The Kulbhushan affair

Optics matter

Islamabad was well within its rights to deny Kulbhushan Jadhav his request for the meeting with his wife and mother. He is, after all, convicted of subversion as well as terrorism – responsible for a number of the many thousands Pakistani souls lost to needless, senseless violence. But it agreed keeping a number of things in mind. One, of course, was granting a condemned man his last wish. What bad could come from letting him meet his wife and mother one last time before delivering him to the hangman? Two, score valuable diplomatic points through the ‘humanitarian gesture’, especially at a time when Delhi is the most antagonistic towards Islamabad in recent memory. And three, and perhaps most importantly, set a precedent that would lay the grounds for a quid pro quo from India, particularly in the occupied valley where its crimes are making records.

Yet a day after the meeting the Indian press has ensured that none of those objectives, except of course the first, has been met. The glass window is now set in stone SOP, even in India, for meetings of this nature. And the Indian press would do itself a favour by getting that point right before launching its customary accusations. Stripping the women of their jewelry and religious symbols, however, perhaps went too far. And the matter of the wife’s shoes did not help.

In certain cases such extreme measures are, understandably, pretty much standard procedure. But those occasions involve direct meetings, without the sound-proof glass, where there have been known occasions of relatives passing on poison, etc, in the farewell embrace. We had already ruled out any such possibility by putting a fool-proof system in place. Why, then, the unnecessary arm-twisting? After doing everything right – treating Kulbhushan well, agreeing to the meeting, allowing the media free media access – perhaps we leaned a trifle more than needed when it came to nuts-and-bolts security. We should be aware, at all times, that diplomacy means posturing right about as much as having the right intention.