Pakistan rekindles the SAARC flame
By
M K Bhadrakumar – March 26, 2018
The Indian media largely gave the pass to the
visit by Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena to Pakistan last week. They are more into what happens between India and the western world. They lionize western ambassadors based in Delhi but ignore the envoys from the region where India lives, who would be far more consequential to India’s foreign policies.
While Modi government is successively feting the European leaders, Pakistan is purposively focusing on its immediate neighborhood – viciously conspiratorial and jealous and envious, perhaps,but in fact, completely human. Sirisena was the Chief Guest at the ceremony in Islamabad marking Pakistan’s National Day on March 23.
Don’t be surprised if Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, Nepal’s communist prime minister, is going to be next year’s Chief Guest in Islamabad on March 23. Indeed, a return visit by Oli will be due by then, following the recent visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to Kathmandu. By the way, Abbasi bonded well with Oli. He was the first South Asian statesman whom Oli received in Kathmandu after forming the new government.
The media reports from Colombo and Islamabad have highlighted that Sirisena gave thumbs up to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Didn’t he know about the Modi government’s trenchant opposition to the CPEC on the ground that it passes through ‘Indian territory’? Of course, Sirisena knew that ‘territorial sovereignty’ rankles the Indian mind. But that didn’t deter him from expressing pleasure that Pakistan is making wonderful progress because of the CPEC.
The Sri Lankan diplomacy works very astutely in soft undertones but with razor-sharp precision and cutting edge. Here,
PM Modi has personally put on the mantle of leadership of the Buddhist world and is (re)claiming Buddhism as India’s heritage. But Sirisena took with him to Pakistan the Buddhist clergy from Sri Lanka, and in the presence of several representatives from Buddhist countries, he solemnized the re-opening of the International Buddhist Centre in the Diplomatic Enclave in Islamabad following religious observances.
Sirisena also vowed to work with Pakistan for regional peace and development. Again, he treaded dangerously close to Kashmir and India-Pakistan tensions. Indeed, Kashmir had figured in the discussions of Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua in Colombo last October. (Sirisena had received Janjua.)
However, the common thread running through Abbasi’s visit to Kathmandu and the state visit by Sirisena to Islamabad is something else. It lies in the unmistakable signs that Pakistani diplomacy is shifting gear to breathe new life into the moribund South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
Both Oli and Sirisena have voiced support for the convening the SAARC summit without further delay. The summit was due to be held at the end of 2014 but the Modi government scotched the plan by refusing to participate on the ground that Pakistan was indulging in cross-border terrorism against India. It was a patently lame excuse because India never used SAARC as hostage – not even in trying times such as the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament (December 2001) or the Mumbai attacks (November 2008).
Arguably, Modi government wanted to display in front of the core constituency at home a new ‘muscularity’ toward Pakistan. Or, perhaps, it wanted to cover up the profound contradiction that it simply lacked a coherent policy toward Pakistan. At any rate, the astonishing thing is that PM Modi wouldn’t attend the proposed 19th SAARC summit in Islamabad in November 2014 but would suddenly present himself at the tarmac of the Allama Iqbal International Airport at Lahore just about an year later on December 25, 2015 to be received by Nawaz Sharif with a warm hug.
To be sure, when it comes to SAARC, Delhi appears petulant. Thus, today, we are in a funny situation by having fun and frolic with the ASEAN while on the other hand strangulating the SAARC. It is an absurd position, which is going be increasingly untenable. A groundswell of opinion is building in the region supporting the idea of Pakistan hosting the SAARC summit.
Of course,
the spectre that haunts the Modi government could also be China’s membership of the SAARC. India is the lone ranger today opposing China’s entry into SAARC.
However, with China welcoming India into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a full member, it is problematic for Delhi to keep stalling.
India has dominated the SAARC so far. But then, the region no longer accepts Indian hegemony. And China’s entry into SAARC, when it happens, may change the entire alchemy of regional cooperation in South Asia. Therefore, in tune with the spirit of our times, we should learn the craft to use SAARC (or SCO) as a regional platform to improve India’s problematic relationships with Pakistan and China. Diplomacy is all about engagement and to shy away from engagement betrays a cowardly mindset.
http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2018/03/26/pakistan-rekindles-the-saarc-flame/
