Manmohan Singh, Kashmir and lame ducks

My first reaction to the news of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh planning a visit to Pakistan in March 2014 was one of relief. Those that follow the efforts for normalisation in South Asia know that Pakistani leaders have made invitations to India’s leaders for a visit, over, and over, and over again.

Upon hearing that Mani Shankar Aiyar has all but confirmed the visit, my main instincts were to think about how grand a welcome we should offer the much-maligned Sonia Gandhi-backed prime minister of India. To my mind, the next high-level visit from India should be an extravaganza that has no parallel in our diplomatic history.

The national consensus in Pakistan for a normalised relationship with India must be expressed with all the pomp and glory of the South Asian Muslim tradition – Bin Qasimesque and Mughalese, to the max. Though there can be varying levels of enthusiasm for such a visit, across the political spectrum there has been repeated expressions of Pakistani keenness to host Indian leaders in Pakistan.

This persistence in seeking a visit from someone as honourable as the prime minister of India is one of the great achievements of post-2007 Pakistan as a democracy. Pakistan must seek relations with that country that serve Pakistan’s interests, such as a booming economy and a dramatically improved standing in the world. That should be the aim of our approach to India. South Asia must become a normalised region that allows for the free movement of goods and services across national borders in service of the well being of the over 1.5 billion people that call Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh home. An important step in that direction would be visible movement forward between the two countries at the highest level.

But that is exactly why, when one considers PM Singh’s prospective visit in March a little more dispassionately, our initial sense of relief and excitement should transition into real worry.

If Prime Minister Singh did end up making the short trek from Delhi to Islamabad, he would effectively be the putting crowning glory on a series of masterful strokes by the Indian establishment that are designed to prolong the cold storage of South Asian normalisation.

What do I mean? Simply put, India’s most powerful foreign policy people, from the bureaucracy, the military and beyond, feel that there is nothing Pakistan can offer them that they cannot get elsewhere for less trouble. Therefore, Pakistan’s overtures to India represent a strategic greenfield of opportunity. They want India to dictate terms. And the best way to do so is to prolong the process of getting down to a serious negotiation of the core issue in South Asian relations.

What is that core issue? It has become fashionable among many Pakistanis to treat the Kashmir issue as a relic of a tradition of conflict with India. This is a lazy fashion and it doesn’t fit. As the momentum toward a more normalised South Asia grows, and Pakistan’s unstinting efforts to engage India in substantive dialogue show signs of yielding small but important results, it is vital to remember where Kashmir belongs in the South Asian context.

Kashmir is the unforgiveable injustice that will never truly be resolved without a holistic change in both Pakistani and Indian views of the purpose of these nation states. Nehruvian pride in India has thus far prevented a fair approach by the Indian establishment toward Srinagar, whereas Islamist machismo in Pakistan has sullied the moral authority of this country’s approach to the Kashmir dispute. As India veers from Nehruvian pride to a more muscular, RSS-fuelled Hindutvavadi renewal, it remains to be seen how much fairer it could be.

Pakistan’s own demons are far from exorcised – indeed, some may accurately say that we’ve not even begun the process till we’ve finally convicted a military leader (like Pervez Musharraf) of crimes against our constitution, and till we begin to treat the Jamaatud Dawa for what it really is, a dangerous (and familiar) liability for Pakistan’s foreign and domestic policies.

Kashmir is and always has been the core issue in Pakistan-India relations. Unfortunately, it has become a matter of habit for both countries to find clever ways of avoiding talking about the Kashmir issue by devising new disputes, and escalating the rhetoric around them, in an attempt to equate them to Kashmir. Because of the obvious moral weakness of its Kashmir policy, India is more keen than Pakistan to invest in this sleight of hand, but Pakistan has done little to avoid it, happily playing the game of one-upmanship in elongating the list of core issues.

The result? Today, water disputes, terrorism issues, the Siachen conflict and the Sir Creek disagreement are more pronounced elements of the dialogue process than Kashmir. Trade and people-to-people relations are treated as the low-hanging fruit in the relationship. And for effect, the Line of Control, which was thought to have been resolved, has been resurrected as a live issue. Indeed, at the recently concluded Chaophraya Dialogue #13, a Track II initiative (co-organised by the Jinnah Institute) that I was a part of, the two countries’ delegations spent significant time discussing Afghanistan and its future – demonstrating the ever-growing list of core issues in real time!

The majority of Indians – both those that represent the state, and those that do not – now construct every argument with Pakistan from “the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus up” – meaning quite simply that the Mumbai attacks of 26/11 define India’s approach to, view of, and disgust with Pakistan. The majority of Pakistanis, on the other hand, suffocating under the rubble and dead bodies from over a decade of terrorism, don’t quite get Mumbai – and would much rather that India get over it, and send their prime minister over so we can start building a South Asian century together.

But this is where things get complicated. Whether it is the core issue of Kashmir, or the range of other issues, the current prime minister of India is not in a position to negotiate.

A visit by Manmohan Singh in March would be the mother of all lame-duck farewell tours. Even if he was allowed, by South Block, to decongest the composite dialogue process, he would bring nothing in the way of concrete offers to Pakistan – not on trade or on Sir Creek, and certainly, not at all on Kashmir.

More likely? He would use the visit to articulate a strong and proud Indian narrative about how it won’t tolerate any more Mumbais. This may be go over poorly here in Pakistan, against all norms of the North Indian and Pakistani host-visitor ‘code’ – but it would be electoral gold in India. He may have no ambitions beyond April himself, but he certainly owes Sonia Gandhi and the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty anything he can offer in an election expected to be brutal for the Congress party.

Pakistan must persist, as it has for several years, with a relentless zeal for Pakistan-India normalisation and a new era in South Asian state relations. However, it must seek a partner for the relationship not in the lame duck, and unfairly discredited Manmohan Singh, but in the new incoming prime minister of India: whoever it may be. The upcoming election in India will be a defining one for that country. Pakistan must build a future with Indian leaders with stakes in tomorrow, not those who are already yesterday.

The writer is an analyst and commentator. www.mosharrafzaidi.com