Manmohan Singh opens door to Pakistan

Six months after a bid at Sharm-el-Sheikh, prime minister Manmohan Singh is making another attempt to jumpstart the
stalled Indo-Pak peace process.

The first official signal came on Wednesday with an out-of-the-blue telephone call from external affairs minister SM Krishna to his counterpart in Islamabad, Makh-doom Shah Mehmood Qureshi, to wish him a happy new year.

But experts caution that re-engagement with Pakistan will be uphill unless the prime minister gets his party on board. The Congress had struck down the Sharm-el-Sheikh agreement to resume talks, suspended after the 26/11 Mumbai terror strike.

Evidence of the divide within came from none other than defence minister AK Antony, considered a Sonia Gandhi confidant. On the day Krishna dialled Qureshi, Antony struck a hawkish note to say infiltration from Pakistan had gone up in 2009. He blamed it on “inimical forces across the border” who he claimed were “jittery” about the return of normalcy in Jammu & Kashmir.

A senior Congress leader downplayed the impression of differences between the party and the PM. But he admitted that the party’s official line hasn’t changed since the Sharm-el-Sheikh fiasco, that dialogue should resume but only after credible evidence of Pakistani action against terror groups based in that country.

A former diplomat involved in various Track II processes said that the Congress position, which has become the government’s position post-Sharm-el-Sheikh, has painted the PM into a corner.

The demand for “credible evidence” means that Pakistan will have to make a gesture to give the PM elbow room to manouvre his government out of that corner. Given the instability in Pakistan and the obvious weakness of the Zardari government, such a gesture may not be possible.

Krishna’s telephone call to Qureshi indicates that the PM has started the process of sounding out his party for a more flexible approach so that the government can dig itself out of the hole in which it finds itself. But both sides are groping for a solution that doesn’t compromise the Congress party’s political fortunes.

“There’s no roadmap that I can see at the moment,” said the former diplomat. “They are still at the stage of exploration. They are trying to see what’s possible and what’s not possible. Things are very fluid at the moment.”

Simultaneously, there is a move to build up public mood for resumption of dialogue. A flurry of Indo-Pak jamborees is scheduled this month. The first has taken place in New Delhi with all the usual suspects from Pakistan, like human rights activist Asma Jehangir, flying down for a three-day conference.

Another, organised by the Centre for Reconciliation and Dialogue, is slated next week. Participants include former Pakistani foreign secretary Humayun Khan and former Pakistani high commissioner to India, Aziz Ahmed Khan.

At around the same time, the Lahore University of Management Sciences is hosting a conference in Lahore. A few days later, a media delegation from Pakistan is due in India.

Next month, another Track II effort, hosted by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, will get under way in Bangkok. People-to-people contacts have obviously revived in a big way after being put into the freezer in the wake of the Mumbai attack. Although they are largely private efforts, the fact that governments on both sides have issued visas is a sign of benign official support.

But there are enough skeptics in the system who are pessimistic about the efforts to get the Indo-Pak dialogue going again. “I have respect for people like Asma Jehangir but they don’t make or influence policy in Pakistan,” said former Indian high commissioner to Islamabad G Parthasarathy.

“We should talk to those who really matter in Pakistan, like the Inter-Services Intelligence and the army, but only on terrorism.”