Assembly polls over, Pak back in focus

Obscured by the din of the Uttar Pradesh victory (we’ll take the adjectives as read) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), some important foreign policy footwork by the government in relation to Pakistan has not got full attention.

As BJP politicians headed to Lucknow to celebrate the party’s victory, another set of BJP members of Parliament (MP) — notably Meenakshi Lekhi and Swapan Dasgupta —along with Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, travelled to Murree, Pakistan’s iconic hill station. The purpose was to attend the Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA), an association of parliaments in Asia along the lines of the International Parliamentary Union (IPU), a meeting of which just concluded in Dhaka.

That a delegation went from India amid a general no-engagement-until-terrorism-ends refrain is remarkable in itself. Although Pakistan put Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Taiba under house arrest in January and deprived his colleagues of their arms licences, India only sniffed with disdain at such tokenism and declared it didn’t believe a word of what Islamabad was saying or doing on terrorism.

But in February, when independent MP Rajiv Chandrasekhar moved a Private Member’s Bill in the Rajya Sabha to get the government to declare Pakistan a terrorist state and to impose legal, economic and travel sanctions on Pakistani citizens for promoting terror, the Ministry of Home Affairs virtually forced him to withdraw the Bill. “We have diplomatic relations with the neighbouring country, which includes High Commissions as well as trade relations. It will not be prudent to declare any country as a terror state as India is bound by international norms,” Chandrasekhar quoted the home minister as having told him.

Other baby steps of rapprochement were visible. Chandu Chavan, the soldier who had strayed into Pakistani territory, was returned to India in January. In February, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told the Lok Sabha that  despite Pathankot and Uri, “the governments of India and Pakistan remained in touch through bilateral diplomatic channels, including for addressing all urgent humanitarian and other matters concerning people-to-people ties”. In March, India attended a meeting of the Indus Water Commission in Islamabad (a similar meeting, to be held in 2016, was cancelled because of the attack in Uri).

Within weeks, an Indian delegation went to Pakistan to be part of an initiative born in 1999, the Association of Asian Parliaments for Peace, now known as APA.

What is this entity? And why was it so important for India to send its MPs to attend the meeting in a country with which it is supposedly not on talking terms?

The APA comprises parliaments of Asian countries with such diverse political systems as Jordan and Iran, Saudi Arabia and Thailand. Most of these countries are united by a history of anti-colonial movements, poverty and a general anti-West stance. Obviously, this becomes more relevant in the current global, post-Trump scenario. But it was all the more imperative for India to assert itself in 2017, given that the 2016 plenary session of the APA held in Siem Reap (Cambodia) adopted a declaration that, despite India’s presence, committed itself to “resolving all disputes including Kashmir, as per UN Charter”.

The mission of the delegation was to persuade Pakistan to drop any reference to Kashmir in the resolutions. The delegation reported success. Pakistan met India halfway, and no reference was made to Kashmir. It was important not just that India attended the meeting but that Pakistan conceded its request.

The accurate Indian reading of internal conditions in Pakistan could be what clinched the issue in its favour. In February, Pakistan launched Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad, a plan that has as its objective, “indiscriminately eliminating the residual/latent threat of terrorism, consolidating the gains made in other military operations, and further ensuring the security of Pakistan’s borders” as per the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR). Ostensibly aimed at preventing Taliban elements from Afghanistan crossing into Pakistan, it also saw a slew of arrests of radical Islamic groups and preachers in Punjab and elsewhere.

Of course, India could continue to sneer and say that all this is part of Pakistani optics. But the fact is that as Pakistan heads for general elections (due in early 2018), a change of guard in the political establishment is inevitable. Observers see his brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif as succeeding him, with daughter Maryam Nawaz Sharif taking charge of the party. That is, assuming the fiercely independent Supreme Court of Pakistan does not intervene — orders in the Panamagate corruption case are reserved and could be made public any day. Coincidentally, Nawaz Sharif is reported to be suffering from stones in his kidney and is reportedly considering going to London for treatment.

In the circumstances, re-engagement with Islamabad before the end of the year cannot be ruled out. Unless Pakistan shoots itself in the foot again.