Modi sarkar, engage Pakistan with caution

Last Sunday's meeting in Bangkok, attended by the national security advisors and foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan, is neither a "grand betrayal", as is being claimed by the Congress, nor an inexplicable move that has left dime-a-dozen foreign policy and security affairs experts befuddled.

If professional "Track Two" junketeers, busybodies who believe it is their destiny to save India from Philistines, have begun dreaming of resumption of business class travel to exotic foreign locales, they would be well-advised not to cancel their New Year's celebrations at IIC. Let's begin with getting the clutter out of the way. Setting aside campaign rhetoric, even before taking charge of office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had signalled a strategic shift in India's policy towards its neighbours, including Pakistan. The invitation to the SAARC heads of government was not vanity on display but the first step towards ending India's majestic isolation in the region, a legacy of the UPA decade.

Dialogue

What promised to be an early start in rebuilding relations with Pakistan vapourised when realisation sank in, though not for the first time, that unlike the government of India, the caricature of a civilian government in Islamabad is not quite a free agent guided by what's best for the country, but a mistress of the generals in Rawalpindi. New Delhi could speak to Islamabad, exchange mangoes and sweets, but to tango, it needed a third partner, Rawalpindi. Over the past year-and-a-half, substantive dialogue was as impossible as fruitful engagement. The Pakistani army predictably played spoilsport, repeatedly violating the ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control and border, pushing in terrorists and using usual suspects in the Indian media to subvert and supplant both policy and strategy. To be fair, apart from the clearheaded decision to give the Indian Army and BSF full authority to respond to Pakistan's unprovoked firing in kind and more, there was confusion in South Block too.

The Ufa joint statement, issued after Modi's meeting with Nawaz Sharif, was touted as an ice-breaker and game changer. It was neither. The exclusion of any reference to Jammu & Kashmir was no doubt a win for India, but it turned to ashes the moment Sharif was confronted by an incandescent military establishment. What was otherwise an excellent structured process to kick-start talks with the ultimate goal of thawing, if not resuming, the composite dialogue process, effectively in deep freeze since 26/11, was rendered a non-starter.

The then NSA of Pakistan, Sartaj Aziz, who doubles up as political adviser to and bullet biter for Sharif, had to make amends for the oversight (some say he was outfoxed by the brilliant strategist S Jaishankar and the redoubtable tactician Ajit Doval) and he did so by making the meeting of NSAs, scheduled for September, impossible.

Strategy

Aziz cited a ridiculous reading of the Ufa statement and, for good measure, threatened to lodge a complaint against India with the UN, a placebo that has calmed shrill Pakistani voices in the past. India's objection to Aziz wanting to meet Hurriyat leaders was a useful excuse.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, suave and scathing, asked Pakistan to go take a walk. It went down well with naysayers at home. The chill returned. Seemingly, Pakistan fell off the radar and people moved on to other issues of domestic concern. Dal prices and Assembly elections provided a distraction that came in handy for the government.

But "go take a walk" is easier said than done. Pakistan cannot be wished away in the rapidly changing security scenario in India's immediate and extended neighbourhood.

While the monkey chatter in Western capitals, amplified by their sponsored voices in Delhi, about the dangers of two nuclear-armed countries being daggers drawn is facetious, there is eminent sense in realising the potential of Pakistan as a facilitator when the Islamic State barbarians come knocking at our gates.

A wiser world now accepts Pakistan as a crucible of jihadi terror. But the world in its wisdom also believes engaging Pakistan in talks is a better option than isolating those who use terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Stabilising Afghanistan and ensuring President Ashraf Ghani's regime does not tip over are as important for Afghans as they are for India. Not to be seen as the sole obstructionist to engagement is equally important. Obstinacy is not quite the substitute for deft diplomacy, nor is it the right path to securing India's national interest.

Between September and December there have been three shifts, or changes if you wish. First, there is now greater, sharper clarity in Modi sarkar about what should be its strategy in dealing with Pakistan.

The relationship is now being seen in terms of securing India's security interests, not bogus claims of shared destinies and common histories.

The strategy set, nuanced tactics are being worked out in tandem by Doval and Jaishankar. The fact that both attended the Bangkok meeting cannot be overemphasised. Second, the appointment of General Nasir Janjua as Pakistan's NSA provides a window of opportunity for Delhi to get Islamabad and Rawalpindi on board, if not the same page. The chances of dialogue being lost in translation, or transmission, are now minimised.

Presumably, the Pakistani army, more so its chief, General Raheel Sharif, will now find it difficult to pretend that the cantonment is least impressed and lesser impacted by what's happening in the civil lines.

Experiment

Third, Modi's audacious experiment of forming a PDP-BJP government in Jammu & Kashmir is beginning to show results. Admittedly they are still green shoots, but in the scorched Valley these strengthen hope and Modi sarkar's determination to change the narrative. The continuing pressure on local and trans-border terrorists demonstrates there is no easing up, no compromise. That this alone has not unsettled the state government so far shows the experiment is not quite a failure as Pakistan would have hoped it to be.

This would explain the Modi-Sharif meeting in Paris. From which came the decision to go ahead with the meeting in Bangkok, away from a prying, overzealous media wanting to dictate policy, strategy and tactics, put Jammu & Kashmir back on the agenda, and smartly ring-fencing it with India's security concerns. Tactically, the meeting in a third country robbed Pakistan of its Hurriyat cover and gave space to Indian interlocutors. Sushma Swaraj travelling to Pakistan for the "Heart of Asia" conference to discuss Afghanistan's future now becomes more than marking presence; it ensures India is not excluded and Pakistan is not the sole arbiter.

So far, so good. It would be premature to assert, as some wise commentators have done, that this sets the stage for Modi's visit to Pakistan for the 2016 SAARC summit. Let us not forget that dealing with Pakistan is dealing with deceit. Trust does not figure in this relationship. Nor does prediction of the future with any degree of certitude.