Zardari’s Visit to India: Little Expected, Much Gained
By Syed Muazzem Ali
San Diego, CA
Peace and stability in South Asia is largely dependent on ties between the two arch nuclear rivals, India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars in the last six decades. Past history has demonstrated beyond doubt that their bilateral relations are accident-prone, and a terrorist incident in one may suddenly negate all progress. Given the sensitivity of their bilateral ties, their leadership, however, cannot meet and take official steps to normalize their ties. Avoiding rancor of the hardliners on both sides, army and Islamic militant groups in Pakistan and Hindu nationalists in India, they meet under the cover of a cricket match, visit to a shrine, or on the sideline of the biennial SAARC Summits. These “accidental” or “chance” meetings have produced highly positive results.
Expectedly, the international community viewed, with keen interest, when Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, under the cover of a private visit to the shrine of 13 th century Sufi Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, went to India on April 8. United States, China, UK and other EU leaders welcomed this visit, in the wake of some tentative signs of thaws in their ties that had been frosty since the terror attacks in Mumbai in November 2008. This was the first visit by a Pakistani President after seven long years.
The normalization process, however, has been bogged down on the sticking point of “stern actions” against the founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba Hafiz Saeed whom India views as the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks. The shaky Zardari Government is fully conscious of the powerful forces behind Saeed, and is hardly in a position to take bold action on this issue. It would rather the current judicial process take its own course in the matter.
On the other hand, Islamabad’s strained relations with Washington went down by a notch when on the eve of Zardari’s visit; the State Department announced a 10 million bounty for the arrest of Hafiz Saeed. The deteriorating ties with America, as well as Islamabad’s deep concern over the future of Afghanistan and continued army deployment in Siachen — the world’s highest battlefield — prompted Zardari to undertake the visit in an effort to break the stalemate.
Before leaving for New Delhi, the astute politician Zardari met the all-powerful Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to get a full “briefing” about the contours within which he had to stay in his discussions with the Indian leadership. He is acutely aware of the reality that since the Parvez Musharraf days, it is the army top brass, and not the political government, which has been calling the shots on Pakistan’s policies with the United States and India as well as on the country’s nuclear arms. Since Pakistan is currently preoccupied with Afghanistan on the western flank, a normalization deal with India, on the eastern flank, also suits the Army’s interest.
Zardari, accompanied by his 23-year old son Bilawal Zardari Bhutto, several members of his family, important Cabinet members and high officials, was warmly received by the Indians. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hosted a lunch at his residence, also attended by India’s “heir apparent” 41-year Rahul Gandhi, ruling Congress Party’s bigwigs, and high officials. Notably absent was Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who reportedly wanted to give prominence to Rahul, who sat beside Pakistan’s “crown prince” Bilawal at the lunch. She possibly felt that friendship between the future leadership of the two dominant political dynasties would augur well for the two countries.
By all available accounts, and the subsequent events, it seems that the 40-minute Zardari-Manmohan talks went off well. Expectedly, both parties talked about the core bilateral issues. Manmohan Singh did raise the Sayeed issue and Zardari, instead of committing any action, emphasized the need for further consultations between high officials. Zardari also referred to Kashmir and other pending issues. More importantly, he extended yet another invitation to the Indian Prime Minister to visit Pakistan. Manmohan accepted the invitation and said that the visit would take place as soon “mutually convenient dates” are worked out.
Behind the façade of these usual cautious diplomatic jargons, it was also indicated that Zardari and Manmohan have discussed all bilateral issues and found “pragmatic and practical” solutions. For understandable reasons, they did not spell out what practical or pragmatic steps they are going to take in the coming days to energize their bilateral relations.
Manmohan surely dreams of a peace deal with Pakistan before he retires, and possibly would like to undertake the visit to the country from which he and his family had migrated in 1947. But in order to justify the visit, he needs some substantive progress on crucial issues such as maritime demarcation, or pulling of troops of both countries from Siachen, even if major progress could not be made on the terrorist issue.
The talks expectedly did not produce any breakthrough, but they have surely triggered a chain of positive results and infused new energy in bilateral ties. Immediately after the visit, Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif welcomed the talks and called for a peace deal and troop withdrawal from Siachen. The Army Chief made a similar call.
Suddenly a “give-and-take attitude” was visible in India-Pakistan ties, and “goodwill” gestures have been shown by both sides. The eighty-year Pakistani scientist Mohammad Khalil Chisti, who has been languishing in a jail in Gujarat for the last two decades on murder charges, was granted bail two days after the visit. Apparently, Zardari knows Chisti’s family and he had raised the issue during the Summit–level talks, which produced the magic for Chisti’s bail and his eventual repatriation to Pakistan.
Pakistan made equally positive gestures when it released 25 Indian fishermen who had been in prison for more than two years on charges of infringing on Pakistan’s territorial waters, as well as a cancer patient in Karachi jail. Although there is no link between the two cases, Pakistan made this “goodwill gesture” primarily to reciprocate its appreciation of the Indian action.
Taking note of these positive developments, including the fresh impetus given by Manmohan’s acceptance of the Pakistani invitation, high Indian officials are reasonably confident of the trajectory of Indo-Pakistani ties, and are trying to bring in some substantive progress on core bilateral issues.
The two sides are finalizing a visa liberalization deal that could make travel easier, especially for businessmen, giving boost to bilateral trade that has emerged as a new focus of engagement between the two countries. Pakistan granted the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to India last November (India had granted the same status to Pakistan in 1996). Islamabad seems to be keen to emulate India’s pragmatic “China policy” in which better trade and economic relations have trumped over unresolved political and border disputes. In a matter of a decade, the bilateral trade between China and India has reached the $ 75 billion mark. Inspired by this example, India and Pakistan are trying to push annual bilateral trade up from existing $3 billion to $ 15 billion, through dismantling of the remaining trade barriers. In the long run, Pakistan eyes flow of tourists, traders and cricketers from India, and India seeks a land route to Central Asia.
Talks are also on to schedule meetings between India-Pakistan Defense Secretaries on the disputed Siachen glacier where more than 130 Pakistani soldiers recently perished in an avalanche. Meetings between high officials of both countries to demarcate maritime boundary and to resolve issues related to the Sir Creek marshland, adjoining Gujarat in India and Sindh in Pakistan, are also expected soon.
The Zardari visit has opened up these opportunities, and there is growing optimism on both sides. How far they can realize these dreams remains to be seen. Manmohan’s authority and energy after the recent election debacle in UP are waning, and the Zardari Government has less than a year before it faces fresh elections. Like a limited-over cricket match, they would like to strike some miracle shots to realize their dream of a golden beginning to better and improved ties between the two countries. They know the challenges ahead but are also aware that if they succeed, the success would surely give them a fresh lease of life.
(The author is a former Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh)
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