Obama’s choice

President Obama’s long-awaited and much publicised visit to New Delhi has finally materialised. Putting it dramatically: He came, he charmed, he gave, and then left.
The visit brought many memorable moments for New Delhi and Washington alike: closer nuclear cooperation, billions of dollars in investment, support for an enhanced world role for India, including future membership of the Security Council, not to mention 100 saris for the first lady. This is good PR for any government and PM, which is why Modi sarkar has every reason to gloat in the success of his foreign policy (that Nehru’s ashes will be wandering around in distress is another story).
Across the border, the media picked the story in full stride, while the government maintained a low-key stance – and wisely so. There was some talk about President Obama visiting us last year, but it remained wishful thinking, and the government resigned itself to the fact. Thus Pakistan was not really kept waiting. Instead the US hosted the army chief for a rather prolonged stay, with ritual praise and ceremonial honour for his role in fight against terror, especially in clearing North Waziristan. Later, Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit was meant as a band aid, in anticipation of any hurt. In his State of the Union Address, Obama referred to terrorism in Pakistan.
The media, and its experts, were full of rancour over Obama’s visit to India – expecting more of American largesse, a nuclear deal and much more, oblivious of South Asian reality.
This was Obama’s second visit to India when he and his team declined a courtesy call at the neighbours. It is also worth noting the last two visits by American presidents to Pakistan. In 2000, President Bill Clinton barely touched Pakistan’s soil. (Due to security reasons he boarded a different plane.) His meeting with President Gen Musharraf was business like, and he addressed the nation with a clear cut message.
President Bush’s visit in

2006 was crafted to be short and simple. He came despite an attack on the US Consulate in Karachi a day before. Besides meeting the president, he played a little cricket. If there was any tangible outcome of these visits it never became public. Did we need another such visit by a US president that meant nothing more than a ritual photo-op for the ruling elite?
Let’s suppose President Obama had visited Pakistan and he took a cursory glance at our English dailies – what would he have confronted? ‘Pakistan Plunges into Darkness’; ‘PTI Won’t return to Disputed Assemblies: Imran’; ‘7 Terrorists including TTP Commander held’.
This time again Islamabad was bypassed in Obama’s presidential itinerary. It is no secret that such visits are planned months in advance; just as the agenda is critically assessed, the ‘physical and political’ environment is strategically calculated. If such an assessment were made behind closed doors in Washington, the result is obvious and self-explanatory.
Normally it is customary to say ‘what the country (or people) is going through…’ but in this case it makes sense to reword it thus, ‘what the government is going through since last August is unenviable and agonising.’ It started with the dharna just before Independence Day, and not one but two, led by two headstrong irascible leaders. While they kept some people and the media entertained, the government was on tenterhooks, and is yet to shake off issues related to alleged rigging in the last elections. The dharna situation was so tense that the visit of the Chinese president had to be postponed.
The month of December saw a deadly terrorist attack on a Peshawar school, taking the lives of around 140 schoolchildren – the darkest day in the country’s recent history. This plunged the whole nation into gloom, and the nation reiterated its pledge to fight terrorism. The grisly incident unleashed a new wave of terror threat to the country’s educational institutions.
The new year started with a yawning gap between power demand and supply; there were three blackouts in many parts of the country this month, some terrorism related. January also saw an acute shortage of petrol that no one could own and explain. Ironically, the ministers who were in control took the whole affair lightly, blaming the crisis on beggars and the media, while the hapless public scuttled and lined up for hours at petrol stations. News of shortage of furnace oil raised a whole new alarm of power shortage.
Then, as New Delhi was decking up (and beefing security) for President Obama’s arrival, we witnessed widespread protests against the Charlie Hebdo sacrilegious caricatures. Thus if the Sharif government was not too keen to have Obama over one should not blame them. We were not ready to play host at this time. We need to address issues like terrorism and energy first.
On his part, Obama lost a good opportunity for a courtesy call; to build amity between Pakistan and Afghanistan in post-withdrawal scenario; to assuage anti-American sentiments; to dispel notions of nurturing an imbalance in South Asia, and if nothing else, to say a prayer for the 140 innocent schoolchildren killed in Peshawar.
The writer teaches at the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. Email: pakirish@yahoo.com