world news in urdu and English | latest urdu news | islamic news | urdu news

Even as Indo-Pak rivalry continues to hamper SAARC's efforts in the region, the two countries should continue their dialogue, suggests Inder Malhotra — though with realistic expectations on India's part.

SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) is more than 25 years old but it doesn't have much to show for itself. The reason for this is simple and obvious. Unlike the European Union or ASEAN, whose members have a shared strategic view, SAARC is hamstrung by the rivalry between India and Pakistan, the largest and third largest members of the association respectively. Both are also nuclear weapons powers.

No wonder then that those efforts at regional cooperation the organization has agreed to — the most notable of these is the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) — run up against Pakistan's refusal to honour them vis-à-vis India 'until the core issue of Kashmir is settled'. Similarly, after SAARC decided that all its members should have transit rights through one another's countries, Pakistan resolutely denied India the right to cross through to Afghanistan, even though it can merrily travel across India to Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.

Once every three years SAARC holds a summit and the smaller member states are almost always dismayed because the summit conference is overshadowed every time by the India-Pakistan parleys, ironically on the 'fringes' of the larger meet. This was exactly the case at the latest SAARC summit on the Addu island of Malé. While nothing else stood out, the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani did attract attention.

To put the outcome of the Singh-Gilani talks in perspective, the backdrop needs to be explained first. As soon as Dr Singh became Prime Minister he gave the highest priority to improving relations with Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf was President as well as Army Chief of that country at the time. Through adroit back door negotiations, the two leaders were able to agree on a four-point framework that was as close to a breakthrough on Kashmir as possible. But soon afterwards, General Musharraf ran into huge problems on the home front and eventually had to quit.

His successors — a weak civilian government, headed by President Asif Ali Zardari, functioning under the shadow of the all-powerful Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani — blandly denied that any understanding between General Musharraf and Dr Singh had ever been reached. Even so, the Indian Prime Minister persisted in his efforts to improve relations with his western neighbour.

Pakistan's savage terrorist attack on Bombay on November 26 2008 delivered a shattering, indeed near-fatal blow to any kind of dialogue between India and Pakistan; all the more so because Islamabad at first denied any responsibility and then dragged its feet over punishing the perpetrators and masterminds of '26/11', as the assault on Bombay has come to be known.

After a short interval, however, Dr Singh soldiered on in pursuit of his objective: a rapprochement with Pakistan. In May 2009, three months after returning to power, and with a much stronger mandate, he went much further in his talks with Mr Gilani at Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. In a joint statement they agreed that terrorism and dialogue were mutually incompatible and Pakistan was allowed, for the first time, to mention in a bilateral document its complaint that India was interfering in the revolt in Pakistan's minority province, Balochistan. Adverse reaction among not only the Indian public but also within the ruling Congress party turned Sharm el Sheikh into something of a fiasco.

Several multi-level bilateral meetings later, the two Prime Ministers met again at the Bhutanese capital, Thimpu, and resolved to restore dialogue on all issues between the two countries at the Malé summit. This time around the Pakistani side did provide some ground for progress. At long last it extended to India the MFN (most favoured nation) status in matters of trade. In fact, this only means granting non-discriminatory treatment, which Pakistan was in any case bound to give under the World Trade Organisation and SAFTA agreements. On the crucial issue of taking action against the Pakistanis responsible for the 2008 Bombay outrage — which is understandably a cause of anger in this country — Mr Gilani offered to send a Judicial Commission to India to collect evidence against those whose trial in Pakistan has been little more than a farce. He had nothing to say, however, about Pakistan's total refusal to put on trial Hafiz Saeed, top leader of Jamat ud Dawa, and founder of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), an ISI-backed terrorist outfit directed against India.

During my visit to Pakistan in August 2009, Pakistani friends remonstrated with me for focusing on Hafiz, who was 'just one man': a man, incidentally, who was the brain behind 26/11 and who now makes inflammatory speeches against India with impunity. An intrepid source later told me, in the presence of several of his countrymen, that no Pakistani government would act against Hafiz because he had enough armed followers in Lahore alone to be able to 'raise hell in the whole of Punjab'.

Most Indians had no great objection to the dialogue schedule worked out in Malé but there was widespread criticism of some of the Prime Minister's rhetoric. For instance, he had described Mr Gilani as a 'man of peace', and had also said that India and Pakistan were writing a 'new chapter' in their relationship, leaving the past behind them. This invited the rejoinder that Bombay could not be forgotten and the significance of terrorism must not be relegated during the talks. Dr Singh then found it necessary to backtrack somewhat. He declared that he did not have 'blind faith' in any one individual. Moreover, any repetition of Bombay would be a 'major setback'. His motto, Dr Singh added, was to 'trust but verify' — a phrase first used by Ronald Reagan about the late Soviet Union.

It is typical of the sub-continental situation, however, that whatever little hope the meeting in Malé may have aroused looks like being overtaken by subsequent developments in Pakistan. Mr Gilani had assured Dr Singh that the Army was 'on board' in the present peace moves. But the sensational 'Memogate', which has already cost the Pakistani ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, his job, has brought into the open the headlong confrontation between the Army and the flimsy civilian government of Mr Zardari.

Even in this context the policy to keep the Indo-Pakistan dialogue going makes sound sense, provided that this country does not pitch its hopes too high. That would be a sure recipe for disappointment, even frustration.