We still don’t have a clear pakistan policy

India’s silence after Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi telephoned separatist Kashmiri leader S A R Geelani last week exposes Delhi’s lack of a clear, consistent policy on how to deal with an increasingly hostile neighbour. The call came days after Pakistan’s high commissioner was summoned by India’s foreign secretary for an earlier call by Qureshi to another separatist, Mirwaiz Farooq, and warned of ‘consequences.’ 

After Pakistani intruders were repulsed from the region soon after Independence, India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru ignored his deputy Vallabhbhai Patel and took the issue to the UN. After the 1971 war which led to the dismemberment of Pakistan and a public surrender by Pakistan’s army, Delhi failed to use the 90,000 Pakistani Prisoners of War to leverage a deal on Kashmir. Instead, Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto signed the Simla Agreement in July 1972, under which the prisoners were freed in exchange for some high-sounding promises.  

In the 1990s, the government of P V Narasimha Rao adopted a tough line against militants in Kashmir, without a plan to stem the rising resentment of the local populace. Realising the gap, Atal Bihari Vajpayee repeatedly offered a hand of friendship and peace and stressed on ‘Kashmiriyat’ despite major provocations by Pakistan’s militant lapdogs, including the Kargil war  in 1999 and the attack on Parliament in December 2001.

The Manmohan Singh government tried to maintain the status quo, again refusing to be provoked by Pakistani perfidy while trying to reach out to Kashmiris. PM Narendra Modi brought some hope when he invited Pakistan’s then premier Nawaz Sharif to his swearing-in, but the bonhomie was short-lived, with terrorist strikes on military bases in Pathankot and Uri. 

Attempts to isolate Pakistan have yielded limited results, but what does appear to be working is India’s dogged refusal to talk till terror ends. Because to paraphrase an Afghan saying, Pakistan may have the watch, but India has the time.