Yes, let’s talk

With the soon-to-be-resumed dialogue with Pakistan looming, a spate of negativism has assailed many sections of our commentariat. It is said that the government has given in despite having received no assurances of better behaviour from Pakistan, and that our willingness to talk to an uncooperative adversary merely suggests that we have run out of ideas — or at least that New Delhi has no good options, between a counterproductive military attack and a stagnant silence.

In this reading, India has in effect surrendered to Pakistani intransigence, by agreeing to resume a process it had rightly suspended after the horrific Mumbai attacks of 26/11, even though there has been no significant progress in Pakistan bringing the perpetrators to book. The new wide-ranging and comprehensive talks, the critics point out, are the old “composite dialogue” under another label, the very dialogue we had righteously called off since there was no point talking to people whose territory and institutions are being used to attack and kill Indians.
It is a credible case, strongly held and passionately argued by many I respect. And yet I believe these critics are wrong. First, it is clear that we are doing the right thing; and second, it is time the critics also understood that we do have other options.
We are doing the right thing, because “not talking” is not much of a policy. We can deny our history but cannot change our geography. Pakistan is next door and can no more be ignored than a thorn pierced into our side. The refusal to talk worked for a while as a source of pressure on Pakistan; it contributed, together with Western (especially American) diplomatic efforts, to some of Islamabad’s initial cooperation, including the arrest of LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six of his co-conspirators. But it has long passed its use-by date. The refusal to resume dialogue has not just stopped producing any fresh results; the only argument that justifies it — that it is a source of leverage — risks giving us the illusion of influence over events that we do not in fact possess. Instead, it is we who seem intransigent and unaccommodative, whereas the transcendent reality of life on our subcontinent is that it has always been India that wishes to live in peace. We are, at bottom, a status quo power that would like to be left alone to concentrate on our economic development; Pakistan is the troublesome rebel, needling and bleeding us in an effort to change the power balance and wrest control of a part of our territory. Refusing to talk doesn’t change any of that, but it brings us no rewards and in fact imposes a cost. When Pakistan is allowed to sound reasonable and conciliatory while we seem truculent and unreasonable, our international image as a constructive force for peace takes a beating.
Besides, talking can achieve constructive results. It can identify and narrow the differences between our two countries on those issues that can be dealt with (not all the issues that divide us can be resolved, but specific problems like trade, Siachen, Sir Creek or the Wullar Barrage, and many points of detail, are certainly amenable to resolution through dialogue). It can make clear what our bottomlines are and the minimal standards of civilised conduct we expect from our terrorism-fomenting neighbour. And should it prove necessary, it can also be used to send a few tough signals.
For the fact is that, on Pakistan’s reluctance to take decisive action against the terrorism operating on its soil, we do have some credible options. The most significant of these lies in the United Nations, whose Security Council resolutions against terror were adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and are binding on all member states, including Pakistan. These resolutions require compliance from all states on controlling the activities of terrorists. Member states are required under Resolution 1373 to report regularly to the Counter-Terrorism Committee about their actions to bring their national legislation into conformity with international requirements, to monitor the movements of suspected terrorists, arms transfers and financial flows to terrorist organisations. Resolution 1624 obliges states to pass laws forbidding incitement to commit acts of terror and to report such incitement to the committee. As it happens, effective last January 1, it is India that chairs the Counter-Terrorism Committee.
New Delhi should make it plain to Islamabad that, unless there is genuine and sustained cooperation on bringing the 26/11 plotters to book, we will not hesitate to use the international mechanisms available to us to ask Pakistan awkward questions, and to bring the weight of the international community to bear on the issue of Pakistan’s failure to meet its international obligations. There are fair questions to be asked about the prosecution of suspected terrorists under custody and the lack of efforts to apprehend their remaining comrades; the failure to take any steps whatsoever to trace the handlers of the 26/11 killers, especially the chilling voice recorded on tape that exhorted the terrorists to kill their hostages; the open incitement to terror preached by the likes of Hafiz Sayeed in open defiance of Resolution 1624; and the survival, indeed flourishing, on Pakistani soil of proscribed organisations like the Jamaat ud Dawa, with burgeoning bank accounts receiving and disbursing funds. Should the answers not prove satisfactory, the next step to consider would be whether to hold Pakistan in non-compliance with the relevant Security Council resolutions, which in turn would lay the ground for selective sanctions — for example on the foreign travel of specific military leaders — in a bid to exact compliance.
Of course, exercising such an option will not be easy. It will require the cooperation of other countries, many of whom have shown a propensity to look the other way as Pakistan has misbehaved on terrorism, and it will require us to expend a great deal of diplomatic energy to assemble the necessary majority on the Counter-Terrorism Committee. But the option exists; and if we do not wish to allow Pakistan to believe it can get away with whatever it wishes, and to act as if it can shrug off its complicity in the 26/11 attacks with impunity, we need to remind them that the option exists. A truly comprehensive dialogue is one place where we can make that message clear.
So yes, by all means, let us talk to Pakistan. It is what we say when we talk that will make all the difference.

Shashi Tharoor is a member of Parliament from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram constituency