A dialogue of the deaf

It is an oft-repeated adage in international relations that one must talk to one’s enemies. After all, talking to one’s friends is easy.

That said, any dialogue must have a clear and discernible purpose. More to the point, one’s interlocutor must be in a position to make credible commitments. In the absence of these conditions, it is far from clear what a dialogue can accomplish beyond signalling third parties about one’s willingness to engage in discussions with one’s adversary.
It appears necessary to highlight these two principles in light of the ongoing bilateral dialogue with Pakistan as well as the recent meeting of the minister of external affairs, S.M. Krishna, with his Pakistani counterpart, Hina Rabbani Khar, at the conference on the future of Afghanistan held in Japan. As is well known, India had suspended the “composite dialogue” with Pakistan in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. After a number of other meetings the two sides picked up the threads last year.
Meanwhile, a great deal of information about the likely involvement of the Pakistani security establishment in planning, coordinating and, indeed, executing the horrific attacks has come to light, thanks to the arrest of one of the key conspirators, Dawood Gilani, also known as David Coleman Headley. More recently, the apprehension of Abu Jundal, another mastermind of the 26/11 attacks, is starting to provide greater detail about the degree of complicity of the Pakistani security establishment. As his interrogation proceeds apace a clearer picture of the scope and dimensions of such involvement is likely to emerge.
Under these circumstances, especially if evidence of official connivance does emerge, one is forced to wonder what, if any, purpose might be served in asking Pakistan’s fragile civilian regime to act against the perpetrators of those acts of terror. Thus far, it needs to be noted that neither the military establishment nor the elected government has evinced the slightest hint of interest in bringing the head of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, to heel. Instead, in a mockery of justice, the courts in Pakistan set him free in 2009, after a brief period of house arrest, on the grounds that it lacked sufficient evidence to detain him. Even after the United States declared a bounty of $10 million leading to his arrest earlier this year, Pakistan’s elected leadership simply repeated the old canard.
One can make one of two inferences from the responses of the civilian authorities and neither of them is especially salutary. At one level it may be possible to argue that the Pakistani state has little or no interest in apprehending Saeed. After all, he is a creature of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI-D). His organisation has scrupulously avoided attacking any Pakistani targets and it is a useful entity for pursuing Pakistan’s goals in both Afghanistan and Kashmir. A second possibility, that is less plausible but frequently the fallback argument of Pakistan’s Western apologists, is that the state simply dare not take on Saeed and his works for fear of a violent backlash. The argument lacks standing because the Pakistani state has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to crack down on militants who have challenged its writ. Regardless of which argument holds water the fact remains that the Pakistani state will not act against Saeed and his acolytes.
If this is indeed the case, what purpose, if any, do these periodic and repeated calls to bring to book the perpetrators of the terrorist attack serve? Are they simply a form of diplomatic kabuki designed to impress the United States and other Western interlocutors of India’s seeming reasonableness even in the face of feckless Pakistani denials of any possibility of official connection to the terrorist attacks? Even if such signalling was the initial goal of these talks, have they not run their logical course given Pakistan’s extraordinary ability to not only stonewall but to deftly change the subject to its idee fixe, namely the unresolved issue of the Kashmir dispute?
Currently, according to press accounts, there is a lull in violence in Kashmir. Though encounters with militants are not unknown, their numbers seem to have declined. It is wholly possible that such a decline in terrorist activity simply reflects internal political turmoil in Pakistan. It may also stem from the military’s preoccupation with its now tenuous relationship with the United States following differences over US military actions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, not to mention the successful US special forces raid in Abbottabad that led to the demise of Osama bin Laden. Neither of these two conditions is likely to remain in place. The civilian regime will either accommodate itself to the overweening role of the military or will face yet another coup. Over time the Pakistani military will find a way to either assuage American concerns or return to the warm embrace of their “all-weather” ally, the People’s Republic of China. When both situations ease, the screws will again be turned on Kashmir with the unleashing of the LeT and their associates.
In the absence of a clear-eyed recognition of these conditions the pursuit of a dialogue with Pakistan ill serves India’s interests. Minor movements on the easing of a visa regime, the granting of trade concessions and the occasional release of incarcerated citizens may well make headlines and proffer prospects of a rapprochement. However, these hopes, more than likely will be dashed unless Pakistan eschews its reliance on terror as an instrument of its security policy. The sooner India’s interlocutors come to this realisation the better they can serve the country’s vital security interests.