Tehelka - The People's Paper

Sankarshan Thakur

Thaw and freeze work so seamlessly between the subcontinent’s big two that it’s tough not to be a shade cynical about news of a fresh breakthrough in Havana. Such bonhomie and making of common cause at the top leadership level isn’t unprecedented. What’s happened more often, unfortunately, is the rapid dissipation of concord once leaders have departed from summits, and the resumption of discord. What’s different this time, we are being told on high authority, is that India and Pakistan have actually agreed to institute a joint mechanism to counter terror, their resolve is to be on the same team against the menace. Surely a huge achievement, at least on paper. Consider the commonsense implication of this: India’s biggest bugbear could now become its ally, indeed New Delhi could consider most of its terrorism-related problems sorted for isn’t it India’s case that Pakistan is the fount of the trouble on its soil? If that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably the right ring to things. Consider the proposition playing out. Will Pakistan now cough up Dawood Ibrahim, red-flagged internationally as a terrorist? Will it manacle the likes of Maulana Masood Azhar and Syed Salahuddin for their overt and covert support to violent intervention on Indian soil? Will it take a fresh look at that list of wanted men the NDA government had handed over to General Pervez Musharraf and which Pakistan has never really responded to with any credibility? Unlikely.

The reasons are only too many. They range from unresolved attrition over Kashmir, which has driven Pakistan to several military and guerrilla misadventures, to the Islamabad establishment’s proven inability to control elements that work within and outside the State. The Kargil intrusion happened mostly unknown to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The ISI’s collusion with Talibani and terrorist outfits continues, mocking General Musharraf’s vision of creating a modern State fashioned on the lines of Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey. Pakistan isn’t an easy plate to possess. It was probably a clever come-hither ploy to set Musharraf as a terror victim as a preface to setting up the joint counter-mechanism; the Pakistani leader has escaped three assassination bids and remains a target of forces ranged against the US-led war on terror. But then can India expect help from Musharraf even if he genuinely wants to extend it?

It serves nobody’s cause to knock the Havana initiative, as the bjp has done, because conversation is key to any breakthrough. At the same time, though, it isn’t unreasonable to remain sceptical about the prospects of thaw, trust and transparency becoming the essential descriptors of relations between India and Pakistan. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has probably put things in the correct perspective by stating that the new mechanism will be made or unmade by how Pakistan exhibits its determination to contain and fight off terror, at home and on Indian soil.