Kartarpur politics

The Kartarpur corridor should have transcended the usual power politics between Pakistan and India. Here was a good-faith effort to make life easier for the thousands of Sikh pilgrims who visit Pakistan on an annual pilgrimage. But India has been determined to hold even something as uncontroversial as this hostage to its desire to keep Pakistan as isolated as possible. The Indian government, in fact, had made clear its intention to do so from the very beginning. When Pakistan invited Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to attend the inauguration of the Kartarpur corridor, she brusquely turned the invitation down while the Indian army chief thought that would be an appropriate occasion to say his country could never negotiate with Pakistan until the country became a secular state.

Now India is at it again. Earlier this week, Pakistan shared a draft agreement on the Kartarpur corridor and invited India to come to Pakistan to negotiate the fine print. Instead of responding, India issued an invitation of its own, setting specific dates when Pakistani officials should come to Delhi. This posturing is absurd. Kartarpur is located in Pakistan and India should either agree to visit for talks or say it has no interest in any kind of negotiations, even over something as apolitical as easier travel for pilgrims. To resort to these power plays is, as the Foreign Office said on Thursday, childish.

The Modi government has rigidly stuck to its line that Pakistan is a terroristic state with whom there can be no negotiation. At the same time, it does not want to be blamed by the Sikh population for blowing up an initiative that has nothing to do with the issues that separate the two countries. It is thus trying to undermine the Kartarpur corridor without having to admit doing so. This disingenuousness is something we have come to expect from Modi but that makes it no less unfortunate. Pakistan should still commit itself to peace, as indeed the government has done with repeated assertions of its desire to sit down and talk to India, but it needs to continue doing so without letting the Modi government play games. Even without India’s cooperation, it is still a good idea to facilitate the travel of Sikh pilgrims in itself. But we should not fool ourselves into thinking that these initiatives will work at softening the Modi government.