Modi, Sharif Chemistry

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif are said to have secretly met for an hour on the sidelines of SAARC summit in Kathmandu last year. The meeting took place at a hotel owned by an Indian businessman. The leaders reportedly discussed their respective domestic constraints in pushing for a dialogue. The understanding achieved at the meeting is thought to have paved the way for the subsequent breakthrough in Ufa, enabling the two countries to fix dates to resume talks. But again New Delhi’s redlines on Pakistan ‘s  prior consultation with Hurriyat and the discussion on Kashmir forced the last minute cancellation of the scheduled NSA level talks in August. Earlier, the talks between foreign secretaries had broken down over similar pre-conditions. Though a two-minute Modi-Sharif meeting at Paris has raised hopes of a fresh shot at dialogue,  the record of the past two years acts as a dampener. It is now clear that unless the neighbours find a way to get round New Delhi’s redlines on Hurriyat and Kashmir, there is little hope for the talks to resume. As of now, India has given little indication that it is willing to revisit the pre-conditions. After dramatically cancelling the talks twice over  Pakistan’s meetings with Hurriyat, Modi government can hardly afford to concede on the issue. Similarly, India will find it difficult to make space for Kashmir on the table after having insisted that only terrorism would be discussed. And as is only to be expected, an engagement on such terms would be pointless for Pakistan. Such an engagement will be geared to address only the issues of concern to New Delhi. And given the nature of political discourse around terrorism, a dialogue focused entirely on tackling and controlling the menace will hardly be adequately satisfying to New Delhi to pave the way for a discussion on Kashmir. This makes the prospect of the resumption of dialogue even more bleak. For to get back to the engagement, either of the governments will have to back down on their respective position, something that will make them look capitulatory to their people. And this neither can afford, least of all Modi, who has built a substantial part  of his support base on Pakistan bashing.

But given the fraught nature of their current relations, the two countries, sooner or later, will have little option but to resume  talks. The neighbours need some basic relations to institute some crisis tools to resolve an extraordinary situation arising out of a big terror incident or the escalation on the borders. This calls for the two countries to find a way to get around their existing irreconcilable differences to re-engage. And this also calls for the reframing of their dialogue away from its current goal of one-upmanship between the countries to a good faith pursuit of the resolution of the long festering issues.  There is thus a need for a fundamental change in the approach. The  fresh  effort  at reconciliation, if and when it is undertaken, would greatly benefit if it is pursued for  its intended goal and as far  as  reasonably  possible  kept  undistracted  by  the  efforts  toderail  it.  Only such an outcome is a guarantee of a sustainable peace in the region, not the recurrent lapse into hostility. There is no other way to put the demons of a bitter history to rest.

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