A handshake in Ufa

When leaders of two neighbouring countries meet - that is, shake hands – it is normally not a big enough story to trigger a string of headlines. But Pakistan and India are situated in a strange, perhaps jinxed, sphere. Many things have to happen before their leaders are brought together for a photo opportunity. In fact, an album of the leaders of Pakistan and India shaking hands across six decades would constitute a pictorial history of South Asia.
In any case, another photograph has been added to that album. Prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi shook hands in the Russian city of Ufa on Friday morning. And they had a meeting that lasted for an hour. There were handshakes that did not lead to a conversation.
In fact, there was this handshake in Kathmandu in 2002 that was very dramatic in its impact because one of them was deliberately avoiding it. The then president of Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf walked to the then prime minister of India Atal Behari Vajpayee and offered his hand on a stage where participants of the Saarc summit were seated. Vajpayee had no option but to rise and reciprocate. A handshake was born for the whole world to see. It was greeted with resounding applause.
There is a hint of an action replay in how Modi has conducted his diplomacy vis-a-vis Pakistan. He is a BJP leader like Vajpayee and his massive victory in 2014 elections was founded on his religio-military nationalism. During his campaign and after becoming prime minister, he has made some vicious statements against Pakistan. Vajpayee, too, had raised similar objections to stall the process of dialogue.
In recent months, the gulf between Pakistan and India had significantly widened. A belligerent environment has prevailed in which an early restoration of dialogue seemed improbable. It is against this background that a meeting in Ufa has materialised on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. Pakistan and India are now permanent members of SCO, a group dominated by Russia and China.
Naturally, what happened in Ufa will not stay in Ufa. Opposition leaders in Pakistan have reacted angrily to the joint statement that was issued after the meeting and to comments made by the officials on both sides. Remarks were made about the protocol of how Nawaz Sharif had to walk a distance to meet Modi who kept standing where he was. A more substantive objection was that Kashmir did not figure exclusively in the joint statement while a mention was made of the Mumbai attack.
In an immediate response, Senator Rehman Malik of the PPP said that Modi was disrespectful towards Sharif and that Modi’s approach was rude and undiplomatic. Not unexpectedly, Shireen Mazari of the PTI said that Sharif had ‘appeased’ India. We will have to wait and see how essentially welcome development plays out in domestic politics. So many different factors, including the resistible rise of anti-India tirade and the irresistible surge in the influence that is wielded by the military establishment, have to be taken into account.
What is incontrovertible, however, is that disputes between the two countries can only be resolved through a process of dialogue and the longer we wait for the two sides to build trust in each other, the more the people of the two countries suffer. If you scan the jingoist postures that were adopted by some high functionaries in India as well in Pakistan, you may wonder if it is possible for our leadership to be rational and realistic.
In his address to the SCO summit, Nawaz Sharif said something that is universally valid: “We must ensure regional stability and further economic integration to realise our goals. We must work together to mitigate differences, resolve outstanding disputes and create a favourable environment for the betterment of our peoples. This is how the Shanghai spirit will be fully realised”.
Interestingly, Modi may also face a similar backlash in India. I read this headline on the website of ‘Hindustan Times’: “PM Modi emulates Vajpayee, risks talks with Pakistan”. In his report from New Delhi, Vinod Sharma wrote: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a huge political risk in setting up a dialogue process with Islamabad without the latter cogently addressing New Delhi’s red lines on cross-border terrorism”.
Globally, of course, the resumption of a dialogue process between Pakistan and India will be gratefully welcomed. Already, the world is afflicted with grave crises – from the turmoil in Middle East to economic uncertainties in Europe. The possibility of a conflagration in South Asia is untenable. Hence, Pakistan and India may have been pushed into this handshake in Ufa. The US State Department’s spokesman put it well: “There is an awful lot of kids living in that part of the world who I think everybody wants to make sure they have a better future”.
As for the present state of affairs in Pakistan, we are in the midst of some very crucial encounters. The operation against terrorists and extremists is unfinished and doubts have been expressed about the implementation of the National Action Plan. Karachi is the major arena of activity. There are many unanswered questions about the evolution of civil-military relations.
In this respect, we may refer to the monthly monitor on civil-military relations prepared by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat). In its June monitor released this week, Pildat has identified Asif Zardari’s highly confrontational speech as the most significant event of the month. It said that renewed vigour observed in the Karachi operation had created several ruptures in the civil-military seams.
Another significant development, seen from the prism of civil-military relations, was the appearance of a banner on The Mall in Lahore pinning hopes of combating crime on the army chief, openly asking him: ‘Qadam baraho, hum tumhary sath hain’. This, Pildat noted, was part of the emerging trend in which the COAS was presented as a ‘saviour’ and the elected governments, including the prime minister and the chief ministers, are almost marginalised.
Incidentally, the banner in Lahore had appeared after Zardari’s speech on June 16 and may have been motivated by it. Another important event of June was the three-day visit of the COAS to Sri Lanka; Pildat said that it was yet another milestone in the developing trend of the growing international role of the army chief.
The question now is whether the military establishment approves of that handshake in Ufa and what it has set into motion. According to our spokesman, the prime ministers condemned terrorism in all its forms. This, at least, should be in accord with Operation Zarb-e-Azb. But there is so much else that will emerge in the process of the dialogue.
The writer is a staff member.
Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com