Sandeep Dikshit

PAKISTAN High Commissioner Sohail Mehmood’s sulk over the harassment of his diplomatic colleagues in New Delhi lasted for just one short week. That is a surprisingly short period in the annals of Indo-Pak ties where estrangement lasts for years. The reason may lie in Pakistan Foreign Office’s desire not to be a spoilsport. Contrary signals would have gone out had Sohail Mehmood stayed put in Islamabad and missed his New Delhi mission’s observance of Pakistan Republic Day on March 23. India too seems to be playing ball. The Foreign Office was restrained, describing Mehmood’s departure as normal. But his return to New Delhi without a resolution of the issue of harassment of diplomats suggests that either South Block has given quiet assurances or was he carrying a message from South Block for the Pakistani leadership.At stake is India’s offer for an ice breaker. Pakistan’s initial response has gone beyond India’s offer of releasing each other’s prisoners on humanitarian grounds. While accepting India’s offer, Pakistan foreign minister Khwaja Mohammed Asif went on to hope that both countries would embark on the road to a comprehensive dialogue and make an effort to de-escalate the “extremely vitiated current environment and the situation on the border”. The significance of India and Pakistan agreeing to reactivate the Joint Judicial Committee of eight retired judges for releasing the prisoners should rank as a major effort in PM Modi’s record of limited breakthroughs in the immediate neighbourhood. The last visit of such a committee had taken place over four years ago; in other words, except for keeping alive the channel of NSAs, both sides have no formal or informal structure to understand each other.Pakistan’s more-than-hearty reciprocation to the Indian offer may not have come at a better time. The mantra of surgical strikes has stopped resonating among people who are now questioning the attrition rate of soldiers and Pakistan’s undiminished appetite for what passes off as Indian punishment for dispatching militants into the Kashmir Valley. The muscularity and tough speak by security forces in the Valley have also given way to implementation of the Kashmir Interlocutor’s recommendations to prepare the ground for a dialogue.  This may be the perfect opportunity for PM Modi to attempt an inspiring moon shot in foreign relations despite the failures of his earlier attempts with both nettlesome neighbours: Pakistan and China. For a person who lays claim for bold and iconic strokes on the foreign policy palette, he is yet to translate the effort into an engaging portrait. Headway on perennial irritants like terrorism, demilitarising Siachen or resolving the Sir Creek dispute will either be politically perilous in an election year or yield meager results because of the frigidity in their respective positions. As a person responsible for giving more momentum to the transport corridors being built by India in the region — Iran to Afghanistan and Assam to Vietnam via Myanmar and Thailand — PM Modi would be aware that this is one area where he could establish his stamp. The breakthrough could be a boon for North India that has found itself increasingly boxed-in because of escalation in Indo-Pak hostility. A community whose ingenuity and adventurous spirit had resonated as far off as the bazaars of Tehran and Astrakhan had the freedom of uninhibited trade and travel after Partition. The 1965 war turned the screws further by scrapping the joint India-Pakistan passport for frequent travellers. The final nail in flexible borders was struck by the Punjab militancy and Pakistan’s deep involvement in the J&K unrest. The subsequent PM braved public opprobrium because of bomb blasts in Indian cities to restore trade but incremental progress has been glacial.The elephant in the room is Pakistani military that has been a spoilsport to all civilian attempts to normalise trade with India. But the situation has changed from a decade back. The Pakistan army’s brains trust in Rawalpindi should feel inclined to loosen their veto on trade ties with India in view of the challenge to Pakistan’s exclusive control over land routes to Afghanistan by two rival transport corridors. There may come a day when the corridors from Pakistan may not find any outside takers and Rawalpindi will lose a bargaining chip with the US over Afghanistan. The time for a course correction may have come especially because despite the revolving door policy for critical advisers and ministers, US President Trump is firm on a closure to the war in Afghanistan. The Pakistan army may not just want to be on his right side but also needs India’s grudging acceptance for its proxies to share power in Kabul.The sticking point will be Pakistan army’s patronisation of militant outfits. Of great interest will be the way India reacts to the integration of the Haqqani network. The clan pulls considerable weight on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border. New Delhi holds the Haqqani network culpable for the considerable Indian blood spilt in Afghanistan, including the deaths of several Army officers and a diplomat. The US attempt at a makeover in Kabul should be salutary lesson for both India and Pakistan who hold on to tales rooted in old grudges.  The US is making the peace overture with Taliban that has accounted for a much greater toll of American lives than the militancy in JK. India’s other nemesis Hafiz Saeed’s dive into legitimate political activity may in fact be a blessing in disguise. Saeed and his cadres are bound to be sucked in by the intensity of political processes as well as be forced to drop their gun-wielding instincts to increase their acceptability base. They also would have realised that the battlefield has tilted because of the sharp step up in Indian surveillance and location finding abilities. Infiltrators from across the border have sometimes extracted a high body count of soldiers, but they have been unable to inflict high value damage for several years now.India and Pakistan’s overtures towards trade may also please the US. Its Permanent Ruling Class has tried to persuade Central Asian states to sell their oil to Asia and Europe instead of rivals Russia and China. They were unsuccessful for the last quarter of a century, in part because of Pakistan army’s obduracy. Now a project once mentored by Reagan’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig has come alive. This proposes to bring oil and gas from the derricks of Turkmenistan to the energy-hungry Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. This TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India ) pipeline may become the harbinger for a relook at the trade routes that have turned frigid because of hostility.Pakistan may also need to dilute the impression that China has complete ownership over the CPEC by involving India, Iran and Russia. China is Pakistan’s Santa Claus for its strategic and elite circles. But incidents of targeted killing of Chinese citizens in Pakistan suggest toxicity in domestic opinion about the unusual Chinese proximity. This has the potential to turn the political tide against the project. The safest course will be to make it an international project. Faith in the government declines when the economy falters and Trump is well on the way to spark a trade war. Economic realities dictate a change of course by both India and Pakistan. The core issues will still remain on the table. But instead of being the director of change, PM Modi will be able to settle for a middling report card.

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