A day after Pakistan expressed concern over attempts to disrupt functions involving prominent Pakistani persons, India on Tuesday hit out at the neighbouring nation for “lecturing” it on pluralism and tolerance. India asserted that non-practice of terrorism was central to the betterment of the Indo-Pak relationship than anything else.
“As if Pakistan is the embodiment of tolerance, pluralism and democracy. India does not need to take a lecture from Pakistan. If India has a shortcoming, it is capable of looking after it,” official sources said on Tuesday.
India’s reaction came on a statement by Pakistan Foreign Office in Islamabad: “We have noted with concern attempts to disrupt functions organised in respect of prominent Pakistani personalities (Gazal singer Ghulam Ali and ex-Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri) on visit to India…by fundamentalist organisations…There is a need to ensure that such incidents do not reoccur.”
India, on the other hand, sources said, has deep interest in sorting out crucial issues like terrorism with Pakistan first so that a conducive atmosphere is created for future engagements. Sources said after the release of Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Zakiur Rehman lakhvi, the sentiment was that it was very difficult to have talks with Pakistan when he is walking around free there. “Therefore, we needed some kind of serious discussion on terrorism and obviously the appropriate people were NSAs,” said sources.
India believes talks with Pakistan can only take place as per format decided at Ufa (Russia) which means the National Security Advisors talk first.
“There has to be a minimum basis for two parties to interact. A lot of what has not gone as per Ufa is because of Pakistan’s domestic politics.... They are also having some disturbance. There are non-elected players in play. The dynamics of it is both complicated and less transparent”, top sources said.
“The issue is that there has to be a recognition that terrorism cannot be an instrument of statecraft and you cannot say it was only Gurdaspur attack, why are you overreacting or an attack on BSF, why are you overreacting. It cannot be a routine way. There has to be recognition that non-practice of terrorism is central to the betterment of the relationship. One country cannot resort to terrorism as a way of pressurising the other. It is not asking for too much,” sources added.
“You cannot take away the centrality of terrorism in the current state of the relationship. They did not dispute it. But obviously their domestic politics took them in a different direction from the Ufa. Politics in some countries are not played only by politicians. We were
still open to having NSA-level talks and there was no lack of clarity on that,” sources said.
In the context of India’s objection to involving Hurriyat, sources said that India has an issue if the manner of consultation or interaction with the separatist was done in a manner where they are projected as a third party.
They added that Pakistan cannot continue to seek a similar stand from it forever as things change with context. “I may agree on one thing today but if the context changes I may not agree later. There still remains interest in NSA-level talks. But the problem is that when another party starts conditioning it, that it will only talk if they are allowed to meet Hurriyat then things do not move. Message is more important than the process,” sources said.