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ShareThe prospect of resuming the Indo-Pak dialogue overshadowed all else that happened in Havana, the venue of the recent Non-aligned Movement conference. A meeting between Manmohan Singh and Pervez Musharraf, a sideshow to the main event, was the focus of attention of our officials and, consequently, our media. Not that the main event had much to talk about but the idea of jaw-jaw with Pakistan once again clearly enthralls us.
One of the main outcomes of the meeting, the first since India postponed the meeting of secretaries following the Mumbai train blasts of July 11, is the plan to set up a mechanism by way of a joint working group to fight terrorism. Will this prove to be a breakthrough in Indo-Pak relations? Or will it turn out to be yet another instance of Pakistani one-upmanship vis-à-vis India?
The official version is that it is a "major achievement". But let's step back a bit. Speaking to European leaders in Brussels a few days earlier, General Musharraf rejected all allegations that his country was connected to terrorism. If there was any terrorism out of Pakistan, he claimed, it could befreelance terrorists who might be operating on their own, and he could not do anything about that.
Given this attitude, we need to ask what kind of results the proposed joint working group on terrorism can hope to achieve. Pakistan has more than a quarter of a century of experience in taking the Americans for a ride on nuclear proliferation and jihadi terrorism. Even now, after rearming the Taliban to fight against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Musharraf disclaims all responsibility for the development. When he is able to play such games successfully with the US, which has far more clout over Pakistan than any other power, it is too much to expect any worthwhile results from this new formation.
It is time for India to call a spade a shovel. We must now make terrorism the "core issue" in Indo-Pakistan relations. Besides, we should reject the general's suggestion that any progress on the Kashmir issue will lead to a reduction in terrorism, because it suggests that Pakistan's shrewd tactic of keeping the two implicitly connected is succeeding.
The best way forward for India is to begin with the demand that unless terrorism stops, there can be no progress on Kashmir. Otherwise, we would once again be dealing naively with a state which feels it has outsmarted the entire world.
