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C O M M E N T A R Y
No dialogue
P.Chidambaram may undermine his successes against Pakistani terrorism by traveling to Islamabad, says N.V.Subramanian.
3 February 2010: The newspapers suggest that P.Chidambaram will attend the end-of-the-month SAARC home ministers' meeting in Pakistan. So far, Chidambaram has been cagey about his plans, and he has made the point to emphasize that even if he does go, it must be remembered that SAARC is a multilateral forum. The implication is that high expectations should not be placed on any watershed Indo-Pak bilateral commencing from there, even though India has SAARC obligations to meet.
The so-called Indo-Pak "composite dialogue" -- an euphemism for Jammu and Kashmir negotiations -- was suspended following the Pakistani terrorist attack in Bombay in November 2008 (26/ 11). This "composite dialogue" was initiated by A.B.Vajpayee following Parvez Musharraf's Kargil War and it has been cyclically suspended-resumed in the course of Pakistan state's rising sponsored terrorism against India and it has often been recommenced under US pressure. The last time US pressure was exerted lead to the Sharm-el-Sheikh fiasco, and prime minister Manmohan Singh had to retract from his Sharm-el-Sheikh commitments following public, Opposition and (internal) Congress opprobrium.
The difference between all this less-than-wholesome past and now is that India has got some handle on Pakistani terrorism, thanks to the single-minded efforts of Chidambaram. This writer had no great confidence in Chidambaram's abilities as home minister when he reluctantly accepted the responsibility. This writer is, therefore, more than happy to be proved wrong. How Chidambaram has made the difference is that he has, for the moment at least, destroyed Pakistan's terrorism leverage with India to force talks. It must be remembered that Vajpayee initiated a conversation with Musharraf (the Agra Summit disaster) convinced that India lacked the national means (short of war) to contain Pakistani terrorism. Chidambaram has by his efforts (and by the Congress leadership's decision to give him full support post-26/ 11) forged that national means. By any measure, it is a staggering achievement, and Chidambaram deserves the fullest praise for it.
But have those national means to contain Pakistani terrorism that Chidambaram has forged reached a surplus where Pakistan can be engaged without compromising on J and K? No. US intelligence has repeatedly warned to expect more 26/ 11-scale Lashkar-e-Toiba strikes on India. (The LeT in Pakistan won't be pulverized until its emir, Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed, is hanged for terrorist crimes committed against India.) The whole Af-Pak region is entering a phase of dangerous new flux where the ISI/ Afghan Taliban/ Al-Qaeda will strike at regional powers, chief among them India, to capitalize on the planned and certain US withdrawal from Afghanistan. On the whole, it is perilous to relax the vigil against Pakistani terrorism and to indulge in liberal diversions like a resumed Indo-Pak "composite dialogue". This writer has anyway not understood what remains "composite" about the dialogue when the prime minister has stated over and over again the obvious fact that he has no mandate to reorder the boundaries of India. (This holds good for the Chinese too, if they haven't got it so far.)
This is not to say that Chidambaram is not under pressure to resume the dialogue when he travels to Islamabad (if he does) at the month-end. But the arguments for dialogue-resumption are as bogus and fluffy as they are unconvincing. You read commentators that say India is "losing out" by not talking to Pakistan, that it is weakening the civilian government there. That is rich. The civilian government parrots the military-intelligence terrorist line (check prime minister Yousuf Raza Geelani's statements) that India is assisting the Baluch insurgents. Then Geelani washes his hands off over controlling Pakistani terrorism, forcing Chidambaram to chide him. (Talk to this civilian government which advertises its abject inability to control Pakistani terrorism?) And even a presumed moderate on New Delhi such as president Asif Zardari employs his late father-in-law's hate expression of a thousand-year war against India at the exact moment that the NRO noose tightens around his corrupt neck. Should India waste its breath, and squander the hard-won, Chidambaram-forged freedom (even if for the moment) from Pakistani terrorism, by resuming a dialogue with such a civilian government, just when the balance is tipping against Pakistan?
It has to be a resounding no.
On the other hand, the cricket angle added to the dialogue thrust is not worth commenting upon, except that it still carries some popular appeal, and so needs to be addressed. It is sad that Pakistani cricketers were denied a chance to play in IPL, but from the looks of it, it was a market-based decision. Second, it is all well to say that politics should not be mixed with sports. But India took the lead in banning cricketing contacts with apartheid-practicing South Africa (is terrorism more acceptable than apartheid?) and, bizarrely, Israel was a pariah state for Indian tennis players for years. The US boycotted a Soviet Olympic. Two of these decisions (the Israeli case is different) strengthened more pronounced political/ military/ trade levers to make reforms inescapable in both South Africa and the former Soviet Union. To expect the same of Pakistan, even at the cost of the present but temporary hurt of Pakistani cricketers, is not unreasonable.
Does this position contradict with Chidambaram's support for Pakistani players in IPL? Even if it does, the home minister is as entitled to his position as this writer is to his. But it also must be remembered that Chidambaram is home minister, a political animal as it were, and his statements would be rooted in political considerations, not all of which may be undesirable. Also, as Union home minister, he cannot stand by and watch the Shiv Sena threaten to break the law in Maharashtra on the issue (and also warn of trouble in case Australian cricketers play in the state in IPL) and consequently hold the whole country to ransom.
But at the same time, Chidambaram has responsibilities as home minister which he completely understands. He has (temporarily) destroyed Pakistan's lever to terrorize India and it is this writer's objective and analyzed view that any dialogue with Pakistan would hurt the new-found leverage. According to the press, the PM and the Cabinet Committee on Security will take the final call. In this writer's humble opinion, Chidambaram should of his own volition nix the idea of resuming a dialogue with Pakistan when he travels there at month's end. It may be even better if he cancels the trip. India has nothing to lose and everything to gain by linking a trial and capital punishment of Hafiz Sayeed to any resumption of dialogue (which anyway excludes J and K). Over to Mr Chidambaram.
N.V.Subramanian is Editor, www.NewsInsight.net, and writes internationally on strategic affairs. He has authored two novels, University of Love (Writers Workshop, Calcutta) and Courtesan of Storms (Har-Anand, Delhi).
Please visit N.V.Subramanian's blog http://courtesanofstorms.blog.com/ and write to him at envysub@gmail.com
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