NEW DELHI: Keeping in view the current strategic atmosphere in South Asia and looming elections in both countries, the visit of Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) ministerial meeting on May 4-5 in the Indian coastal province of Goa, may not flutter doves across borders, but experts believe that the mere presence of a top Pakistani official in India after a long-time bears significance.
The ministerial meeting is intended to approve the agenda for the SCO summit in July and Zardari’s visit will be a barometer to judge if Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif takes a flight to visit India to attend this summit and also open an official channel of dialogue with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.
Despite the recent attack and killing of four Indian soldiers in the border district of Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir, recent revelations about former Pakistan Army Chief General (Retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa’s approach towards New Delhi are seen as a ray of hope in India. It was revealed by senior Pakistan journalist Hamid Mir that Bajwa was in favor of rapprochement with India and had even paved the way for Modi’s visit to Pakistan in 2021. The proposal was shot down by the political establishment, then led by Imran Khan.
Sources said that following the February 2021 ceasefire agreement, it was expected that India will take some steps in Jammu and Kashmir, like returning statehood and restoration of its assembly by announcing elections, handing over powers to local regional parties and releasing political prisoners to pave the way for Modi’s visit. Not only did Pakistan’s political establishment oppose the move, but it lost steam in New Delhi as well. India is yet to restore statehood and the assembly to Jammu and Kashmir.
“For any democratic nation, to not have an elected government (in Jammu and Kashmir) for more than five years, is in itself against the basic principles of democracy,” says Air Vice Marshal (Retd.) Kapil Kak. Kak, who has been one of the torchbearers of the Indo Pak peace process, adds: “Political ideologies should be kept aside while dealing with the India Pakistan peace process. There is a pressing need for a more calibrated and integrated policy in dealing with Pakistan; knee-jerk and ad hoc approaches are certainly not a way forward," added Kak.
India is gearing up for general elections next year. Anti-Pakistan sentiment has been a trump card for the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to polarize votes in its favor. In 2014, Prime Minister Pakistan Nawaz Sharif visited India at the swearing-in ceremony of Modi, and then in December 2015, Modi made a surprise visit to Lahore. Since then, no summit-level meeting has taken place between India and Pakistan. Zardari’s visit to India comes after a gap of nine years. Hina Rabbani Khar was the last Pakistan Foreign Minister to visit India in 2011.
For the past few years, leaders of both countries have been attacking each other venomously. Taking a swipe at Pakistan at the UNSC meeting in December last year, Jaishankar had spoken about state-sponsored terrorism in Pakistan, and lambasted Pakistan for giving shelter to Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s leader, who was the ostensible driving force behind the 2001 attack at the World Trade Centre in New York and the attack on the Indian Parliament. In response, Zardari made a personal attack against Modi saying: “I would like to remind the honorable external affairs minister of India that Osama bin Laden is dead but the butcher of Gujarat lives, and he is the prime minister of India.”
At the time of the Gujarat riots in 2002, Modi was the chief minister of the state. A former diplomat Vivek Katju, in an opinion piece that he wrote, said that for an articulate and skillful politician like Zardari, a comment on Modi cannot be an excused as the exuberance of an up-and-coming politician. “He would know that after his unforgivable comments against Modi, no political leader would be willing to meet him. Certainly, till Bilawal withdraws these comments, no Indian political leader should meet him,” he writes.
The SCO charter does not allow bilateral differences to take center stage, and member countries work on the principles of avoiding bloc, ideological or confrontational approaches to dealing with issues of international and regional development. Unlike SAARC, the SCO also has a balancing factor in the form of the presence of China and Russia as its members.
Despite all the bad blood between the two countries, when all formal and backchannel talks are in cold storage, analysts in India believe that Zardari’s visit could be an opportunity for both countries to reinitiate dialogue and restore some semblance of normalcy.
Retired diplomats who have spent years dealing with Pakistan endorse that diplomatic channels with Pakistan should be kept open. Some positive headway in the relationship was even made. But after the Pulwama attack of 2019 and the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution and subsequent annexing of Jammu and Kashmir, the relationship has been on a downhill path. Such has been the level of disengagement that both India and Pakistan do not have permanent High Commissioners.
Five former Indian High Commissioners to Pakistan who were present at the book launch of "In Pursuit of Peace- India Pakistan Relations Under Six Prime Ministers,” written by former Indian envoy to Pakistan, late Satinder Kumar Lambha, batted for a dialogue with Pakistan and echoed a common sentiment of keeping domestic compulsions at bay while dealing with foreign policy. Lambha served as High Commissioner to Pakistan from 1995-1998 and dealt with Pakistan in various capacities. He was instrumental in bringing out a Four Step Formula to establish peace with Pakistan, which could have led to a resolution on Jammu and Kashmir. In his book, he writes: “Today we are at a point, where the prospect of dialogue and the border peace process have seemed so distant. India-Pakistan hostilities are deeply enmeshed in domestic politics and have become an instrument of political mobilization. We see each other through the prism of religion."
Describing the current relationship, former National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, who served as Indian envoy to Pakistan from 2003-06 said: “The situation suits the domestic needs of both sides to have a managed level of hostility.” He also pointed out that India needs to engage with the military establishment in Pakistan.
TCA Raghavan, who was the Indian High Commissioner from 2013 to 2015, also reiterated the idea of opening diplomatic channels and resuming trade. He said that India should have a mature attitude while dealing with Pakistan, and instead of seeing Pakistan as an equal adversary, India needs to realize that in so many ways, we are the stronger part of the equation," he had said at the launch event.
For years, Indian analysts, and diplomats have believed that while Pakistan’s political establishment wanted good relations with India, it was the military that used to put spanners in their works. But Menon’s comment and the recent revelations about Bajwa suggest that there was some understanding within the army not to keep the embers with India burning forever, has raised hopes.
Meanwhile, Zardari, a third-generation politician, comes to India with baggage. In a country where his government is unpopular with the masses, there exists a complete lack of trust among people, politicians and the military establishment, and with Imran Khan hitting the right chord with the people, he has more to answer to his own country than the region.
Though hopes for peace are not even on the horizon, hope should never fade. As Lambha pens towards the end of his book, "peace and cooperation might seem elusive forever. But, memories should not become perpetual shackles in shaping our future. The pain of loss we experienced should not stop us from continually seeking the path of healing, however arduous it might seem."
The ministerial meeting is intended to approve the agenda for the SCO summit in July and Zardari’s visit will be a barometer to judge if Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif takes a flight to visit India to attend this summit and also open an official channel of dialogue with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.
Despite the recent attack and killing of four Indian soldiers in the border district of Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir, recent revelations about former Pakistan Army Chief General (Retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa’s approach towards New Delhi are seen as a ray of hope in India. It was revealed by senior Pakistan journalist Hamid Mir that Bajwa was in favor of rapprochement with India and had even paved the way for Modi’s visit to Pakistan in 2021. The proposal was shot down by the political establishment, then led by Imran Khan.
Sources said that following the February 2021 ceasefire agreement, it was expected that India will take some steps in Jammu and Kashmir, like returning statehood and restoration of its assembly by announcing elections, handing over powers to local regional parties and releasing political prisoners to pave the way for Modi’s visit. Not only did Pakistan’s political establishment oppose the move, but it lost steam in New Delhi as well. India is yet to restore statehood and the assembly to Jammu and Kashmir.
“For any democratic nation, to not have an elected government (in Jammu and Kashmir) for more than five years, is in itself against the basic principles of democracy,” says Air Vice Marshal (Retd.) Kapil Kak. Kak, who has been one of the torchbearers of the Indo Pak peace process, adds: “Political ideologies should be kept aside while dealing with the India Pakistan peace process. There is a pressing need for a more calibrated and integrated policy in dealing with Pakistan; knee-jerk and ad hoc approaches are certainly not a way forward," added Kak.
The SCO charter does not allow bilateral differences to take center stage, and member countries work on the principles of avoiding bloc, ideological or confrontational approaches to dealing with issues of international and regional development.
India is gearing up for general elections next year. Anti-Pakistan sentiment has been a trump card for the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to polarize votes in its favor. In 2014, Prime Minister Pakistan Nawaz Sharif visited India at the swearing-in ceremony of Modi, and then in December 2015, Modi made a surprise visit to Lahore. Since then, no summit-level meeting has taken place between India and Pakistan. Zardari’s visit to India comes after a gap of nine years. Hina Rabbani Khar was the last Pakistan Foreign Minister to visit India in 2011.
For the past few years, leaders of both countries have been attacking each other venomously. Taking a swipe at Pakistan at the UNSC meeting in December last year, Jaishankar had spoken about state-sponsored terrorism in Pakistan, and lambasted Pakistan for giving shelter to Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s leader, who was the ostensible driving force behind the 2001 attack at the World Trade Centre in New York and the attack on the Indian Parliament. In response, Zardari made a personal attack against Modi saying: “I would like to remind the honorable external affairs minister of India that Osama bin Laden is dead but the butcher of Gujarat lives, and he is the prime minister of India.”
At the time of the Gujarat riots in 2002, Modi was the chief minister of the state. A former diplomat Vivek Katju, in an opinion piece that he wrote, said that for an articulate and skillful politician like Zardari, a comment on Modi cannot be an excused as the exuberance of an up-and-coming politician. “He would know that after his unforgivable comments against Modi, no political leader would be willing to meet him. Certainly, till Bilawal withdraws these comments, no Indian political leader should meet him,” he writes.
The SCO charter does not allow bilateral differences to take center stage, and member countries work on the principles of avoiding bloc, ideological or confrontational approaches to dealing with issues of international and regional development. Unlike SAARC, the SCO also has a balancing factor in the form of the presence of China and Russia as its members.
Describing the current relationship, former National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, who served as Indian envoy to Pakistan from 2003-06 said: “The situation suits the domestic needs of both sides to have a managed level of hostility.”
Despite all the bad blood between the two countries, when all formal and backchannel talks are in cold storage, analysts in India believe that Zardari’s visit could be an opportunity for both countries to reinitiate dialogue and restore some semblance of normalcy.
Retired diplomats who have spent years dealing with Pakistan endorse that diplomatic channels with Pakistan should be kept open. Some positive headway in the relationship was even made. But after the Pulwama attack of 2019 and the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution and subsequent annexing of Jammu and Kashmir, the relationship has been on a downhill path. Such has been the level of disengagement that both India and Pakistan do not have permanent High Commissioners.
Five former Indian High Commissioners to Pakistan who were present at the book launch of "In Pursuit of Peace- India Pakistan Relations Under Six Prime Ministers,” written by former Indian envoy to Pakistan, late Satinder Kumar Lambha, batted for a dialogue with Pakistan and echoed a common sentiment of keeping domestic compulsions at bay while dealing with foreign policy. Lambha served as High Commissioner to Pakistan from 1995-1998 and dealt with Pakistan in various capacities. He was instrumental in bringing out a Four Step Formula to establish peace with Pakistan, which could have led to a resolution on Jammu and Kashmir. In his book, he writes: “Today we are at a point, where the prospect of dialogue and the border peace process have seemed so distant. India-Pakistan hostilities are deeply enmeshed in domestic politics and have become an instrument of political mobilization. We see each other through the prism of religion."
Describing the current relationship, former National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, who served as Indian envoy to Pakistan from 2003-06 said: “The situation suits the domestic needs of both sides to have a managed level of hostility.” He also pointed out that India needs to engage with the military establishment in Pakistan.
TCA Raghavan, who was the Indian High Commissioner from 2013 to 2015, also reiterated the idea of opening diplomatic channels and resuming trade. He said that India should have a mature attitude while dealing with Pakistan, and instead of seeing Pakistan as an equal adversary, India needs to realize that in so many ways, we are the stronger part of the equation," he had said at the launch event.
For years, Indian analysts, and diplomats have believed that while Pakistan’s political establishment wanted good relations with India, it was the military that used to put spanners in their works. But Menon’s comment and the recent revelations about Bajwa suggest that there was some understanding within the army not to keep the embers with India burning forever, has raised hopes.
Meanwhile, Zardari, a third-generation politician, comes to India with baggage. In a country where his government is unpopular with the masses, there exists a complete lack of trust among people, politicians and the military establishment, and with Imran Khan hitting the right chord with the people, he has more to answer to his own country than the region.
Though hopes for peace are not even on the horizon, hope should never fade. As Lambha pens towards the end of his book, "peace and cooperation might seem elusive forever. But, memories should not become perpetual shackles in shaping our future. The pain of loss we experienced should not stop us from continually seeking the path of healing, however arduous it might seem."