India has dragged its feet long enough
The Foreign Secretary of India is finally visiting Islamabad on March 3. The sudden decision by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resume the parleys after a unilateral move to call off the talks scheduled earlier has given birth to speculations on both sides of the border. Is this a result of an advice supposedly given privately by President Barack Obama to the Indian Prime Minister to resume the dialogue process or is it dictated by BJP government’s internal compulsions? Are the talks a fallout of the Delhi election debacle as Times of India put it early this month? Interestingly, the schedule for Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s visit was announced soon after BJP and PDP sealed the deal to form a coalition government in the Indian controlled Kashmir. There are reports that the issue of reconciliation with Pakistan and talks with the Hurriyat were mentioned in the deal.
Whatever the reasons behind a sudden change of heart on the part of the Indian Prime Minister, much more important are the questions about the future of talks. To start with, will the talks put an end to the ongoing border clashes? Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership has decided to bring the issue to the notice of Pakistan’s allies inside and outside the region, creating a perception that it has given up on the matter. Failure to stop ceasefire violations would not bode well for the future of talks.
Will India still react strongly to Pakistan’s ambassador meeting Hurriyat leaders? If so, the talks may not proceed beyond March 23 when Pakistan’s High Commission in New Delhi invariably invites them to the function. Pakistan is not willing to cede its right as a party to the Kashmir issue and has made it known that if India avoided to discuss the dispute with Pakistan, it would raise it at international forums. In the first meeting the two foreign secretaries will, of course, ‘talk about talks’. But if the subsequent meetings failed to produce anything substantial, cynicism is likely to set in.