- Back door diplomacy
News that PTI MNA Ramesh Kumar, already on a religious pilgrimage to India, has been made to indulge in a healthy bit of backdoor diplomacy is welcome, and might just be the right subtle touch needed to deescalate tensions between Pakistan and India. Even US President Trump has warned that the situation in South Asia has become very serious and dangerous indeed. Yet it can only be a good sign that Ramesh Kumar was met not only by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but also External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and State Minister VK Singh.
There is, fortunately, a positive precedent to follow. In the days following the 2001 Lok Sabha attack, when Delhi threatened to attack and filled the borders with troops, President Musharraf’s government was able to engineer an eventual thaw through intelligent, and determined, back channel diplomacy. In a few years, the two governments had clearly warmed up and had come “within a signature of settling (the) Sir Creek (issue)” by 2007, according to then foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri. And there is no reason for what worked then not to work now. Eventually, once the chest thumping dies down a little, Delhi too will need to find ways to restore normalcy.
BJP’s election compulsions are understandable, but any sort of aggression to satisfy the vote bank also threatens, at the same time, to backfire very badly. How will the prime minister look, after all, if he green lights an attack which is then beaten back? What good will that do to his election chances? Hence, most likely, the decision to indulge the minority legislator from Pakistan at this sensitive moment. India will realise, sooner or later, that it does not really have a military option out of what has become a stalemate. And since Delhi raised the diplomatic temperature, it must also now look for a way to bring it down. If the back door works, why not?
