After a 12-day standoff over the controversial Indo-Pak joint statement from Sharm el-Sheikh, the Congress got what it wanted.
After a 12-day standoff over the controversial India-Pakistan joint statement from Sharm el-Sheikh, the Congress got what it wanted. On Wednesday, prime minister Manmohan Singh put back the brackets that were removed in Sharm el-Sheikh to give his strongest assurance yet to Parliament that there would be no dialogue with Pakistan until it delivers on terror.
But in the words of a senior party leader, it was a 50% victory because wriggling out of the other contentious point in the document, the reference to Balochistan, was not so easy. It would have meant repudiating the entire joint statement, which could have created a diplomatic flashpoint with Pakistan. The PM merely glossed over this bungle by reiterating that India's policy on Balochistan is "an open book".
A lesser politician than Manmohan Singh would have found it difficult to disguise the flip-flop on resuming the dialogue with Pakistan. But the PM played to the gallery with consummate skill, drawing loud applause from the doubting Thomases in his party and silencing the BJP at the same time with a reaffirmation of commitment to the Vajpayee-Musharraf joint statement of January 6, 2004. In that document, Pakistan pledged not to allow its territory to be used for terrorist activities against India.
"The people of India expect these assurances to be honoured and this government recognises that as the national consensus," the PM declared. Ironically, the January 2004 formulation found no reflection in the Sharm el-Sheikh joint statement and seems to have been pulled out today for political defence.
While he may have managed to satisfy his critics at home, the PM has effectively stalled the dialogue process for some time. His categorical assurance to Parliament that dialogue and action on terror are linked means that India cannot start talking with Pakistan unless the latter shows speedy results in punishing those arrested for masterminding and executing the Mumbai attacks.
At the same time, he pleaded that talks should not be construed as a sign of weakness. He pointed out that unless India and Pakistan talk to each other, they will have to rely on third-party intervention. "Dialogue and engagement are the best way forward," he stressed.
The PM was surprisingly soft on the BJP, and much to the opposition party's surprise, he invoked Vajpayee several times in his speech, describing him as a statesman for persisting with efforts to normalise relations with Pakistan despite a series of attacks, including the Kargil war, the Indian Airlines hijack, and the terror strike on Parliament. This was obviously a ploy to get the BJP on board so that he can resume his peace initiative with Pakistan at some point when temperatures have cooled.
In response to BJP leader Yashwant Sinha's query on what changed in the three weeks between his meetings with Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari in Russia and prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in Sharm el-Sheikh, the prime minister said the dossier supplied by Islamabad put a new complexion on things.
He explained that the dossier handed over two days before he left for Sharm el-Sheikh was the first formal briefing by Pakistan on the results of its investigations into the Mumbai attacks. He said it was the first time Pakistan admitted that its nationals had carried out the attacks. The dossier was a 34-page document containing details of the manner in which the incident was planned, executed, and financed. "This is far more than the NDA was ever able to extract from Pakistan," he pointed out.
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