years to come," he said. "That’s why we need to develop a basket of options with both negatives and positives." The positive options, for instance, could include giving Pakistan a generous access to the Indian market. High economic stakes could prompt large sections of Pakistanis to oppose their establishment’s periodic attempts to destabilise India. The negative options could involve India re-establishing its links with those sections in Pakistan which feel stifled under Punjabi domination. "Such a policy mix would make Pakistan realise that peace is the best way out to deal with India," the prime ministerial aide said.

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Irrespective of whether or not Mumbai can be milked for electoral gains, New Delhi will now have to develop "a basket of options" that combines the carrot-and-stick policy. It’s only then that India can hope to tame Pakistan.

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