Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s impromptu call on
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to
wish him Happy Birthday in December has
raised a flurry of optimism on Indo-Pak relations. Modi’s drop-in call on
Sharif en route to Delhi from Kabul
where he had gone to inaugurate the Indian-built Afghanistan’s parliament building was welcomed as a happy
surprise both in Pakistan and India.
The momentum continues with
their likely meeting in Washington where both leaders have been invited to
a nuclear summit hosted by President Obama on March 31-April 1. There is also a possibility of Indo-Pak foreign secretary level unofficial meeting on the sidelines of a
SAARC conference in Nepal next month in
March.
But a sudden jolt to the
dialogue hopes has been delivered by a suicide
bomber’s attack (3rd March 2016) on the Indian consulate at Jalalabad in Afghanistan, leaving nine people dead, apparently
by Taliban elements in cahoots with Pakistan’s state or non-state operatives. Thanks
to the Afghan security forces, all Indian staff were reported safe. Any denial
of involvement by Pakistani authorities is simply not believable in India. The
umpteenth attack on Indian consulates and other posts in Afghanistan underlines
yet again India’s inability to lower its guard against its neighbour.
In spite of this latest
spoiler, there is hope yet for a dialogue revival after Pakistan’s filing of an FIR against some unknown persons possibly involved in the terrorist attack on the Indian Air
Forces base at Pathankot. Islamabad’s
further actions of taking Jaish -e- Muhammad’s anti-Indian
leader Maulana Masood Azhar into protective custody and the upcoming
visit of Pakistan’s special investigation team to Pathankot, as agreed with
India, lend s some more hope to the
revival of a bilateral dialogue.
Most pertinently comes the reported acknowledgement of Pakistani Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign
Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, that at least one call made by the
terrorists involved in the Pathankot attack was traced to the Jaish-e-Muhammad
(JeM) HQ, the covert-warrior outfit in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
The fly in
this whole ointment is the fact that the FIR filed by Pakistan government is
against “unknown” persons . The prominent
conspirator, Masood Azhar , named
by India, has not been named even as a suspect in the FIR by Pakistan. Nor has
he been arrested; he has been taken only in “protective custody.” No wonder
India is going to ask the United Nations once again to include Azhar specifically
and individually in the list of banned persons along with the Jaish-e- Muhammad
outfit which is already in the UN’s list of proscribed organisations.
Pakistan’s apparent gestures of thaw in bilateral relations need to be
translated into concrete actions, not just in the Pathankot episode but also in
the Mumbai attack which has been hanging fire since 2008. For that to happen ,
Pakistan needs to have a re-look at its overall definition
of terrorism . It must abandon its
equation of terrorism on its western Afghan border with terrorism on its
eastern Indian border. The two brands belong to different categories. Its
western border trouble comes from the
Taliban tiger which it has been riding for long. Riding the tiger has never
been easy and Pakistan cannot deflect the issues by saying that the Taliban are
funded by India. Nor can anybody believe that the recent attack on Bacha Khan
university in its frontier province was Indian inspired or financed. Bacha Khan
is the name of Frontier Gandhi Abdul Ghaffar Khan, one of the most revered legends
in India since before the partition of the subcontinent. No Indian agency can
ever think of attacking an institution named after him. Pakistan must look into
its own ‘gareban’ or fold !
Terrorism on
Pakistan’s eastern border with India is altogether of a different brand. To put
it bluntly it is inspired, abetted and activated by Pakistan’s own state or
non-state actors. Neither India nor anybody else believes the fiction that Pakistan
is a victim on both sides of its border. On the eastern side it is certainly
not a hapless victim. It must restrain
its state or non-state actors on the eastern side and act against them with the
same vigour as it does with actors on its western border.
Pakistan can
do it but it must have the will to do it. If it does it will be a game changer
not only in the subcontinent but in the entire region.
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