The prime minister’s office has denied a report in The Times, London, that prime minister Manmohan Singh had appointed an “unofficial envoy” for “secret talks” with Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. But there’s more to this than meets the eye.

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As pointed out by the media, there is glaring contradiction in the The Times’ news item - Cricket-inspired thaw pushes rivals into secret talks. It was not possible for Manmohan Singh to have conceived the idea of inviting the Pakistani prime minister for talks during World Cup semifinal almost a year in advance. Yet, some sort of an effort being made by the Indian PM to reach out to General Kayani for the revival of peace process is highly likely. There are many power centres in Pakistan but on its relationship with India, the Pakistan army is the final arbitrator.

In 1999, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, with the high hopes of brokering peace between the warring neighbours, rode a bus to Lahore. Vajpayee and Nawaz Shrarif had even reached to an agreement, namely the ‘Lahore Declaration’. Barely a month later, the peace bus was found stranded on the Kargil heights; the two neighbours got engaged in a limited war.

President Zardari can never attain a statesman-like status but his natural instinct is to have peace with India. Within days of his taking over as president of Pakistan, he announced possibility of “good news within a month” on Kashmir. He even tried to change the basic premise of Pakistan’s national security doctrine by declaring that Pakistan had adopted a “no first strike” nuclear war policy. His statement created a furore in Pakistan and the Pakistani defence establishment soon came out with a strong rebuttal that their own president is “not fully informed or completely aware of” the national security doctrine. Zardari had also categorised militants active in Kashmir as “terrorists”. 

It’s widely believed that after the exit of General Musharraf, New Delhi was able to revive the peace process with the newly elected government in Pakistan headed by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) but that General Kayani proved to be a real hurdle. A diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks confirms the real impediment. Former British foreign secretary David Miliband, after his visit to Pakistan on November 25, 2008, had assessed: “There was a ‘deal on paper’ and both prime minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari were ‘ready’ to sign it.” Miliband had thought the remaining obstacle was Pakistani military chief staff general Kayani: “He remained ‘reluctant’ and needed to be persuaded.” Miliband has visited Pakistan just a day before 26/11 and that there was a “deal on paper” as late as November 2008 is quite significant. Despite America midwifing a ‘peace deal’ and a democratically elected government in Pakistan reasonably keen to have a normal relationship with India, that the Pakistan military is able to torpedo the entire peace process sufficiently indicates the real power centre in Pakistan.

The military holding the fulcrum of power in Pakistan is a hard reality. New Delhi has all along conducted business with military dictators and military backed civilian governments in Pakistan.

Therefore, Manmohan Singh trying to open channels of communication with the all-powerful military chief should not come as a surprise. It is quite possible that Manmohan Singh is eager to pick the threads from where Musharraf had left and may have sent feelers to General Kayani. Ironically, the architect of Kargil eventually proved to be a potential peacemaker. 

The progress made from 2004-07 in the ‘backchannel’ is the bedrock of what is being described as “deal on paper”.  It’s the most favourable bargain wherein India could have clinched the deal without losing an inch of territory under its control in Kashmir.

It is true that only a military dictator in Pakistan can make amends to its deeply entrenched Kashmir policy and anti-India outlook. In this regard, Musharraf proved to be more than handy. But there are other critical factors also that prompted Musharraf to think of normalising its relations with India. The fall of the Taliban after 9/11 deprived Pakistan of its so-called strategic depth. On the contrary, it was facing the prospect of getting squeezed between a hostile Afghanistan and an antagonised India.

The Taliban forcing a stalemate and the forthcoming American withdrawal from Afghanistan has dramatically altered the geopolitics of the region. Despite the risk of a failing state still looming large, Pakistan, in comparison to 2001, is presently better placed. That’s the reason why it wants to start a fresh and is not inclined to pick the threads from where they were left in 2007.

India seems to have missed a rare opportunity.