The Hindu : Recast the policy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 10, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Recast the policy

WHILE SEVERAL INTERLOCUTORS have repeatedly urged New Delhi to look beyond the one-point focus of its Pakistan policy, there has as yet been no sign that the country's foreign policy establishment has recognised that its argument, that infiltration from across the western border must be ended before a dialogue is initiated, is not appreciated by the larger part of the global community. Any hope that New Delhi might have entertained — that it would eventually succeed in isolating Pakistan from the rest of the global community and thereby pressure Islamabad to crack down more effectively on cross-border terror — has been struck a fresh blow by the latest message from the U.S. State Department delivered through its Director, Policy Planning Staff, Richard N. Haass. The message was that India and Pakistan should realise that their interests would be better served if they would remove the pre-conditions for a dialogue. While the statement was directed at both New Delhi and Islamabad, it is not possible to miss the underlying message that India should no longer expect Washington to throw its weight behind the proposition that an end to cross-border infiltration is a non-negotiable pre-condition. The U.S. would indeed appear to have further opened up the space between its approach and that of India since it is no longer coupling its advocacy of a dialogue with an assessment of its own that infiltration has decreased. When it states that it will continue to urge Islamabad to end the infiltration, Washington clearly recognises that such infiltration has not abated and yet it has become the more insistent on the need for a dialogue. Others do not appear to view India's insistence on a single spectrum demand, even as it ignores opportunities that may be available, as a sign of strength but rather as a sign of immaturity.

New Delhi should have understood by now, without the need for the advice proffered by the U.S., that a policy cannot consist of a demand or a set of demands alone. It ought to have been able to conceptualise a policy that takes note of the potentialities that do exist in the current situation. At the least, New Delhi should have explored these potentialities to ascertain whether India's long-term objectives can be promoted through a dialogue with Pakistan. Most significant of the new potentialities created is the installation of a civilian Cabinet in Pakistan. It may well be that the civilian Cabinet will not display much flexibility in its approach since it is too beholden to the Pakistan military which is inherently hostile to India. But is it in India's interest to act as if this proposition will hold for a long time to come and is it even possible to know the validity of this proposition without testing it? After all, successive civilian Governments in Pakistan have fallen out with the military and, for the most part, have displayed a less antagonistic attitude towards India the more estranged they have been from their armed forces. It is important to note in this context that the first message to India from the elected Pakistan Cabinet was about the need for friendly relations.

In urging India to take note of other aspects of the current situation, Washington has pointedly described as positive the assistance that Islamabad has provided to it in the war against global terror. This is as clear a refutation as there ever can be of New Delhi's argument that Pakistan has become, not just a sponsor of, but in fact the epicentre of international terrorism. Washington in pursuit of its own agenda has declined to categorise Pakistan in the manner desired by India even while it acknowledged that Islamabad had failed to put an end to cross-border infiltration — this failure was killing Pakistan's hopes of a settlement on Kashmir, Mr. Haass noted. The time would appear to have arrived for New Delhi to acknowledge that given the various interests and concerns that come into play, its efforts to isolate Pakistan from the global community are not likely to succeed and that it should, therefore, take a serious look at other policy options.

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