From magical to farcical

The writer is a retired air-vice marshal, former ambassador and a security and political analyst.

It came rather early. It was merely a week back that Narendra Modi came calling on Nawaz Sharif on his special day – a first of its kind for a South Asia that has only known hatred and war. It seemed ‘achay din’ for South Asia may have just begun despite its domestic connotation in India having gone terribly wrong.

In the middle of the New Year weekend, an important Indian airbase located almost on the border was attacked by a group of gunmen who successfully infiltrated it despite it being most well protected. Till Monday morning they had allegedly killed at least eleven officers and men on the base. India’s minister of interior declared victory and seemed to be proud of the counterattack on the first morning, but then for some reason the attack resumed with the attackers, allegedly, still putting up a fight 48 hours later. None of it was available for independent confirmation. Who did it? Why? And where does the Modi-Nawaz rapprochement stand now?

Let’s face it. Kargil torpedoed Vajpayee peace effort, nice and proper, and ended up a couple of years later into a year-long military stand-off on the borders. The Indians exaggeratedly link the Gurdaspur attack to Ufa? Why? No one knows. Fairly, the incident made no sense, was very poorly enacted by whoever did it, and was thus too transparent to make it of any genuine concern. I had then written here that whoever planned Gurdaspur was foolish enough, or smart enough, to leave Pathankot out of harm’s way.

This time they corrected the error and targeted Pathankot, but after a series of such senseless trivialities that one is left wondering at the amateurism of the whole process. What in the world was someone trying to prove? The SSP who lost his jeep and cell-phone (note) – on which calls were made to Bahawalpur, the home-base of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad – was himself lucky to escape any harm. The last time, they bumped one off; not this time though. This guy was not worth it?

Another car was seen literally bumped while its driver was figuratively bumped. And then nothing for the next many hours till these guys were found in the base on the next night. What was the SSP and his entire police force doing for all this time? Giving these guys time off to rest? How can a man of Ajit Doval’s operational finesse accept such omissions in building a narrative? Or has Maulana Masood Azhar simply lost his touch?

These gunmen allegedly were so heavily armed that gunships had to be used against them. Yet they squeezed through the multilayered fences that protect the Indian border without as much as a squeal. None of the defences were found breached. The commandos had already been deployed a night before to defend the base for an attack that materialised 24 hours later. Curious. Allegedly, nothing of value ever got damaged at the Base despite it being under attack for more than two days. Interesting. Maybe the guys who attacked were simply foolish. Or else, someone is playing games here.

Mumbai 2008 was serious stuff. It came at a time when the democratic order in Pakistan had just been restored and there was a possibility that the new government might think things anew with India. Not that they were any worse under Musharraf; the ISI, having dutifully served Musharraf to enable his peace overtures, would not have changed tack under another chief even more liberally disposed. Yet the story on Mumbai, as it has emerged, may have ‘some’ truth in it, willy-nilly. Except, the state too seemed to have been surprised by the non-state in this case.

When you look back at this entire construct only two, Kargil and Mumbai, appear as substantive events which had the making of something more disastrous. One could be pinned to the state, the other was patently non-state that enabled sucking in the state into a political stand-off. Kargil failed; Mumbai succeeded.

We are now at another turning point. The two states and their leadership finally reached the moment when they knew things just couldn’t remain the same; a newer paradigm of engagement needed to be put in place. Modi thus broke the mould. His change of travel plans was thus just that. Surely, there was more to it.

Let’s review. Modi needs double-digit growth and an unending supply of cheap gas to fuel that growth to move India in the same rank as China in the next 30 years. To that end India must connect to Central Asia, both for market as well as for energy. It is also from where it can realise the additional 2-3 percent growth as its goods travel around a better connected region; the CPEC forming that essential spine around which the rest can be built, east and west.

Modi must then talk to Pakistan to make that happen. Pakistan can only do well by seaming itself into the plan, opening up connectivity, trade and travel to achieve its own vision of moving beyond the 4-5 percent growth barrier into something more decent enabling some socio-economic mobility to its own people. That is a win-win. Denying it is a fundamental folly.

Modi also wants to be upgraded to a full membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, though that will mean some major changes to the existing statutes of the nuclear club; and be incorporated as a permanent member to the UNSC. Major powers like America, Russia and China in principle support Indian aspirations, but insist on India to make good with Pakistan so that it eases their effort at India’s incorporation. All three hold their own bilateral rationale for Pakistan and will need India to make Pakistan agree to the plan. Modi must then talk to Pakistan and make Pakistan comfortable with it.

It remains the only way that India can break out from its stagnated, regional stranglehold. More importantly, each of these still remains India’s most desired end-states in its geostrategic blue-print. I, therefore, don’t see India wavering from the path of Modi’s cordiality. (Pathankot is just that fabled Punjabi ‘moreover’ stuff that South Asians indulge in to sweeten their shot). Can India change to the core? No one does. These are incidental needs of geopolitics with the hope that if persisted with long enough with precious returns, these may just become welcome habits.

On the other two counts, Pakistan will and should seek parity; it has a very strong legal and rational case for it. None of the world powers will ever override Pakistan’s veto of their desire to support India. If at all, this is where leveraging a relationship becomes applicable.

In the meanwhile, the region can connect in all directions and trade can flow as should the people and their interdependent interests fortifying the evolving cohesion that can also keep Daesh and its dark shadows out. For Afghanistan too only such collective security can enable a shield for it to find its own space to grow. This is America’s prime interest, and surely that of China and Russia too, for which they urge the two to make up.

So, who did Pathankot or for that matter Gurdaspur? Someone, who is obsessed with route Gurdaspur-Dinanagar-Pathankot route and is a poor planner of things. The ‘Jaish’, India’s current obsession, has been absent from the scene long enough for it to seem it doesn’t exist. The LeT has mutated into splinter groups, with Hafiz Saeed now restricted to saving his position at the head of his JuD. The action these days mostly comes from Afghanistan, unless something is home-grown. India would do better to look under its own ‘cot’ and get some finer planning into developing narratives without holes.

Pakistan will remain invested in a friendlier neighbourhood and in wholesale elimination of terror from its midst but does not need external wattage for it based around weak Bollywood plots. It remains for Modi to choose; the magic that he can cast with his prophetic peace moves, or the farce that India frequently slips into. The choice is yours, Mr Prime Minister.

 Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com