By allowing references to Balochistan and delinking terror from dialogue, he went beyond the normal brief.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh appears to have gone beyond his brief when he turned India's Pakistan policy on its head by agreeing to two controversial clauses in the Indo-Pak joint statement issued at Sharm el-Sheikh last week.
One was the inclusion of a reference to Pakistani "concerns" in Balochistan. The other was an agreement not to link the composite dialogue process to action against terror.
The sequence of events leading to the release of the statement suggests that the prime minister struck out on his own, stepping over red lines drawn by senior cabinet colleagues and his foreign policy establishment, in a bid to break the deadlock with Pakistan.
He was probably hoping that his gamble would pay off once Pakistan started criminal proceedings against 26/11 mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. Instead, he has set off a domestic storm and even his own party has reservations about defending him, at least for now.
Before the prime minister left for Sharm el-Sheikh on July 13, the cabinet committee on security (CCS) discussed his forthcoming meeting with his Pakistani counterpart, Yousaf Raza Gilani. The CCS approved the draft of a possible joint statement which the prime minister carried with him. There was no mention of the B-word or any endorsement of the delinking that crept into the final statement.
Balochistan first cropped up on July 14 when the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan met to draft a joint statement to be put up for approval by their prime ministers on July 16. Although the Pakistani team did not display its usual belligerence, its insistence on including the B-word (possibly to counter Indian efforts to bring Kashmir into the statement) queered the pitch.
As a retired diplomat pointed out, "References to Balochistan have always been a no-no. No foreign service officer would ever agree to overturn basic tenets of our Pakistan policy."
An aide in the prime minister's office (PMO) said that on July 15, it seemed there would be no joint statement because of the deadlock. When the two prime ministers met the next day, they threw out their officials and talked privately for nearly one hour. In fact, a scheduled meeting with Nepal's prime minister had to be cancelled because the prime minister's talks with Gilani lasted so long.
When the officials were called in at last, the two prime ministers explained the formulations to which they had agreed. They directed their foreign secretaries to go to another room and draft a joint statement accordingly. The officials do not seem to have been given an opportunity to object or express their reservations.
On Tuesday, foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon virtually accepted responsibility for the outcome by blaming it all on "poor drafting", but the facts indicate otherwise. The prime minister seems to have taken a decision that he thought was in India's best interest.
He is now paying the price of this declaration of autonomy from the collective responsibility principle that Sonia Gandhi has evolved and enforced, particularly in the second term of the government. The Congress has steadfastly refused to defend the prime minister from attacks mounted by opposition parties and commentators. His ministers too are mum.
On Wednesday, the Congress spokesperson again stonewalled media queries. "I have nothing to add," she said in response to a question whether the party approved of Manmohan Singh's stand at Sharm el-Sheikh.
The PMO aide said the prime minister met Sonia Gandhi the day after his return from Sharm el-Sheikh. By then, the storm had broken and there was an uproar in Parliament. Singh telephoned Gandhi to request a meeting. As usual, she insisted on driving over to Race Course Road. The aide said the prime minister presumably briefed her on the developments at Sharm el-Sheikh.
Despite this, the party has chosen to distance itself from the prime minister's stand. This suggests that Gandhi has not yet bought his line on Pakistan and has decided that he should fight the battle himself. A senior Congress source said the party wants to send a message to the prime minister that he cannot ignore the party and take suo moto decisions.
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