Mahmood Kasuri might have remained on its toes throughout his tenure since according to the erstwhile Foreign Minister, things used to be done quite practically on a constant footing with focus on threadbare and thorough discussions described as “point by point, coma by coma” by Kasuri. And it comes as a pleasant surprise to everyone that all these incessant activities were aimed at finding workable solutions, that too for the deadliest of the deadlocks (Kashmir etc) that had plunged the two countries in war hysteria ever since partition (division of undivided India).
It is after a long time that I’ve started reading (and analysing) books of this genre and scale. It is somewhat reminiscent of the good old days when I got an opportunity to go through another sagacious foreign minister’s book. I’m referring to ‘White House Years’ by Henry Kissinger. While no comparison between the two is intended (for the primary reason of my limited intellect), the one written by Mian Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri, is no small an endeavour on the canvas of relations between two states that remained hostage to hard-line standpoints, even violence for decades.
And if Kasuri managed to do some measure of fire-fighting in this hostility-laden ambience, it is a remarkable feat in the realm of diplomacy particularly because nowadays securing peace without invoking the leverage of global powers or militarily strong states is improbable. It is rather one and only such example in the recent history of diplomacy.
I fully agree with FM Kasuri that personalised ties among leaders and diplomats do have a role to play in softening the hardened standpoints. It is just akin to the Informal and Formal Organization or Governance that is taught in high-class administrative science academies of the world. The path-finding undertaken by Kasuri during his tenure with an air of autonomy and independence (of the FM that too under a military ruler) surely exemplifies this Informal, Path-finding Diplomacy (IPD). Try this IPD elsewhere and rid the country of IEDs of different intensities and ranges.
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