KARACHI: A variety of opinions, backed by anecdotes and incidents from personal experiences, were given by a group of distinguished diplomats from India and Pakistan at a seminar titled “India-Pakistan – emerging realities” organised by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations at a hotel here on Tuesday morning.

Former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri expressed his optimism on the state and future of Indo-Pak relations. He made the point that even in worst of times common sense was exhibited from both sides, which was why he had faith in the common sense of the people of the two countries.

Referring to the current situation in India, he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a pragmatist and if he wished to succeed he should not ignore lessons of history because no country could progress if there wasn’t harmony within that country. “We should not despair, and look at positive examples such as the ones of writers in India who are returning their awards in protest against the wave of extremism.”

Flip-flop approach

Mr Kasuri also spoke on the flip-flop approach of Indian foreign policy in recent times and said that despite the fact that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had been invited to the swearing-in ceremony of Mr Modi, a meeting of foreign secretaries was called off because some Hurriyat leaders had visited the Pakistan High Commission.

Diplomats from two countries share personal experiences about troubled history of ties

He said there were competing forces in India and stressed that “there can be no policy of benign neglect” because his experience told him that Pak-India relations were not like those of Australia and New Zealand. “We have no option but to talk… nothing new can happen to us.”

Former Indian minister for petroleum and natural gas Mani Shankar Aiyar shared Mr Kasuri’s optimism. He said he was glad that the Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Dr T.C.A Raghavan was also one of the speakers at the seminar as he would like to ask him about the present Indian government’s policy towards Pakistan. He argued that for some people it was a viable position to let the sleeping dogs lie but he did not belong to that school of thought.

He then went on to narrate some of the experiences he had when he was posted in Karachi. He said he had come to Karachi with certain prejudices but people here overwhelmed him with their affection. This led him to say that Indo-Pak relations needed human touch.

Alluding to the present-day political atmosphere in India, Mr Aiyar said there were people in his country who were viscerally against Muslims, “but a vast majority of Indians can’t be anything but secular”.

Dialogue on Kashmir

He pointed out that hard political problems had to be solved at the top level where politicians and diplomats got together. He mentioned that in 1972 it was agreed that there was an issue of Kashmir, which required the final settlement.

Unfortunately, he said, India and Pakistan were neither having a bilateral nor multilateral dialogue. Terrorism is a major issue in India, and both Kashmir and terrorism should be discussed with equal importance. He emphasised restructuring of the composite dialogue, uninterrupted and uninterruptable.

Senator Aitzaz Ahsan read out a paper on the topic. He gave a detailed historical perspective of the region and said partition must be accepted. “Let’s assess our perspective of history with the factors that made us distinct, without ignoring commonalities,” he added.

Ideological barriers

India’s former foreign secretary Salman Haider said governments created ideological barriers, but “a meeting of this kind should encourage governments to take an alternative view”.

Former foreign secretary of Pakistan Shamshad A. Khan highlighted four realities: troubled history of Indo-Pak ties, complexities of issues, centrality of the Kashmir issue and post-Cold War dynamics.

Indian High Commissioner Dr Raghavan said he belonged to the generation that attached importance to notions of identity. He said he saw nothing particularly extraordinary about Indo-Pak relations as there were other neighbouring countries in the world which had similar issues and differences on interpretation of history.

He disagreed with an earlier speaker’s assertion on India’s flip-flop foreign policy, arguing that there was a false narrative in Pakistan about India, accompanied by demonisation in the media, that India did not want dialogue between the two countries. He claimed that since May 2014 every single initiative had come from India. Giving examples to justify his claim, Mr Raghavan said that in March this year the Indian prime minister sent Foreign Secretary Jaishankar to Pakistan, but the third day after he left the country one of the ring leaders of the Mumbai attacks was released.

LoC violations

He said the Ufa meeting too was initiated by India. He iterated that it was not possible to discuss one issue; all issues had to be discussed. On the LoC violations, he said for months his country had been suggesting let’s bring about a greater degree of calm to the LoC for which the DGMOs had to meet, but they had not been meeting.

He said India and Pakistan should try to have a relationship with multiple stakeholders, rather than seeing it in identity-driven, mythological terms.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif firmly and passionately believed in good Pak-India relations. He said that today’s emerging realities were that billion and a half people in the region were living in poverty, hunger and disease, whereas the rest of the world was being interconnected and passports and visas were being given up, “our singers and cricketers” were being shunned. “We do not even talk to each other,” he lamented.

He said Pakistan was of the view that India was violating the LoC, while India believed Pakistan was doing that. “How do we determine that? Don’t we need a mechanism for it?” he asked.

He pointed out that both countries were water-stressed and to solve that problem they needed to have a regional approach.

“How can we play cricket with each other if a ghazal concert could not be held. It is deeply embarrassing,” he said, adding that the political leadership should rise above the fray, show maturity and give a vision for the coming 15 to 20 years.

Earlier Ambassador Shahid Amin and Mr Ahsan Zubairi welcomed the guests.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play