The party has not been able to firm up its stand on Narendra Modi’s invite to Nawaz Sharif. It simultaneously welcomes the initiative and questions it. It almost seems like Congress leaders desperately want the new Government to fail
Just as nobody in the Congress seems to know what precisely led to their rout in the lok Sabha election, they do not know what exactly they are opposed to in Mr Narendra Modi’s invite to SAARC leaders, including Mr Nawaz Sharif, to attend his swearing-in ceremony. Are they speaking against the decision to reach out to a troublesome neighbour in a bid to open a channel of communication with two recently elected leadersIJ Or are they carping because none of them had the imagination to suggest to their leadership in 2004 and 2009 what Mr Modi has managed on the very first day he officially takes over on May 26 — a galaxy of leaders from South Asia in attendanceIJ
Mr Manish Tewari, who is back in circulation after having escaped a drubbing in the election simply because he had chickened out of the contest, is tauntingly asking the Prime Minister-elect if this is the latter’s interpretation of ‘terror and talks cannot go together’ line that Mr Modi had taken during election campaigning. Poor Mr Tewari is caught in a time warp. The election is done with and the Congress has been walloped. It’s time to move on. But how can he and his party, which are still stuck to the ‘Gujarat 2002’ lament, manage the miracleIJ
In any case, where is Mr Modi engaging in ‘talks’ with Mr Sharif while Pakistan continues to foment terrorIJ An invitation to attend a ceremony does not equal a structured or composite dialogue. The idea was that Mr Sharif and Mr Modi will exchange pleasantries and perhaps share thoughts on a few not-very-contentious issues. Both would get to know each other better (and that’s important since both have firm and somewhat preconceived opinions) and prepare the ground for greater engagement in the future. But that’s where it would end for now. Any substantial talk with Pakistan will depend on the deliverables on the ground. The Congress-led regime of Mr Manmohan Singh spoke tough at times but always acted meekly. After the atrocities along the line of Control where an Indian soldier was beheaded, Mr Singh had sternly warned that there would no longer be “business as usual” with the neighbour. But it was business as usual soon enough. This will change.
Mr Modi has opted for a sensible course. He has begun on a soft note, leaving the scope open to scale up aggression if the occasion later demands. There is no percentage in talking tough, and then, thereafter, running around with the tail between the legs, as the Congress-led UPA regime did for most of the time it managed bilateral relations with Islamabad.
Mr Salman Soz of the Congress was as confused as Mr Tewari had been on the issue. On a television channel on Thursday, he began by questioning the invite because he found Mr Modi’s action hypocritical, and ended up with welcoming it. When the anchor repeatedly questioned him on his conflicting stand, Mr Soz turned around and began to heap insinuations at the anchor. He liberally used words such as “duplicitous”, not realising that they seemed to fit his conduct better. Perhaps he forgot that his Government had gone out of the way to officially host Pakistan’s then Prime Minister when the latter was on a purely personal visit to India, on a pilgrimage — and that too at a time when tempers were running high in the backdrop of increased violations of the ceasefire agreement along the loC, besides other issues.
Mr Soz took strong offence at the suggestion by co-panelists and even the anchor that Mr Manmohan Singh had gone ridiculously overboard during his tenure as Prime Minister to strike a deal with Pakistan so that he could be in contention for the Nobel Peace Prize. Mr Soz was upset that Mr Singh’s motives were being questioned. He quickly forgot that he was doing just that with Mr Modi’s invite. Moreover, he should have realised that substantial achievement does not ensure a Nobel award; less deserving people have got it. Mr Barack Obama is a good example of that. Therefore, it will be no wonder if some day the Nobel jury wakes up to award Mr Singh for work he has not done.
It is entirely possible, given the Congress’s desperation in the wake of the massive defeat it has suffered, that the party would like any initiative the Modi Government takes to improve relations between India and Pakistan, to fail. After all, it would be seen to lose face if Mr Modi, of all people, succeeds where the Singh regime, prodded by the party’s ‘great’ leaders like Ms Sonia Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi, failed spectacularly. Suggest this possibility to Congressmen and you will hear howls of protest from them. They will accuse you of doubting their commitment to the national cause. But, if that is not the case, why have they begun questioning Mr Modi over a move they should have unequivocally, unambiguously and without a caveat welcomedIJ
The problem is that the Congress is still unable to come to terms with its Government’s failure to break fresh ground with Islamabad. Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s lahore bus journey had been a landmark event. There is no doubt that subsequent events destroyed the good work that gone into mending the relationship, but no bipartisan observer has blamed or will blame the Vajpayee regime for the collapse of relations post-Kargil. Pakistan not only lost the Kargil conflict, it also lost the goodwill of the Indian people and became a laughing stock worldwide.
Regardless of what the future holds for India-Pakistan ties in Mr Modi’s tenure, the invitation surely pushed Mr Sharif to take a position in the world’s full glare. That it took him several nerve-wrenching hours to make up his mind, while most other SAARC leaders were quick to confirm their presence, demonstrates that the Pakistani Prime Minister is not entirely his own man — though he desperately wants to be. Powerful elements in his Army, conditioned to always suspect and even hate India, and the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate which survives on conflict with New Delhi, ensured that the decision to attend did not come spontaneously.
In this case, hate-India elements did not have to only consider an offer from New Delhi but also one from a man named Modi. Much of the media and public opinion in Pakistan, as a respected Pakistani columnist wrote recently in a leading English national daily, is shaped by the inputs that the anti-Modi media back in India transports to Pakistan. There is no first-hand understanding among many opinion-makers in Pakistan of Mr Modi. Either they do not have access to independent stuff or they are simply happy with the distorted material they are supplied with. So, Mr Modi has remained for many Pakistani people an ‘anti-Muslim’ personality who is out to ‘destroy’ Pakistan.
But the excuse of a similar wrong perception does not hold for the Congress. Therefore, it must rise above scoring petty political points, more so since the election is over. The BJP and Mr Modi had slammed the Congress-led regime for its weak-kneed policy on Pakistan; they had never demanded a break in the bilateral relationship. What Mr Modi has done is to give peace a chance — like Mr Vajpayee had.