GRAVE BLUNDER TO TALK TO PAKISTAN
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
By Shobori Ganguli
Editorial
The Pioneer
Thursday, February 25, 2010
By the time this appears in print, India will have committed its
second worst diplomatic blunder of this decade, the first of course
being the shameful India-Pakistan Agra Summit of 2001. Today, the
Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan will sit across the table
to talk about talks. Resumed at India's behest, a fact Pakistan is
justly gloating about, the meeting is intended to address New Delhi's
terror concerns.
However, it is nothing short of a grave blunder to sit across the
negotiating table with a country that displays no intention of
revising its intransigent reluctance to address India's concerns over
repeated acts of terror, the latest as recent as the February 13 Pune
blast. Admittedly, Pakistan cannot be faulted with in this �talks'
initiative. True to character, it has obdurately refused to honour
even a single demand placed by India on the table following the
deplorable 26/11 attacks on Mumbai. Rogue to the core, it has
systematically flouted every rule of diplomacy and good neighbourly
conduct since 1947. It has talked Kashmir each time India has
screamed terror. The 26/11 perpetrators, their predecessors and
successors, continue to breathe free and spew anti-India venom from
across the border. Yet, we are made to witness India's shocking
decision to invite an unreformed Pakistan for talks.
India's regrettable haste in this latest dialogue initiative is
indeed inexplicable. After all, 26/11 was cited as the proverbial
last straw that led to suspension of talks in the first place. What
then has changed in the interim for the two countries to resume
dialogue? If at all, there has been yet another heinous terror attack
in Pune that has claimed 16 lives, mostly innocent students, an
inhuman act that the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa'h has openly
claimed prior knowledge of. Further, Sikhs are being mercilessly
beheaded by the Taliban in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province.
Amid all this, India seems to be mindlessly ceding its bargaining
options, one by one, to Pakistan. This was strongly underlined when,
under obvious US pressure, it revised its post-26/11 �no talks'
stand. Given India's grave security concerns, such pressure ought to
have been firmly resisted. On the contrary, New Delhi now seems to be
of the startling opinion that the best way to get Islamabad to act on
terror is to actually start talking again.
Arguably, this premise could be defended. After all, there is no
point in alienating a neighbour to the extent that it turns
completely deaf to our genuine concerns; talking could perhaps drill
some sense into that country's establishment. However, there is an
existent ground reality in Pakistan which India seems to have
shockingly lost sight of. From the day it first made the offer of
talks, several Pakistani voices, jihadi and official alike, have
suddenly started talking about all "outstanding issues" as the basis
for resumption of dialogue. Much as New Delhi may delude itself into
thinking that today's Foreign Secretary level talks are going to be
solely dedicated to terror, statements emanating from Pakistan
indicate that "all issues of concern to both" is what they have in
mind.
To that end, certain goalposts are being unilaterally shifted by
Pakistan even as India stands a mute spectator. All of a sudden there
is intense clamour in Pakistan about India's "water terrorism", with
former Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani going to the extent
of threatening that "the water issue could prove to be a nuclear
flashpoint between the neighbours". Urging global intervention, he
says India's "hegemonic" behaviour could "ignite a nuclear war".
Aware that Kashmir alone cannot fetch Pakistan global sympathy any
longer and also that there is growing domestic unrest over the water
issue, the Pakistani establishment is now playing its age-old
diversionary games, hitherto restricted to Kashmir. Pakistan Foreign
Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has categorically said that during
talks with India, more "tangible issues" like the water dispute would
take precedence over Kashmir.
Even as the Pakistani establishment is visibly and audibly pushing
the hard line, the jihadis are posting macabre messages India's way.
If JuD chief Hafiz Saeed screams, "Ek Bombay kya hota hai (One Mumbai
is not enough)", his deputy Abdur Rehman Makki asserts, "Muslims
dying of thirst would drink blood of India". Makki's views are not
significantly different from the official Pakistani line, Prime
Minister downwards, that says India wants to destroy Pakistan by
cutting off its water, that it is turning Pakistan into a desert and
will starve it to death. Suddenly, water is a �core' bilateral issue,
a definition hitherto reserved for Kashmir. Shockingly, the
terrorists, in sync with the establishment, have moved beyond
Kashmir, vowing to unleash jihad on India in the name of water. With
this declaration coming only days ahead of talks, and the Pakistani
establishment doing precious little to curb such diabolism, India
should have ideally demanded a clear statement of intent from
Pakistan before resuming talks.
Predictably, Pakistan is once again putting on the shameless and
baseless �terror victim' act. Mr Qureshi has said, "If their concerns
are about Hafiz Saeed and Mumbai attacks, let them put it on the
table. If we've concerns about Balochistan, let us put it on the
table." Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir says raising the
Hafiz Saeed issue would be "counter-productive" and that if counter-
terrorism is indeed raised Balochistan must find mention. D�j� vu,
indeed: The ignominy at Sharm el-Sheikh last July when Balochistan
first became part of an India-Pakistan joint statement is still fresh
in public memory. Mr Qureshi has, in fact, warned that, "We should
de-link negotiations from such acts (of terror). There are such acts
taking place in Pakistan. We're victims of terrorism. At times,
foreign nationals are involved in these acts in Pakistan. Does it
mean that we should cut ties with those countries?" No prizes for
guessing which "countries" he is talking about. So much for
Pakistan's self-declared "constructive" approach.
With the jihadis' recalcitrance matching that of the Pakistani
establishment's, there is very little by way of forward movement that
India can hope for through talks. One is, therefore, amazed at the
Manmohan Singh Government's sudden willingness to talk to a country
that is literally holding the gun to India's head even as its Home
Minister refuses to negotiate with the Maoists at home till they
abjure violence. Surely, what stands to reason for internal security
cannot significantly alter when it comes to national security? Last
heard, there was firing by Pakistani troops at Indian soldiers in
Jammu's Samba sector, only hours ahead of the talks!
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Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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harmony
<use...@mantra.com and/or www.mantra.com/jai (Dr. Jai Maharaj)> wrote in
message news:20100224DgP7933MkO8uDM353yJ5Rtq@GwnxV...
> Grave blunder to talk to Pakistan
>
i would advise mr. grave blunder to not do that.
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
"harmony" <a...@hotmail.com> posted:
> Dr. Jai Maharaj posted:
>
> > Grave blunder to talk to Pakistan
> i would advise mr. grave blunder to not do that.
Grave Blunder is closely related to Grim Reaper.