Modi, Sharif Met Secretly Last Year: Report

SRINAGAR: In a startling revelation, it has been disclosed that, away from the glare of TV cameras, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif held an hour-long secret meeting on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in Kathmandu last year.

These revelations have been made by well-known television journalist Barkha Dutt in her debut book, “This Unquiet Land — Stories from India’s Fault Lines”. 

Dutt has revealed that both leaders shared their constraints while agreeing they needed more time and greater political space to move forward with public engagements

The meeting was facilitated by Indian steel magnate Sajjan Jindal, who is the brother of former Congress MP Naveen Jindal who Dutt refers to a ‘covert bridge’ between the two leaders. And, because Jindal’s role was off the record, it came with plausible deniability.

Attempt by reporters to seek official reaction elicited no response as Ministry of external affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup, refused to comment.

 “ After the expectations mounted after the two Prime Minister’s meeting at Modi’s swearing in ceremony, they agreed that it could be useful to talk informally through a mutual acquaintance they both felt comfortable with.”

 “It was no secret that Indian steelmakers, both state and private players, were looking to foster friendly relations with Pakistan; they needed this to happen so they could ferry iron ore from Afghanistan by road across Pakistan from where it could be shipped to ports in western and southern India,” Dutt writes. But, Jindal’s ties with Sharif, she says, appeared to have gone beyond that of a businessman with the head of a government – and the two had become “confidantes” writes Dutt.

The proximity was at play in Kathmandu, where the Saarc summit was held on November 26 and 27. Modi called up Jindal from Nepal and asked him to take the earliest flight to Kathmandu. “Jindal was asked to discreetly reach out to his ‘friend’ across the border,” writes Dutt. The two leaders then met quietly “in the privacy of Jindal’s hotel room”, where they spent an hour together.

Both leaders articulated their respective difficulties in establishing impetus to the estranged relationship. According to Dutt, “Modi – hinting at the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir elections – indicated while he was keen, “circumstances” did not permit him to reopen formal and open channels. Sharif spoke about “constrictions” imposed on him by the security establishment and how his “negotiating power with the army had been gradually whittled away”.

The ice, however , was broken.

 “This under-the radar encounter paved the way for Modi to openly reach out to Sharif two months later through a phone call that was positioned as an innocuous good-luck call for the World Cup,” according to Dutt.

Dutt’s assertions  account reinforces a well-known fact — domestic politics of the countries  often determines the course of the fragile bilateral relationship.

In a related development, Sharif and Modi met briefly  on Monday in French capital during 21st session of the Conference of Parties or COP21, the global summit on climate change.

Spokesman Swarup told Indian media that there was only “exchange of courtesies”.

But, according to other reports, Prime Minister Sharif said that “talks with PM Narendra Modi were good. Doors of dialogue should open”.

According to Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, the head of LEAD-Pakistan, “I think the meeting just happened because they could not escape each other at the Paris summit and some well-wishers wanted them to meet and let out the steam given the recent tension between India and Pakistan. It doesn’t necessarily mean a breakthrough.”

The meeting took place when Mr Modi went to the lounge for visiting leaders and found Mr Sharif sitting there, according to a diplomatic source who witnessed the interaction.

Noticing Mr Sharif’s presence, Mr Modi walked up to him. The two leaders then warmly shook hands and sat next to each other and chatted for a while. No official delegates were present during the meeting.

Sharif told Modi that “We have lots of concerns in Pakistan about terrorist activities and that we need to talk about it”. It was a cordial chat, less than two minutes long and nothing of significance was discussed.

According to a Pakistani official present at the meeting, “For optics, it looked like PM Modi was more keen on talking and since he was the one who approached our PM, then maybe the India-Pak dialogue might just get back on track, given the recent halt in talks.” 

The two leaders last met on July 10 on the sidelines of SCO summit in the Russian city of Ufa during which they had agreed on a meeting of their national security advisers for discussing terrorism threats. But the meeting could not take place because of differences between the two sides over the agenda.

Mr Sharif and Mr Modi were together in New York during the UN General Assembly session in September, but only got to wave at each other and exchange smiles at the summit on peacekeeping. Ties between the two countries have mostly remained tense since Mr Modi came to power, except for when Mr Sharif travelled to Delhi to attend his inauguration.

While speculation is rife over the brief rendezvous, opinion is divided over its import. Some officials called it just a ‘chance meeting’, to others the brief talks between two prime ministers helped ease the tense atmospherics of bilateral relations.

While it would be too soon to infer the beginning of a broad based dialogue between the two countries, but the meeting and exchange of pleasantries suggests that Modi and Sharif’s personal relationship might be on an even keel. This can be ominous for relations between India and Pakistan. If both have appreciation of difficulties that they have domestically, potentially, the two can see eye to eye on a whole host of issues bedeviling the bilateral relationship.

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