IN THE PM'S DEFENCE

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has had a torrid couple of weeks. Ever since he inked that ill-fated joint statement in Sharm El-Sheikh, Manmohan Singh has been shredded to bits. By the opposition, by the media and worse, by his own partymen. It’s almost as if the genial Sardar has bartered away India’s sovereignty. That all honour and pride were sacrificed, because Pakistan got away with two phrases more.

For far too long, our foreign policy has been guided by narrow mindedness and petty point scoring. It doesn’t really matter where the commas and full stops are in a joint statement. Nor does it matter if India won the Yekaterinburg round and Pakistan made it even stevens with Sharm El Sheikh.

Little men are guided by timidity. Great nations thrive on courage. India is a country standing at the cusp of greatness. We cannot afford to be seen as timid and petty. We need to look at the larger picture. And the larger picture is that India needs to take the initiative in being the dominant player in South Asia. For which we need to ensure a stable South Asia. And that cannot happen if India and Pakistan, the region’s two biggest nations, behave like adolescent fighter-cocks, always at each other’s throats. It can only be achieved by sitting down and talking, through civilized dialogue. We need to think big, think bold.

That’s what Lincoln did. That’s what Gandhi did. And the world remembers them for precisely that. Because in their most difficult moments, they did not shy away. They didn’t buckle. They did not settle for less. India cannot settle for less.

Look at Barack Obama. Here’s a man who’s willing to talk to a country like Iran. A country, which just a few years ago, his predecessor had bracketed in the ‘Axis of Evil’. Today, Obama is not just willing to talk to Iran, he’s even done something that no US President has ever had the spinal cord to do. Apologize for past ills which the US has inflicted on the Muslim world. Because Obama realizes that history cannot bind you from moving ahead. History cannot hinder you from charting a new course. Manmohan Singh knows this too. He knows that India’s path to greatness will only clear if we resolve our disputes with our neighbours. And our dispute with Pakistan tops that list.

Look at China. President Hu Jintao has sorted out every land dispute China has had with its neighbours, (and there are more than 15 of them) save the one with India. Forget about ASEAN and Shanghai Co-operation, where China is the most dominant player already, today there’s talk of a G2. Just China and the United States. India, at the same time, is still stuck in the diplomacy of the seventies.

By de-linking terror and talks, the PM has only done the most sensible thing. That is to not hold the composite dialogue hostage to each and every terrorist attack. It was almost like an on-off button. Every time there was a terror strike, the first casualty would be the dialogue process. Not that suspending the dialogue every time decreased terrorism directed against India. It’s not like we had great leverage with Pakistan in the first place, just because terror and talks were linked.

After the Mumbai attacks, India received a lot of sympathy. And we have used that to the hilt to squeeze Pakistan as much as we can. But there’s only so much sympathy can buy. You can’t keep playing victim all the time. Coercive diplomacy comes with a use-by-date. Civilized nations talk. And that’s all India and Pakistan agreed to do, in Sharm El-Sheikh.

The other big brouhaha was created over the reference to Balochistan. The Leader of the Opposition says, this will haunt us for the rest of time. I don’t know what we’re so afraid of. Great nations don’t run away from the truth, however uncomfortable it may be. They confront it. All that the PM has said is this, “Ok Mr. Gilani, I understand your concerns on Balochistan. Give me evidence of Indian involvement and we are prepared to talk about it.” That doesn’t mean we have readily admitted that we’re fawning terror in Balochistan.

The onus now is on the Pakistanis to prove that India is interfering in Balochistan. And trust me, in the world of covert intelligence these things are as hard to prove as walking on water. Manmohan Singh is a sensible man. He’s not the type who’ll play darts blindfolded.

Yes, agreed there are vested interests in Pakistan that don’t want us to talk. Just like there are vested interests in India which don’t want us to talk. The Army and intelligence establishment in Pakistan are only interested in fanning passions between India and Pakistan. It’s critical to their existence. We need to fight those vested interests. The same interests which are inimical to Pakistan are inimical to India too. The Good Doctor understands this. He wants to break away from 62 years of low trickery and petty pin-pricks. For once, let us give him the benefit of doubt.