A brief stopover may lead to lasting peace

Ashok K Mehta

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's drop-by diplomacy in Lahore has set a new paradigm in summitry: doing away with sherpas. It is designed to catalyse the peace process, grounded over ego and who sets the agenda. The argument over terrorism or Kashmir first is not a new one, though this is the first time any Indian  Government took a stand on terrorism first. No one, though, has explained adequately how the India-Pakistan dialogue process, stalled since the beheading of an Indian soldier on the LoC in January 2013, was revived in a matter of six days following the three-minute meeting between Prime Ministers Modi and Sharif on the sidelines of the Climate Change summit at Paris on November 30. 

India was forced into taking the initiative for restoring the dialogue process having cancelled twice in full media glare, scheduled meetings first between Foreign Secretaries and then the National Security Advisers (NSAs). The hurried ice-breaker at Bangkok was imperative for enabling External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's passage to Islamabad for the Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan on December 8 and 9. It was vital that  Swaraj attend the conference as Pakistan has invariably questioned New Delhi's legitimacy as a stakeholder, saying it is not even a neighbour of Afghanistan. The Pakistan army has apparently relented so long as New Delhi confines its activities to economic and development programmes. 

The security situation has plummeted so rapidly in Afghanistan after the strategic debacle at Konduz that US, in order to make a clean exit, is relying entirely on Pakistan to restore the reconciliation process between Kabul and the Taliban. On the sidelines of the Heart of Asia conference, US, Pakistan, China and Afghanistan discussed the urgency of restoring the failed Murree talks of last July. India has regularly pointed to the anomalies of the reconciliation process, most significantly making it Pakistan-led and Pakistan-owned whereas it should be Kabul-led and Kabul-owned. The emerging geostrategic battleground is Afghanistan, where both US and China are clearly batting for Pakistan's primacy not just in the reconciliation dialogue but also in a post-conflict scenario. As Afghanistan is India's western strategic anchor, it has to hang in and ensure the transformation process is not hogged by Islamabad. At the Heart of Asia conference, Swaraj announced that India (after a decade of dithering) had decided to strengthen Afghanistan's defence capabilities. Recent events in Afghanistan, along with Narendra Modi's first visit to Kabul on Christmas Day, his historic speech in Afghanistan's new Parliament built by India in which he said we will not compete with Pakistan and   his touchdown at Lahore will help in accelerating the revival of the India-Pakistan peace process. 

Regardless of the ungenerous remarks by sections of the media and government about Track II institutions, it can be affirmed that these have played a substantive and positive role in shaping decisions on normalisation of relations. They have by and large kept pace with  policy outcomes and in the case of CBMs been way ahead of governments. Take the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung-sponsored India-Pakistan dialogue: “How to Transform the Process,” held at Bangkok in October 2015. This  dialogue started after the attack on Parliament and has continued uninterrupted. The constant but elusive factor in any India-Pakistan accident-prone Track I dialogue is how to insulate the process from spoilers and make it outcome-oriented. No mechanism exists at Track I to ensure this. Between 2004 and 2008, four-and-a-half rounds of the Composite Dialogue were held, with the fifth round slated in Pakistan when 26/11 happened and dialogue was stopped. In 2010, talks restarted as Resumed Dialogue and two-and-a-half rounds were held till the beheading of an Indian soldier on the LoC in January 2013 again stopped the dialogue.

At the Bangkok Track II dialogue, both sides focussed on the central issue of breaking the stalemate over sequencing of talks and assuaging each country's core concerns over terrorism and Kashmir and India's insistence on discussing terrorism first. The Bangkok statement called for both core concerns to be discussed simultaneously, even if optically they were sequential. While the dialogue process required a changed narrative to transform the process, some of it should be back channelled, it was recommended. 

Following the Track I at Bangkok on  December 6, the transformed dialogue process is named Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue. It followed the principle of simultaneity and segregation and was back channel. While terrorism is in a standalone basket overseen by NSAs, Kashmir and other old and new issues are in the second basket, handled by Foreign Secretaries and relevant government officials. 

So far, it is a win-win situation, resulting from one of the fastest transformative processes in the history of India-Pakistan dialogue process.  It is a pity that Afghanistan, which is currently the pivotal issue which India had long sought to be added as the ninth item on the Composite Dialogue, has not found a place in the Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue. New Delhi must try to have it included at the Foreign Secretary talks on January 15-16, 2016 at Islamabad even if it requires to be  bracketed with Balochistan. 

One reason for optimism on the transformed dialogue process is that the Pakistan army is believed to be on board. Almost no one in Pakistan is contradicting this assumption which makes strategic sense, though Inter-Services Public Relations is silent on the new arrangement. The appointment of Lt Gen (retired) Nasir Khan Janjua, known to be General Raheel Sharif's man, as the new NSA is offered as evidence that the army will not rock the boat. Red lines if any marked by him will not be known anytime soon.

 New Delhi has racked its brains over opening a legitimate and democratic line to the Pakistan army. Whether this is a good enough mechanism to help understand the thinking of the Pakistan army, only time will tell. General Raheel Sharif is the ultimate arbiter of India-Pakistan relations and after subduing terrorism in Pakistan, a hugely popular man. 'Thank you Raheel Sharif' posters adorn army cantonments. His veiled criticism of the government failing to follow up with civilian sector reforms after the success of his counter-terrorism drive drew this response: "The military must remain within the ambit of the constitution". As an afterthought, ISPR added: “General Sharif supports democracy unwaveringly”. Narendra Modi's spectacular personal diplomacy has at once silenced the critics of his flawed Pakistan policy. By his bold, courageous and impromptu Confidence-building measure (CBM) at Lahore, he has raised expectations about his neighbourhood-first policy, adding a local flavour: "Ab to yahaan aana jaana rahega". He has taken a big risk that could go either way. Still 20 months were lost pursuing an illusory muscular policy.

The writer is covenor of the India-Pakistan Track II and the India-Afghanistan Policy  Group.