New Delhi would have been happy to work with any democratically elected leader at the helm of Pakistan. But there is a special expectation from Mr Nawaz Sharif, who is poised for a third (hopefully complete, this time around) term as Prime Minister.
This expectation derives from the apparently sincere efforts which he made during his last tenure in 1999 to seek normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan. The lahore Declaration which he had signed along with his Indian counterpart Atal Bihari Vajpayee was an important step in that direction. His open annoyance at the Kargil conflict — engineered, he said, behind his back by his Army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, and his (aborted) move to sack the latter as a consequence — indicated that Mr Sharif was deeply upset by the development which had neutralised the painstaking progress the two countries had made. But all this is past now, and proof of the new pudding will lie in a fresh eating. Mr Sharif had promised a lot in his manifesto on strengthening ties between Islamabad and New Delhi, and the time has come for him to honour those promises. It is to be seen how well he takes up the narrative from where it had been discarded after he was ousted in a coup that Mr Musharraf led following the Kargil misadventure. Nobody knows it better than the Prime Minister-designate that the Army plays a determining role when it comes to Islamabad's policy towards New Delhi. Therefore, before he can begin to craft plans for a truly game-changing bilateral relationship, Mr Sharif will have to either take his Army on board or find ways to reduce its influence. Given his previous confrontations with the Generals of Rawalpindi, the relationship between the two stakeholders in power is expected to be far from smooth. He has to walk a tightrope. Of course, Mr Sharif can derive comfort from the fact that, in giving him a decisive mandate the voters of Pakistan have signalled that they want less of the Army in governance. (Interestingly, the voters have also rejected Mr Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which too is said to have had the Army's sympathies.) Still, it would be foolhardy to expect Mr Sharif to confront the Army at this early stage on any issue, least of all India.
In any case, Mr Sharif will have to first confront the challenges that have been troubling his countrymen the most. For instance, Pakistan’s economy is in shambles, and so is its internal security. The country needs a massive dose of funds in infrastructure development, and an opening up of the economy for it to have any chance to stand on its legs in the near future. Because Mr Sharif has intuitively been a liberal, he is expected to move for a major fiscal revamp and offer a bitter pill to the people, if it comes to that. Alongside, he has to contain sectarian violence (which has alienated the country’s Shia population and the minorities) and terrorism, both of which have rocked the country at frequent intervals over the past many months. The failed economy and internal unrest are legacies which he inherits from the Pakistan Peoples Party regime. If Mr Sharif makes some progress in these ventures, he will then have the heft to push his agenda of a new dawn in India-Pakistan relations.