BY KULDIP NAYAR

INDIA and Pakistan are going more and more distant from each other. In any case, they have never been normal neighbours. But after the attack on Mumbai in November some 15 months ago, both are intentionally moving apart.

The détente is no more on their agenda. Recent talks between foreign secretaries of the two countries, more because of international pressure, have shown that they have no heart in normalising relations.

What has suffered the most in the process is the people-to-people contact. New Delhi and Islamabad have always paid lip sympathy to the concept. Now they are doing everything possible to dilute it, slashing the number of visas they issue and reducing the quantum of trade through the points at Wagah and Kashmir.

An academic conference at Delhi was abandoned because India did not give visas to some leading intellectuals from Pakistan. It was reportedly New Delhi’s retort to the denial of visas by Islamabad to India’s top professors. A couple from Karachi in the banking field rang me to complain that their application for a visa to India was rejected after months of consideration.

I know the credentials of academicians who were to visit India or Pakistan. They are at the top of their profession. By no stretch of imagination they are connected with the terrorists nor with the rhetoric the latter use. The only inference I can draw is that the two governments or, more so, bureaucrats on both sides are determined to see that even the limited contact becomes rare. Yet, these very bureaucrats, after retirement, will constitute Track II and meet outside their country at the expense of some western power and criticize their governments for spoiling mutual relations.

Cutting off Contact

Air India wound up this week even their depleted offices at Lahore and Karachi. When asked, the airlines said it was ‘an economy measure’. If any loss out of Rs 8000 crore the airlines bears every year is justified it is the one on the offices at Lahore and Karachi. Were Pakistan International Airlines to stop its reduced flights between Delhi and Lahore and Karachi, the connection between the two countries would be through the exasperating Samjhotha Express and the unending journey by bus. What an average person goes through in a train or bus is nothing less than a hell. Still both governments do not stop saying that people-to-people contact must improve. How? Whatever is there, it is because of the people themselves.

I recall the conversation I had with the late Benazir Bhutto some years ago. I was visiting Lahore then and she was leading the movement for Restoration of Democracy. She told me that the governments in the two countries would never be able to normalise relations but if ever it were to occur, it would be because of the people. Mr Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s Prime Minister at that time, was equally emphatic on the role of people. Yet I have wondered why he does not say anything positive on the Indo-Pak relations.

Vested Interests

My guess is that the Pakistan establishment, including the military, is against any kind of rapprochement with India because they have developed a vested interest in the status quo. This is probably the reason why the President, Mr Asif Zardari, an outsider for the establishment, has become silent after expressing pro-India sentiments in public.

In India, the hawks, mostly retired foreign service hands, are so vociferous in their criticism–they are encouraged by leading TV networks–that the puny efforts the government tries to make gets stalled in the tracks.

It is an open secret that Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh wants to settle all differences between the two countries once and for all. Former National Secretary Adviser, Mr Narayanan was always in the way of any move that the Prime Minister would contemplate. Present National Secretary Advisor Mr Menon, who has served in Pakistan as Indian’s High Commissioner, believes in conciliation. But he too is afraid to annoy the Indian establishment which is largely a caucus of retired civil and military officials. The Pakistan spokesman has said that they would not take part in the talks if they were ‘meaningful’. Foreign Minister, Mr Qureshi has also said that it was no use having talks for the sake of talks. This is an erroneous fallacy because the very fact of having talks is a positive step.

I fear that the atmosphere of deep estrangement built at Delhi after Pakistan crowded it out from playing any role in Afghanistan may sour relations still further.

Islamabad’s induction of Gulbuddin Yar, who led the movement against the Soviet Union on Afghanistan in the early eighties, is telling upon Indo-Pak relations. He is regarded as an anti-India force. I met him at Peshawar when he was in the midst of his jihad against ‘Russian infidels’. He was critical of New Delhi tilt towards Moscow. One remark that I distinctly remember is that the more India went closer to Afghanistan the less credible its credentials would be with Pakistan.

Reaching Out

Now that the US has recognised the ‘strategic’ interests of Pakistan in Afghanistan, it is time that New Delhi directly talked to Islamabad on Kabul. That Afghanistan is an independent country and should remain so is not a matter of negotiation. What can India and Pakistan discuss is the increased pressure the Taliban would come to put on Afghanistan once the US forces quit.

Pakistan should be able to appreciate India’s role better because the fury of the Taliban would be hard to check. It has experienced the Taliban effect in the Swat Valley. Fundamentalism, like terrorism, has to be fought tooth and nail, without any compromise. The Taliban may have India as their target but before hitting at it, they would have to create a favourable ground in Pakistan. Their bomb blasts in practically every city of Pakistan makes clear that they want their version of Islam to take over.

If this were to happen, as a top intellectual at Islamabad warned me, that people in lakhs would cross into India. It is a scary scenario but not an impossible one. New Delhi and Islamabad have to sit across the table to bury the hatchet, not with the purpose of scoring points but with honest endeavour to find a solution. Tilting towards Saudi Arabia, as India is doing, or tilting towards Iran, as Pakistan is doing, is alright in terms of tactics. They do not provide the sinews for a settlement. India and Pakistan have to sort out things between themselves. People-to-People contact is a sure way to reach that destination. When Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister, Mr Yousuf Reza Gilani meet at the SAARC Summit in April, they should ponder over the concrete steps to expand people-to-people contact.