Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has his sums right. Another major strike against India by Pakistani terrorists will be a “setback” to the dynamics of ties between the two countries. But the Prime Minister still obviously nurses the hope that even baby steps towards augmenting trade and economic relations might help stabilise the situation.
That is consistent with Dr Singh’s overall approach to Pakistan. He was ready to get going on peace moves at Sharm el-Sheikh in July 2009, just eight months after Mumbai’s 26/11 nightmare, at a time when Islamabad was brazenly asserting that the attackers weren’t Pakistanis at all.
In May 2010 in Thimphu, Dr Singh again took the bull by the horns and proceeded to relaunch the peace initiative although the 26/11 trial had got nowhere and the Indian evidence against the accused was being mocked in Pakistan. Now the Pakistanis say they will shortly be sending a judicial commission to India to tie up loose ends and satisfy their domestic judicial requirements. They also recently released an Indian military helicopter and its crew just hours after the craft had drifted into Pakistani airspace due to bad weather. Pakistan has also tantalisingly raised the prospect of according the “most favoured nation” trading status to India after a wait of 15 years, although action on the ground is still expected.
For a man who was ready to talk at Sharm el-Sheikh when Pakistan had offered not even solace after 26/11, the recent Pakistani moves must appear a substantial incentive, and a step forward. Therefore, if anything, it is Dr Singh who deserves the sobriquet of “man of peace”. For all his putative good intentions, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who was described by Dr Singh in those words at Addu City in the Maldives, has not been enabled by systems in his country to make any solid peace overtures to India. Indeed, if the huge Delhi-bound consignment of RDX had not been intercepted in Jalandhar, and the Indian capital been rocked by blasts, the praise of Mr Gilani in those exalted terms might have seemed incongruous.
Dr Singh has not forgotten the basic rules in dealing with tricky nations. Trust, but verify, he says. But he is ready to confide to the media that Mr Gilani told him that for the first time the Pakistan Army “is on board” in talking peace with India. The Indian leader clearly accepts what his counterpart has to say, or he wouldn’t be rushing to the press with such glad tidings. But he could have asked Mr Gilani what the Pakistan Army wants in return. He could also have waited until the Pakistani MFN was operational to rejoin the dialogue track.