The endless India-Pakistan soap opera starts all over again with both sides getting ready to talk again. India has made the first move as always because New Delhi is well aware of the need as well as desirability to engage Islamabad.
It would be naïve for critics from the BJP and other experts to harp on the fact that Pakistan has not changed and that it is not right for the Congress-led UPA government to make these overtures or for the peaceniks from both sides to believe that this time round things are different.
There is no doubt that the Americans have been patiently and quietly nudging India and Pakistan to get back to the negotiating table for the sake of American military operations in Afghanistan and on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh and his aides in the government are aware that there has been no radical change across the border.
If anything, the situation is resuming the contours of the pre-September 11, 2001 days when Pakistan-supported Taliban were in power in Kabul and the jihadi groups inside Pakistan have been on the loose.
Last month’s international conference at London has brought the Taliban back into the Afghanistan political process, at least in terms of policy framework.
Pakistan’s jihadi groups held a major meeting at Muzaffarabad on Thursday, where Jihad Council chairman Hafiz Sayeed spoke about the readiness to negotiate with India and the determination to make an undivided Jammu and Kashmir a free country.
Pakistan will remain a troublesome country to itself and to its neighbours — India and Afghanistan — for a long time to come. It is a deeply divided polity and there is an undeclared civil war between the fundamentalists and the remnants of civil society.
The army, which is an influential player, leans towards the fundamentalists more often than it does towards the democratic forces. The belief that if India engages Pakistan it will strengthen the democratic forces in that country is a false one. Pakistan’s negotiators — both military and civilian — will use the jihadi card as a bargaining chip.
So New Delhi’s declaration that it is going into the talks with an open and positive mind is indeed the truth. The most practicable way to engage in useful talks is to improve the trade relations between the two countries.
The other positive move would be to encourage Pakistan’s youth to study in India because that could over a period of time prepare a new generation in that country that has a direct experience of life across the border. These can be modest beginnings but they could help shape future dialogue between the two countries.
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