B.RAMAN
Pakistani media reports on the meeting between our
Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari in
the margins of the NAM summit in Tehran on August 29,2012, are tinged with
ill-concealed disappointment over the perceived reluctance of our Prime
Minister to make a definitive commitment over a possible visit by him to
Pakistan.
2. A few weeks ago Mr Zardari was reported to have
written to Dr.Manmohan Singh inviting him to visit the Sikh holy shrines in and
around Lahore coming November.
3. According to reliable Pakistani sources, no
formal reply to the invitation has so far gone to Islamabad from New Delhi.
Pakistani leaders were hoping that some positive indications of a likely
acceptance of the invitation might be forthcoming during the meeting between
the two leaders in Tehran.
4. The indications from New Delhi before our Prime
Minister’s departure for Tehran that India would not be taking up with Pakistan
the allegations of a possible Pakistani State role in the dissemination through
the cyber space of exaggerated and false
accounts of the recent anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar and India with the help
of morphed images and creation of feelings of nervousness and panic among the
people from India’s North-East living in South India and Pune added to the
Pakistani hopes of a positive reply from our Prime Minister.
5. Before the Prime Minister’s departure for Tehran,
sections of the Indian media had carried what appeared to be authoritative though
unattributed reports that Dr.Manmohan Singh would not raise this issue with
Mr.Zardari for want of evidence regarding any role of the Pakistani State in
the dissemination.
6. This lowered the somewhat high temperature
created following briefings that had earlier come from officials of the Ministry
of Home Affairs of the Government of India insinuating a possible role of the
Pakistani State agencies.
7.According to Pakistani journalists who had
accompanied Mr.Zardari to Tehran, Dr.Manmohan Singh confined himself to
reiterating the importance of early and satisfactory prosecution of the master
conspirators of the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai now facing trial before a
special anti-terrorism tribunal in Rawalpindi. He was reported to have stated
that effective action by Pakistan to take the trial to its logical conclusion
would be an important confidence-building measure.
8. While Pakistani sources describe the atmosphere
during the discussions as good, there is a disappointment over the continuing
reluctance of the Prime Minister to
visit Pakistan. It is stated that while keeping open the possibility of
a visit at an appropriate time, Dr. Manmohan Singh was disinclined to give definitive
indications of dates.
9.According to reliable Pakistani sources,
Dr.Manmohan Singh was a little more cautious than he was during the visit of
Mr.Zardari to Delhi in April last on the question of a possible visit by him to
Pakistan.
10. Despite the implication of Pakistani state
agencies by Abu Jundal, the Indian terrorist belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba,
who had played a role in the orchestration from Karachi of the 26/11 terrorist
strikes, there has been no negative factors of a serious nature in the
bilateral relations since Mr.Zardari’s visit.
11. If reports from my Pakistani sources of an extra-cautious
Dr.Manmohan Singh on the question of a visit to Pakistan are correct, it is my
assessment that this could not be due to any fresh negative factors in the
bilateral relations. This could be more due to the fact that the Congress Party
is toying with the idea of mid-term polls either this year-end or in the beginning
of next year.
12. In the calculations of the Congress Party, simultaneous polls to the Lok
Sabha and the Gujarat Assembly would keep Shri Narendra Modi, the Chief
Minister of Gujarat, bottled up in Gujarat and come in the way of his playing
an active role in the campaign in the rest of India. Early mid-term polls would
also prevent Anna Hazare and his followers from politically organising
themselves.
13. If the Congress decides in favour of mid-term
polls, any new initiative in Indo-Pakistan relations such as a visit to
Pakistan by the Prime Minister could prove unwise and counter-productive.
14. Hence, the Prime Minister’s reported extra
caution during his talks with Mr.Zardari in Tehran. ( 30-8-12)
(The writer
is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi,
and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate
of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter @SORBONNE75)
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