Saarc yatra to get relationships back on track
Arguably, the most important leg of the first phase of Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar's South Asia yatra was his visit to Pakistan. After touring Bangladesh and Bhutan, he travelled to Islamabad on Wednesday, where he met his Pakistani counterpart, the Foreign Affairs and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minster himself. The initiative is expected to pave the way for the resumption of high-level talks, which had been suspended after the Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi ignored the Ministry of External Affairs' displeasure and met with Hurriyat leaders and Kashmiri separatists in the run-up to the Foreign Secretaries meet last August.
The talks are necessary to at least begin the process of mending broken fences between India and Pakistan. This is important not only for the welfare of the two countries, but equally so for the development of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. India-Pakistan rivalry has been the millstone around the neck of the eight-country grouping, as a result of which it has performed far below potential. Several regional initiatives, such as the Saarc satellite, have been stalled and South Asia remains one of the least-economically integrated regions in the world. The complicated political situation of the sub-continent will remain a challenge, but, if European and South East Asian countries could get their act together, there is no reason why South Asia, with a little bit of political will, cannot perform better.
In this context, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has put South Asia at the heart of his foreign policy, has already made it clear that either Pakistan keeps aside bilateral issues and cooperates with India on multilateral forums to ensure regional progress or India will move ahead with its other neighbours without Pakistan. Of the other Saarc member nations, India depends on Pakistan only for access to Afghanistan; with the other five members, namely Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri lanka and the Maldives, it has direct land or sea borders. Hence, South Asian groupings such as BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal) and BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) that do not include Pakistan, are quite workable. They can be expected to progress given the Modi Government's Act East policy.
On the bilateral front, Mr Jaishankar's trip followed a routine template wherein both sides registered their concerns with the other. India brought up the issues of 26/11, its masterminds Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur Rehman lakhvi, and also red-flagged cross-border firing. Unsurprisingly, there has been no progress on any of these issues. The 26/11 trial is not even moving at a snail's pace; Hafiz Saeed continues to freely roam the streets of Pakistan, addressing large rallies and delivering sermons; lakhvi is behind bars but is reportedly receiving luxury treatment in his prison cell; and there has been no respite from ceasefire violations across the line of Control in Kashmir. Instead, Pakistan has continued with its tradition of levelling false charges, repeating ad nauseam that Indian elements are instigating the insurgency in Balochistan and even the Federally Administered Tribal Areas — without a shred of evidence to support these claims.