After two months of strained relations following the Mumbai train bombings, the prime minister of India and the president of Pakistan issued a joint statement over the weekend, announcing an agreement to work together to combat terrorism.
The International Herald Tribune reports that the agreement, which includes a renewal of peace talks, came out of a face-to-face meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf in Cuba Saturday. The two leaders "resolved to set up a joint agency to combat terrorism" during a meeting that was "unexpectedly positive, marking a modest warming in the temperamental relations between the two nations."
"It was agreed that the peace process must be maintained," Singh said, reading from a joint statement after his meeting with Musharraf at a meeting of leaders of countries of the Nonaligned Movement in Havana. "We instructed our foreign secretaries to resume the comprehensive dialogue as early as possible."
"The leaders decided to continue the joint search for mutually acceptable options for a peaceful, negotiated settlement on all issues between India and Pakistan, including Jammu and Kashmir," he said.
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Peace talks between the two nations, which have long been at odds over the Kashmir region, which they both claim, came to a halt in July when some 200 people were killed in multiple train bombings in the Indian financial center of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). India accused Pakistan-based terrorists of the attacks, and blamed Pakistan for failing to prevent them.
The BBC reports that "on the surface the decision announced..., apparently at Delhi's initiative, is radical."
Until now Delhi had always blamed Islamabad for terrorist attacks on Indian soil.... Now Delhi very clearly is making the distinction between the establishment in Pakistan and groups within the country who have links to militant organizations in India....
"The fact is terror is a threat to Pakistan. And it has been a threat to India for a long time now," said India's high commissioner to Pakistan, Shiv Shankar Menon, soon after the Havana meeting.
"Both of us need to deal with it. We have not had a collective mechanism to deal with it. We have it now," said Mr Menon, who is going to be India's next foreign secretary and will be leading the negotiations with Islamabad.
The Hindu reports that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the conservative opposition to Mr. Singh's ruling Indian National Congress party, called the agreement "an unprecedented capitulation of India before Pakistan on the issue of cross-border terrorism."
[The BJP] categorically stated, "resumption of the Foreign Secretary-level talks between the two countries in the background of increased violence from Pakistan is not acceptable to us."
Speaking on behalf of the party, the former External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, said that the statement had obliterated the distinction between the aggressor and the victim of terrorism. He hinted that some forces that "could have been American" might have pressured the Prime Minister.
However, Singh denied that the US was involved in the decision, reports The Times of India.
"I totally deny any insinuation that whatever was done with Pakistan is at the behest of the US or any other country. It is a question of our own sovereign national interest."
Media reaction to the agreement has been mixed in both countries. Daily News and Analysis of India argues in an editorial that "it is too much to expect any worthwhile results from this new formation," given Pakistan's experience in "taking the Americans for a ride on nuclear proliferation and jihadi terrorism." Meanwhile, The Nation of Pakistan, noting that neither Delhi nor Islamabad have yet outlined what the proposed antiterrorist pact would actually look like, writes in an editorial that there are fundamental differences in perspective that need to be addressed first.
It is really strange how this mechanism would produce results when the two sides have entirely different interpretations of what constitutes terrorism, unless one of them alters its perception. Islamabad regards the armed struggle in Kashmir as being waged by freedom fighters, while India treats them as terrorists. Pakistan needs to put its public in the picture about what that joint mechanism is and how it is going to work considering the contrasting connotations of the term on both sides.
A pair of commentaries in the Hindustan Times offer opposing opinions of the pact. B. Raman, a former Indian cabinet member, calls the agreement "ill-advised, ill-timed and ill-examined."
Pakistan is a theocratic State founded on the belief that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together. We may call ourselves a secular State, but the Pakistanis look upon us as a Hindu State. If we think that such a State will genuinely cooperate with us against jehadi terrorism, we are living in a world of illusions.
Meanwhile, Manoj Joshi writes in the Times, "Complex problems require complex strategies. This is the simple truth eluding critics of the outcome of the India-Pakistan summit between Pervez Musharraf and Manmohan Singh...."
India has three choices of grand strategy in relation to Pakistan. First, eliminate Pakistan. This is the lunatic option, unthinkable and undoable. Second, subordinate it. This, too, is not achievable because Pakistan is not a small country and it has enough options and self-esteem to prevent this outcome. The third option is to reconcile with Pakistan by resolving outstanding disputes and shaping a relationship of common benefit. This is the option that we have followed since 1990, despite official Pakistan support for acts of terrorism and insurgencies in India.
And in its editorial, the Times praised Singh's "uncommon courage to attempt reconciliation with a particularly prickly adversary" and offered measured support of the pact. "The joint mechanism – the details of which are yet to be worked out – is a new approach. If it works in bringing terrorist attacks by jehadi groups against India to a halt, wonderful. If it does not work, then, as Mr Singh stated pragmatically, it will be "wound up".
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Feedback appreciated. E-mail Arthur Bright.
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