Statements from India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj have triggered a debate on the contours of Pakistan’s foreign policy and who is responsible for the stalemate in Indo-Pak relations.
Sushma Swaraj says “some powers are opposing cordial relations between Modi and Nawaz Sharif”. Mr Modi claims that there are “multiple power centers in Pakistan” which make it difficult for New Delhi to “draw a Lakhsman Rekha (red line) for talks with Pakistan.” He asks: “who should India talk to in Pakistan? The elected government or with other actors.” He goes on to explain that “there are different types of forces operating in Pakistan but we only engage with a democratically elected system”.
Both Indian leaders are referring to the powerful role of the military establishment in Pakistan in fashioning and implementing national security policy in which India figures centrally. They are thus implying that (1) the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif is severely handicapped in its ability to chalk out foreign policy, much less to deliver on it; (2) India is handicapped too because it will only talk to an elected government in Pakistan. The thrust of both statements is to inform the world that “democratic India” is willing and able to conduct a dialogue with Pakistan but Pakistan’s civil-military divide is an obstacle to it.
This has prompted Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, our interior minister, to ask Ms Swaraj “which powers in Pakistan don’t want India-Pak ties” and to admonish her for “personalizing the nature of the cordial relations between PM Modi and PM Sharif”. Sartaj Aziz, our de facto foreign minister, has retaliated by portraying Pakistan as the evergreen peace player and India as the perennially intransigent one. If both sides are being economical with the truth, what do the facts reveal?
It is true that the military establishment has fashioned the “national security state” of Pakistan and considers itself its “sole” guardian and arbiter. It is true that Pakistan’s foreign policy is shaped directly and indirectly by it. It is true that when elected civilian leaders like Benazir Bhutto in 1988-90 and Nawaz Sharif in 1997-1999 tried to steer India policy out of the hands of the military establishment in significant departures from their stated goals, they were “dismissed” for their audacity. But it is also true that India has been willing to talk to the generals when they have been in power in Pakistan, so long as it served its strategic goals. It was ready to talk to General Zia via cricket diplomacy in 1987 and it talked with General Musharraf at length in the 2000s via a back channel over the future of Kashmir.
Therefore the problem with India is not who to talk to in Pakistan but what to talk about. Pakistan has always wanted to talk about Kashmir first and foremost but India has always put other issues like trade and people-to-people contacts on the agenda and Kashmir last of all. This led to deadlock. But the situation has changed significantly in the last decade without breaking the deadlock. Pakistan is ready to relegate Kashmir to the status of a fig leaf and discuss all other issues, including terrorism, but India now insists on talking about terrorism only without any commitment to discuss other issues like trade, let alone Kashmir. In fact, India is only interested in focusing on one dimension of terrorism – that which emanates from Pakistani soil – but refuses to acknowledge, let alone discuss, RAW’s new doctrine of “offensive-defense” in sponsoring terrorism against Pakistan. In fact, it can be argued that since the activation of RAW in Pakistan by India’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, India has been avoiding talks on terrorism and focusing on “enlightening” the world about Pakistan’s “sponsorship” of terrorism across its eastern and western borders. This, regardless of the fact that Pakistan has signaled its readiness and goodwill by concretely alerting India to the threat from non-state actors in Pakistan, a gesture that India has grudgingly acknowledged by saying that “the government or agencies in Pakistan have no hand in the terrorist attack on Pathankot airport.”
It is therefore disingenuous of Mr Modi and Ms Swaraj to refer to multiple centres of power in Pakistan as the sole reason for not talking to the civilian government in Pakistan. Even the Pakistani military’s worst critics at home and abroad now admit that its focus is on grappling with terrorism inside Pakistan as an existential threat to state and society and not in consciously exporting terrorism to India or Afghanistan as state policy.
Pakistan’s civil-military leadership is ready to talk strategic peace with India even if there are tactical differences of opinion within it on how to proceed sequentially. But it is Narendra Modi’s India that has fashioned a new strategic doctrine to isolate and destabilize Pakistan in which talks of any sort, even on trade in which the balance of gain is heavily tilted in India’s favour, are thought to be counterproductive.
Sushma Swaraj says “some powers are opposing cordial relations between Modi and Nawaz Sharif”. Mr Modi claims that there are “multiple power centers in Pakistan” which make it difficult for New Delhi to “draw a Lakhsman Rekha (red line) for talks with Pakistan.” He asks: “who should India talk to in Pakistan? The elected government or with other actors.” He goes on to explain that “there are different types of forces operating in Pakistan but we only engage with a democratically elected system”.
Both Indian leaders are referring to the powerful role of the military establishment in Pakistan in fashioning and implementing national security policy in which India figures centrally. They are thus implying that (1) the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif is severely handicapped in its ability to chalk out foreign policy, much less to deliver on it; (2) India is handicapped too because it will only talk to an elected government in Pakistan. The thrust of both statements is to inform the world that “democratic India” is willing and able to conduct a dialogue with Pakistan but Pakistan’s civil-military divide is an obstacle to it.
This has prompted Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, our interior minister, to ask Ms Swaraj “which powers in Pakistan don’t want India-Pak ties” and to admonish her for “personalizing the nature of the cordial relations between PM Modi and PM Sharif”. Sartaj Aziz, our de facto foreign minister, has retaliated by portraying Pakistan as the evergreen peace player and India as the perennially intransigent one. If both sides are being economical with the truth, what do the facts reveal?
It is true that the military establishment has fashioned the “national security state” of Pakistan and considers itself its “sole” guardian and arbiter. It is true that Pakistan’s foreign policy is shaped directly and indirectly by it. It is true that when elected civilian leaders like Benazir Bhutto in 1988-90 and Nawaz Sharif in 1997-1999 tried to steer India policy out of the hands of the military establishment in significant departures from their stated goals, they were “dismissed” for their audacity. But it is also true that India has been willing to talk to the generals when they have been in power in Pakistan, so long as it served its strategic goals. It was ready to talk to General Zia via cricket diplomacy in 1987 and it talked with General Musharraf at length in the 2000s via a back channel over the future of Kashmir.
Therefore the problem with India is not who to talk to in Pakistan but what to talk about. Pakistan has always wanted to talk about Kashmir first and foremost but India has always put other issues like trade and people-to-people contacts on the agenda and Kashmir last of all. This led to deadlock. But the situation has changed significantly in the last decade without breaking the deadlock. Pakistan is ready to relegate Kashmir to the status of a fig leaf and discuss all other issues, including terrorism, but India now insists on talking about terrorism only without any commitment to discuss other issues like trade, let alone Kashmir. In fact, India is only interested in focusing on one dimension of terrorism – that which emanates from Pakistani soil – but refuses to acknowledge, let alone discuss, RAW’s new doctrine of “offensive-defense” in sponsoring terrorism against Pakistan. In fact, it can be argued that since the activation of RAW in Pakistan by India’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, India has been avoiding talks on terrorism and focusing on “enlightening” the world about Pakistan’s “sponsorship” of terrorism across its eastern and western borders. This, regardless of the fact that Pakistan has signaled its readiness and goodwill by concretely alerting India to the threat from non-state actors in Pakistan, a gesture that India has grudgingly acknowledged by saying that “the government or agencies in Pakistan have no hand in the terrorist attack on Pathankot airport.”
It is therefore disingenuous of Mr Modi and Ms Swaraj to refer to multiple centres of power in Pakistan as the sole reason for not talking to the civilian government in Pakistan. Even the Pakistani military’s worst critics at home and abroad now admit that its focus is on grappling with terrorism inside Pakistan as an existential threat to state and society and not in consciously exporting terrorism to India or Afghanistan as state policy.
Pakistan’s civil-military leadership is ready to talk strategic peace with India even if there are tactical differences of opinion within it on how to proceed sequentially. But it is Narendra Modi’s India that has fashioned a new strategic doctrine to isolate and destabilize Pakistan in which talks of any sort, even on trade in which the balance of gain is heavily tilted in India’s favour, are thought to be counterproductive.