Pakistan and India urged to begin talking ‘in right earnest’

Mani Shankar says it’s easiest for his country to talk to Pakistan due to cultural and linguistic oneness

Karachi

Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Indian consul-general in Karachi and currently a member of the Rajya Sabha, has stressed the need for both Pakistan and India to put aside their differences and begin talking in right earnest about the solutions to the problems dogging both countries’ relations.

Of all the countries, it was easiest to talk to Pakistan because of the cultural and linguistic oneness, he said while addressing members of the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) on Wednesday evening on India’s foreign policy. 

As could have been expected, the lecture turned into Indo-Pak ties even though he was to talk about the Indian foreign policy in general.

Aiyar said: “It would be foolish to have cordial relations with Paraguay and just ignore Pakistan.”

Putting aside official business, Indians and Pakistani diplomats were the best of friends and on most informal terms with each other, he added. 

He said Indian movies were really popular in Pakistan just as Pakistani TV plays and theatrical groups were so popular in India. He talked of “soft targets” like Bollywood which could go a long way in bringing about a rapprochement between the two countries.

In reply to a question, Aiyar said the four points that had been discussed on Kashmir during Pervez Musharraf’s tenure were: 1) there would be no independent Jammu and Kashmir; 2) that the Line of Control (LoC) would be made “relevant” with the inhabitants of both sides free to travel to either side and continue trade between the two parts; 3) that the armies would pull out of both India-held Kashmir and Azad Kashmir; 4) however, on the fourth point, the Indian side had reservations on account of which talks couldn’t reach fruition. The Indian side, he said, wanted firm assurances on various issues like Siachen, Sir Creek and terrorism. 

He acknowledged that no talks with Pakistan had succeeded. At the end of the day, he said, one had to take a moral decision rather than a practical one.

“Let’s have talks at the Wagah- Attari border just the way the South Koreans and their northern counterparts have them at the armistice village of Panmunjom.”

The Indian parliamentarian was of the opinion that Pakistan would have lot to do to banish terrorism.

In reply to a questioner’s apprehensions about Indian plans to break up Pakistan, he said he just could not agree. He posed the questioner a counter-question: “What will India gain by taking on 200 million angry Pakistanis? How will that benefit India?”

When a questioner asked him if he foresaw a marked improvement in ties between the two countries in his lifetime, he replied half in jest and half very profoundly, “You see I am already 75 years old and so I don’t think I have much time ahead of me to see that stage in our relations.”

He quoted the normalisation of ties with China over Arunachal Pradesh and other outstanding issues, and queried as to why such a thing could not take place in case of Pakistan.

Talking about the Indian foreign policy in general, he said that contrary to belief, Joseph Stalin was not convinced that India was independent in the real sense of the word.

He said that as such when Vijay Lakshmi Pundit, prime minister Nehru’s sister, was sent as ambassador to Moscow, Stalin just sent a junior minister to receive her. However, when Bulganin and Khrushchev came to power, things changed and they gave all-out preference to India.

He said the break for India to matter in world affairs came with India being appointed chairman of the repatriation for North and South Koreas immediately after the Korean War and later when it was appointed chairman of the Laos-Cambodia committee.

He said the foreign policy would have to change over time while still retaining the Gandhian principles of morality, alongside practical realities.

Most of his lecture was a lengthy treatise on the history of the British empire and British India, narrating Thomas Babington McAulay’s concept of domination of India, Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement and the Jallianwala Bagh incident. 

He also narrated the proposal by Muhammad Ali Jinnah at the Congress session of 1916 which brought about separate electorates.