The Bharatiya Janata
Party’s approach towards Pakistan swings like a wild pendulum. They make
hawkish statements when out of power and cuddle the neighbour with an impromptu
hug when in power- without imagining the repercussions of either. The recent ‘sudden’
halt by the Prime Minister in Lahore while coming back from Kabul is another such
addition to the motion of this swinging pendulum. Home Minister Rajnath Singh
has hailed this ‘stop-over’ by the PM as an example of “innovative diplomacy”
and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has called the PM ‘statesman like”. But
hardly of the two are true.
Flashback June 2015,
when the Foreign Minister on record stated that there will be no
talks with Pakistan as long as Zaki-ur-rehman Lakhvi or Hafiz Sayeed (both
master minds of the Mumbai 26/11 attack) remain free. Then come July and the
BJP’s spokespersons were claiming victory after the Ufa talks of the ‘big
breakthrough’ on terror related talks. This was nothing new. In a Joint
Statement, way back in September, 2006 after a Summit bilateral in Havana
between Dr ManmohanSingh and the then Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf,
Pakistan not only “agreed that terrorism is a scourge that needs to be
effectively dealt with” but also “decided to put in place an India-Pakistan
anti-terrorism institutional mechanism to identify and implement
counter-terrorism initiatives and investigations”
Similarly, in the Joint
Statement issued after a bilateral meeting between the then Foreign
Ministers of India and Pakistan on September 8, 2012, Pakistan had not only
agreed to “fight terrorism in an effective and comprehensive manner, so as to
eliminate the scourge in allits forms
and manifestations” , but alsocommitted to “bring all the perpetratorsof the
Mumbai terror attacks to justice expeditiously”
A series of events
preceded the much hyped Ufa talks:-
1. The Prime Minister
in a dramatic move invited the Prime Minister of Pakistan for his swearing in
ceremony on May 26, 2014. This was followed by the now infamous ‘Saari-Shawl’
and mango diplomacy.
2. This was followed by
again a much touted declaration of Foreign Secretary level talks between the
two countries on July 23, 2014
3. Even as this
bonhomie was being touted, Pakistan continued its violation of the Indian
borders and intensified firings and shelling manifold. Its High Commissioner in
India dared us by audaciously meeting the Shabir Shah, a leading Kashmiri
separatist to discuss Kashmir.
4. Amidst severe
criticism the Government then decided to withdraw from the Foreign Secretary
talks on August 18, 2014.
5. This flip flop was
followed by Pakistani courts first granting bail to and then releasing the
dreaded terrorist and prime accused in the Mumbai 26/11 attack
Zaki-ur-rehmanLakhvi in absence of the Pakistan Government providing ample
prosecution evidence.
6. Even as Modi’s
Government and his Minister Rajyawardhan Singh Rathore were undiplomatically
celebrating covert counter terrorist operations in Myanmar, the Pakistan
Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan on June 10, 2015, ‘threatened and warned’
India.
7. On July 8, 2015, the
Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif threatened India with a Nuclear attack.
8. Even while the Prime
Minister was preparing for his talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Pakistan
shamelessly violated the LoC in Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir killing two
Jawans and injuring one over July 8th and 9th
Then comes August 2015 –
The Udhampur terror attack on BSF convoy and the Gurdaspur terror attack followed.
In a blatant show of aggression, Heavily Armed Terrorists using Chinese made
grenades from Pakistan walked into Gurdaspur unhindered and killed 10 civilians
and 7 security personnel including a Superintendent of Punjab Police.
In September, Modi
Government in another about-face of sorts called of the much publicized
National Security Advisor level talks. Much drama was created by both sides and
Modi’s spokespersons emphasized the need of having a dialogue on terror while
Pakistan pushed for the K-word. At the end the entire theatrics ended in
calling off the NSA level talks. Modi Government’s unpreparedness and lack of
backchannel talks with Pakistan was thoroughly exposed in this disaster of
sorts.
Before coming to the
present, let us rewind into the BJP’s record viz-a-viz terror and Pakistan. Let
us recall the Vajpayee-Nawaz Sharif era. To understand BJP’s foreign policy, it
is very essential to look back at three most important events- Kargil,
Parliament attack and Operation Parakram.
After testing a Nuclear
Bomb, a month after assuming office- certainly prepared by the previous
Narasimha Rao Government, Atal Behari Vajpayee shook hands with Nawaz Sharif
and inaugurated the Lahore Bus. Vajpayee wanted to be statesmen, and certainly
for every Indian Prime Minister (barring few exceptions like Indira Gandhi)
peace with Pakistan certainly means etching their name in history.
The bus to Lahore went
nowhere and Kargil happened. Vajpayee and the entire BJP Government and
administration were caught snoozing when Pakistan attacked India with the help
of Kashmiri militants.
Some contrarian views
suggest that Atal Behari Vajpayee
knew about the Kargil infiltration long back, but he did nothing in time,
and more than 500 lives of army men were lost. The intelligence failure leading
to Kargil is pardonable and is of lesser relevance here. The only reason that
India lost so many precious soldiers, was because Vajpayee restrained the army
from crossing the LoC (Line of Control).
The government bungled
before the war broke out. India's military and intelligence establishments
erred in assessing the indicators.
It came as a shock for
the Kargil Review Committee (headed by defense analyst K Subrahmanyam) when a
lady officer at Army Headquarters told it that General Ved Prakash Malik, then
chief of army staff, got a report of intrusions by Pakistanis a day before he
was to leave for Poland on an official visit. General Malik instructed his
office not to forward the report until his return.
The Vajpayee
Government’s naivety caused the loss of atleast 527
Indian soldiers and 1363
soldiers were left wounded. They were busy with “peace fever”. Across the
board there was a craving for friendship with Pakistan. Military and
intelligence personnel neglected all indicators about General Pervez
Musharraf's duplicity.
Kargil also showed our
military leaders in poor light. Even when they started getting reports of the
intrusion, they underplayed it, at high cost. Defence Minister George Fernandes
termed it, initially, a 'small intrusion.' Even a cursory look at the
newspapers of April-May 1999 makes the government's attempt to underplay the
event evident.
Although we should
salute the brave men who made supreme sacrifices and India won the war, but it
further exposed the pusillanimity of the BJP Government
First came the Lahore
Bus ride, then Kargil, then a ceasefire, then calls for a final war (aar-paar
ki ladaai) with Pakistan and finally the much-trumpeted thaw in Indo-Pak
relations. All through the BJP Government made attempts at peace and war,
innocent Indian citizens continue to be slaughtered. India’s symbols of
Democracy, the Red Fort and the Parliament, have not been spared while the
Prime Minister oscillates between playing a dove and a hawk.
In December 2001,
Parliament attack followed. To avenge the Parliament attack, the BJP led
Vajpayee Government again made a terrible mistake in which hundreds of our
soldiers lost their lives without even fighting Pakistan at the border.
Perhaps the biggest and
the most lesser known failures of the Vajpayee Government was Operation
Parakaram. Vajpayee Government in its zeal to counter Pakistan’s hand in the
Parliament attack began mobilization of troops at the Indo-Pak border. This
resulted in a 10 month standoff between the two countries.
The Kargil conflict led
to the death of 527 Indian soldiers while heroically taking back heights
occupied by Pakistanis in 1999. Shockingly, without going to war, 1874 Indian
Soldiers died!
Usually extremely
tight-lipped about casualty figures, the defence minister George Fernandes had
to disclose them in the Rajya Sabha. "The number of Army personnel killed
or wounded in Jammu and Kashmir and the western sector during the mobilisation,
Operation Parakram, from December 19, 2001 to October 16, 2002, was
1,874," said Defence Minister George Fernandes on April 30, 2003
This, by any benchmark,
is a truly staggering figure for a 10-month period, even if the
counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir are taken into account.
In the initial phase of
Operation Parakram itself, after the December 2001 Parliament attack, over 100
soldiers were killed and 250 injured during mine-laying operations.
Vehicle
accidents, artillery duels with Pakistan and other incidents led to many more
casualties.
Relentless
counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir are also, of course,
exacting a heavy toll on the soldiers, with over 1,000 being killed in
terrorist activity between 2000-2003
So the “Nationalist”
BJP is not only responsible for killing 527 soldiers in Kargil, it is also
responsible for killing 1874 more soldiers due of this humongous misadventure!
The cost of sustaining
Operation Parakram was reported to be have been pegged by India’s National
Security Advisory Board (NSAB) at Rs 7 crore a day. This works out to
approximately Rs
2,100 crore over 10 months
Let us now again come
back to the events which preceded Narendra Modi’s much talked about sudden
visit to Pakistan.
Certain sections of the
media had today reported that the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi met his
Pakistan counterpart, Shri Nawaz Sharif and held extensive talks utilizing the
good offices of a private industrialist as a mediator. This meeting, if it
happened, took place despite categorical denial on part of the Government about
many having been planned, leave apart, a meeting having taken place.
Infact it was
underlined and publicly stated in the media that "While the PM had
bilateral meetings with all other 5 heads of government's on the side lines of
the SAARC summit", none happened with Pakistan. The Government then said,
Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi held
bilateral talks with all Heads of Government and State attending the 18th SAARC
Summit in November 2014 with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif the only
conspicuous exemption.
External Affairs
Ministry Spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said, "It was decided earlier that
there will be no structured talks as no requests had come... I said it before
we are ready for a meaningful bilateral dialogue. When circumstances are there,
we will have that dialogue. Nothing else....We are ready when they are
ready."
Asked whether Prime
Ministers of India and Pakistan will exchange pleasantries at the dinner or at
the retreat tomorrow, he only said "when a senior Indian leader and senior
Pakistani leader come face to face, they exchange courtesies.
The dilly dallying on
an issue as sensitive and detrimental like our relations with Pakistan has been
visible ever since Shri Modi's Government assumed office. Be it the posturing
at the swearing in of Shri Modi, invitation to Kashmiri separatists by the
Pakistan High Commission, subsequent bail and release of accused of Mumbai
26/11, unprecedented violations by Pakistan from across the borders,
declaration and then cancellation of NSA talks on two occasions, blatant
disregard of Ufa joint statement by Pakistan or Pakistan raking up Kashmir and
third party mediation at UN, the nation's Pakistan policy has been nothing but
disastrous flip flops.
A 160 second animated
meeting between the two Prime Ministers were followed up in Paris on December
1, 2015. Winter was covering South-Asia, but the ice between India and Pakistan
now seemed to be breaking.
After being a mute
spectator to more than 900 ceasefire violations from across the border ,death
of 78 security personnel since June 2014 and 25% increase in cross border infiltration
this year, Narendra Modi Government was
now shifting from his hawkish mode to the ‘dove’ mode. The same Government
which cancelled the NSA level talks in September held an NSA level talk in a
third country- Thailand, just four months after their stand that Kashmir and
all outstanding issues won’t be discussed. In Bangkok, a framework for a
comprehensive dialogue for every, yes each and every outstanding issue
including Kashmir was made between the two NSA’s who met secretly. This was
done when the Indian Parliament was underway, and the Prime Minister or his
Foreign Minister did not even bother to inform the lawmakers of the country
about such a thing taking place at a neutral venue.
With such blunders in
the Government's show case, the people of India were then told that NSA talks
happened in Bangkok as a continuation of the talks between PM and his Pakistani
counterpart.
Former Prime Minister
Dr Manmohan Singh has often said that “we can choose our friends, but we have
no choice with regard to our neighbors”
Let us not be hypocritical
of our stand with Pakistan. Every Indian wants a meaningful, result oriented
dialogue with Pakistan, but not at the behest of our dead bodies. Narendra Modi
with all his political rhetoric during the Lok Sabha elections on Pakistan,
failed to keep his word. His self proclaimed ’56-inch’ chest seemed to have
vanished. Posturing is all very well when it comes to foreign affairs, but
pragmatism is the need of the hour.
Narendra Modi’s so
called halt in Lahore is being termed as ‘innovative diplomacy’, but he seems
to be now only following the pragmatic diplomacy of Dr Manmohan Singh who kept
his word on Pakistan and never visited the country only for self publicity and
optics. Instead he concentrated on deliverables and always preferred dialogue
and result oriented talks with Pakistan, whether back channel or otherwise. It
is said he and Pakistan almost came to closing a dispute. This he did on his
own principles.
The section of the
media who is hailing Modi’s Pakistan policy right now is again falling into the
Vajpayee-Lahore-Kargil-Agra trap. It is high time we bring some maturity and
gravitas to our foreign policy. Especially when we cannot choose our
neighbours.
For meaningful talks to
take place, India’s stand should always be consistent -certain core issues with
regards to unjustified belligerence on part of Pakistan involving cross border
terrorism, violation of ceasefire line and application of due process of law to
the accused in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks have to be put in place. Full Stop.
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