India’s strategy in the latest talks with Pakistan was weak and confused

G Parthasarathy 

Just as Pakistan’s foreign secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan was aggressively accusing India of wrongly “finger pointing” at his government, charging it with fomenting terrorism, Pakistan’s parliamentary Secretary for Defence, Major (Retd) Mohammed Tanvir Hussain was making some startling admissions to his country’s National Assembly and media in Islamabad.

Hussain told his Parliamentary colleagues that he is actively linked to the Lashkar-e-Toiba — an organisation banned in Pakistan and named by the UN Security Council as an International Terrorist Organisation. He acknowledged that he often addresses its congregations, adding: “I extend my support to jihadi activists when they approach me seeking cooperation”.

Rather than responding vigorously to Khan’s claims of innocence, his Indian counterpart Shiv Shankar Menon merely pleaded that he hoped that both countries would refrain from trading allegations in public. Was Menon suggesting that if Pakistani terrorists carried out yet another strike in India, we should not name Pakistan and wait till the next meeting of the newly set up “joint mechanism” to make our concerns privately known to General Musharraf?

Ever since the Mumbai train blasts of 7/11, the Manmohan Singh government has tied itself in knots on how to handle Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. First came the astonishing assertion by the Prime Minister in Havana that Pakistan, like India, is a victim of terrorism.

The foreign secretary then, in effect, endorsed General Musharraf’s assertion that his government is not responsible for the actions of Pakistan-based terrorist outfits. The National Security Advisor joined the chorus by saying that India did not have “clinching evidence” to prove Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai train blasts — only for the Prime Minister to thereafter say that we had “credible evidence” of such involvement.

This confusion continued in the talks in Delhi on November 14-15. While Pakistan was given “evidence” of its involvement in terrorist incidents in Varanasi, Bangalore and Mysore, the Indian side astonishingly chose not to raise the issue of Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai blasts because it said the charge sheet had not yet been finalised.

What seems to have been forgotten is that accusations in diplomatic exchanges are not required to be backed by evidence admissible under the Indian Evidence Act.

More importantly, we have undermined a major success that we have achieved in recent years: while keeping Jammu and Kashmir as an issue to be settled bilaterally, we had persuaded the international community that Pakistan-sponsored terrorism is an issue of international concern under UN Security Council Resolution 1373.

This enabled us to get international pressure mounted on Pakistan to ban its terrorist outfits. By setting up the “joint terrorism mechanism” we have diminished such terrorism into an issue to be merely settled between India and Pakistan. As in the past, Pakistan will deny evidence presented and take no action on our allegations.

Similar confusion has prevailed regarding Siachen. The Manmohan Singh government appears to have conveyed to Pakistan that we would be amenable to withdrawal from the Saltoro Range even without iron-clad assurances that Pakistan would not occupy positions vacated by us.

Astonishingly, this was done in the face of concerns voiced by the Army that if the Pakistanis moved into positions vacated by us as they had done in Kargil, we would compromise the security of the entire Ladakh region.

A strong stand was taken by the three service chiefs, backed by foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee and defence minister AK Anthony that Pakistan would first have to authenticate maps outlining present troop deployments, before we could even commence discussions on withdrawal.

It is a good sign that a dialogue with Pakistan has now begun, as adversaries do talk to each other even during conflict. It is also good to note that there have been discussions on a framework to resolve the Kashmir issue. The prime minister’s stand that there can be no change in boundaries is a sound basis for such talks.

But the parliament and the nation  have to be taken into confidence on what is being done about Pakistan and Kashmir. These talks have to be handled with greater dexterity than what the government has displayed in dealing with cross-border terrorism and troop deployments in Siachen.

The writer is  former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan.