The reluctant swallow

THE news that an Indian prime minister will be visiting Pakistan can be
capped only by an announcement that he will not be visiting Pakistan.

Ever since S. Manmohan Singh took over as Indias prime minister almost eight years
ago, there have been rumours, whispers, expectations, subtle hints, unsubtle leaks, and
covert exploratory missions — rehearsals that led the public to expect an actual
performance.

It appears now that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had written to President Asif
Zardari in November, regretting his inability to accept Zardari’s invitation to celebrate
the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak together.

The letter from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to President Zardari was released to
the Pakistani public days, if not weeks, after its delivery to the presidency by the Indian
High Commission. RSVPs do not normally take so long to be disclosed.

Could the reason have been that someone on the hill in Islamabad preferred to wait
until the sting in the refusal had lost its potency?

Obviously, the pull of nostalgia for Manmohan Singh to visit his birthplace of Gah near
Chakwal was not enough. The gravitational force within India opposing such a visit was
much stronger.

That anti-force draws its strength from the Mumbai attack of 2008 which remains for
millions of Indians a still raw memory, a scab as unhealed as Pearl Harbour had been
for two generations of Americans, before it was overtaken by the 9/11 attacks on New
York and Washington.

Decisions to make official visits at the prime ministerial level are not normally made on
the spur of the moment. There may be an occasional run between wickets during a
spontaneous innings of cricket diplomacy, or a quick trip to Shimla or Agra but those
were necessitated by circumstance, not choice.

Visits are normally the result of careful aforethought and behind-the-curtain

negotiation.

Who will sit where, who will open the discussions, what will be agreed upon, what will
be disagreed upon, will there be a separate or a joint press release? Who will be the first
to claim success? Who will be the first to disown failure? This is the kind of fodder that
keeps diplomats occupied as they chew their cud.

For example, in July 1807, Emperor Napoleon I of France met his counterpart Czar
Alexander I of Russia to sign the Treaties of Tilsit. Honour was assuaged between equal
monarchs by conducting the negotiations on a raft floating on the River Neman.
In July 1971, Zhou Enlai arranged for his secret meetings with Henry Kissinger to take
place in the Fukien Room of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

The significance was lost on Kissinger, more familiar with 19th-century European
history than with 20th-century Chinese sensitivities. It was only after he returned to
Washington that he discovered that Fukien was the Chinese province that lay opposite
the straits dividing the Chinese mainland from the contested island of Taiwan.

In October 2012, President Putin of Russia abruptly cancelled his visit to Pakistan a few
days before his scheduled date of arrival. His vacuum was filled as a diplomatic sop by
his Foreign Minister Lavrov, but a Mark Antony (however articulate) is no substitute for
a live Caesar.

By postponing his visit to a point short of cancellation, Prime Minister Manmohan

Singh’s decision has left friends in Pakistan in a mood of deflation.

No one was expecting any major diplomatic breakthrough from such a visit. A single
swallow may not a summer make, but a visit by him (however short it might have been)
would have been the herald — if nothing else — of a change of season, a thaw after a long
overlay of frost.

One hopes that the mandarins in our Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad are
actively assessing the impact of this decision on our own foreign policy strategies.

They cannot be unaware that we are trapped yet again between an irascible Russian bear
and an Indian elephant with a memory longer than its trunk.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not ruled out the possibility of visiting Pakistan at
some time in the future. Whether he will do so as prime minister or as a private citizen
visiting the place of his birth only time will tell. For the moment, time chooses to remain
tongue-tied.

One aspect though is quite clear. With general elections due in Pakistan in 2013, the
degree of insecurity is such amongst the political parties that any visit by a senior official
of any country is interpreted both by the government and the opposition as either an
overt endorsement or a veiled threat.

Today, many Pakistanis remember the visit by prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in
1999, which led to the Lahore Declaration. That has remained the lodestone of
subsequent Indo-Pak relations. Fewer Pakistanis will recall the visit by prime minister
Jawaharlal Nehru in September 1960 during which the still durable Indus Water Treaty
was signed. Even fewer may be aware that in July 1951, Nehru offered a non-aggression
pact to Liaquat Ali Khan, which he rejected until the Kashmir issue was resolved.

Manmohan Singh’s decision not to visit Pakistan is yet another opportunity lost. He
could have, with careful pre-calibration, initiated discussions on a no-war treaty
between two nuclear powers, to be signed off by two civilian elected governments. He
could have become the first dove in swallow’s feathers.