O P I N I O N S

Guest Column
Hasty conclusions on Pak won’t do
Despite Pakistan’s terror card having boomeranged, certain influential circles there continue to regard some terror groups as assets and bargaining chips.
Sharat Sabharwal
meetings between leaders of neighbouring countries should be a routine affair. However, such is the complexity of our relationship with Pakistan that these interactions become controversial and closely watched events. The New York meeting between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Nawaz Sharif was made possible, despite the recent provocations from across the LoC and the Jammu terror attack of September 26, because of Prime Minister Singh’s sagacious decision not to let ‘enemies of peace’ block the path of dialogue.

Touchstones
What is making our youth angry
The pampering of metros at the cost of mofussil towns and the breakdown of civic amenities has created a tsunami of such anger that this mutiny, when it strikes, will sweep the Centre away.
Ira Pande
Early this week, I was in Allahabad to participate in a function I had promised to attend. Allahabad University is my alma mater and there is a special place in my heart for both the university and my old teachers. Apart from that, I spent an important part of my growing up years there and the urge to visit it after a gap of several years was so strong that I found myself rattling away on the Prayag Raj Express with all kinds of apprehensions tumbling in my brain.

ground zero
What Rahul must now campaign for
Rahul needs to push for a strong, secular India to counter Modi’s USP. He must spell out an agenda to uplift the poor and promote young untainted Congress leaders to address the Aam Aadmi Party’s appeal for clean politics.
Raj Chengappa
It is customary for the Prime Minister to address the media travelling on board his special flight on the final leg of a foreign trip. On Manmohan Singh’s return journey from the USA via Frankfurt on October 1, that briefing took on a new import. It was the first time the Prime Minister was to speak to the media after Rahul Gandhi’s outburst over the ordinance protecting convicted politicians from immediate disqualification.

Guest Column
Hasty conclusions on Pak won’t do
Despite Pakistan’s terror card having boomeranged, certain influential circles there continue to regard some terror groups as assets and bargaining chips.
Sharat Sabharwal

meetings between leaders of neighbouring countries should be a routine affair. However, such is the complexity of our relationship with Pakistan that these interactions become controversial and closely watched events. The New York meeting between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Nawaz Sharif was made possible, despite the recent provocations from across the LoC and the Jammu terror attack of September 26, because of Prime Minister Singh’s sagacious decision not to let ‘enemies of peace’ block the path of dialogue. Expectations were, therefore, understandably low. The only, but not insignificant, outcome was to task Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) to come up with measures to restore and maintain the ceasefire on the LoC, which is one of the key CBMs between India and Pakistan. It has by and large held for nearly 10 years, but has come under strain in recent months. According to NSA Menon, both sides agreed that peace on the LoC was a pre-condition to moving the peace process forward. There are existing mechanisms such as the hotline between DGMOs and meetings of local commanders to address ceasefire violations. Therefore, rather than looking for additional mechanisms, the DGMOs would do well to improve the efficacy of the existing ones. India would expect Pakistan to ensure that the sanctity of the LoC is respected not only by its army but also the so-called non-state actors operating from its side.

Security men during the Jammu encounter.

The Prime Ministers reiterated their invitations to each other. With the relationship going through a bumpy patch, it would be unrealistic to expect a high-level visit either way anytime soon.

The only other point of note was a statement by the Pakistan Foreign Secretary that they hoped to speed up the trial of the Mumbai perpetrators. It has so far moved at a snail’s pace.

Some may regard the absence of a joint statement and any substantive outcome, other than the emphasis on the LoC ceasefire, as a sign of failure of the Prime Ministers’ meeting. This conclusion is unwarranted. In view of the circumstances surrounding it — the need to engage a Pakistani Prime Minister who has repeatedly expressed a desire to build a better relationship, combined with the old pattern of provocations from the Pakistan army and its proxies — I believe our people would have gone into the meeting with two principal aims. First, to convey candidly at the highest level our serious concerns regarding Pak-sponsored terrorism. Prime Minister Singh had set the tone for this by describing Pakistan as ‘epicentre of terrorism’ and calling for shutting down of the terrorist machinery, in the course of his speech a day earlier at the UN General Assembly (UNGA). That terrorism was discussed at some length is clear from the Indian official briefing. Second, to tell Sharif that we reciprocate his desire to improve relations, but that this requires effective action on our terrorism related concerns. Given the above aims, it would be unrealistic to look for instant success or failure. An assessment of impact of the meeting in terms of any change in Pakistan’s actions must wait for some time.

Our repeated efforts at building a peaceful relationship with Pakistan have been seriously hampered by cross-border terrorism from its soil. Pakistan’s response to our complaints has ranged from flat denials, blaming the so-called non-state actors, calling for joint action against terror, bringing up the red herring of “Indian interference in Baluchistan” to Pakistan’s victimhood at the hands of terrorists. The non-state actor argument is unacceptable, both because Pakistan cannot disown responsibility for violent acts from its soil even by non-state actors and the fact that its agencies continue to patronise groups such as LeT, alias JuD. Joint action is not possible in the face of anti-India terror groups enjoying a haven in Pakistan. Periodic accusations against us concerning Baluchistan have never been backed by evidence. Pakistan today is indeed a victim of terrorism, but terrorism of its own creation — a fact realised by a growing number of Pakistanis. However, it is appalling that despite Pakistan’s terror card having boomeranged, certain influential circles there continue to regard some terror groups as assets and bargaining chips.

Pakistan’s multiple crises today stem essentially from the use of religious extremism and terrorism as instruments of state policy and Pakistan punching far above its weight over the years in maintaining an adversarial relationship with a much bigger neighbour to its east and attempting to impose its dominance over a fiercely independent people to its west. A major course correction is long overdue. Sharif has been bold in recognising this. In an address to his people in August, he said security threats faced by Pakistan and other national problems were linked one way or the other to its foreign policy. He called for a “brave revision” of this policy to enable the use of national resources for the well-being of people. The crucial question is if he can overcome the resistance of his army and others who continue clinging to the old mindset. In holding the New York meeting, we chose not to be unreasonable in discounting Sharif as an interlocutor without testing his ability to make good on his words. But we would not be unreasonable in treating that ability as an open question for the time being.

The writer is a former High Commissioner of India to Pakistan

Touchstones
What is making our youth angry
The pampering of metros at the cost of mofussil towns and the breakdown of civic amenities has created a tsunami of such anger that this mutiny, when it strikes, will sweep the Centre away.
Ira Pande

Early this week, I was in Allahabad to participate in a function I had promised to attend. Allahabad University is my alma mater and there is a special place in my heart for both the university and my old teachers. Apart from that, I spent an important part of my growing up years there and the urge to visit it after a gap of several years was so strong that I found myself rattling away on the Prayag Raj Express with all kinds of apprehensions tumbling in my brain. One of them was whether I would be alive after the train ride because the death rattles that emerged from the nether regions of the compartment and the drunken lurches that took us along the ancient tracks had me wondering whether I would become another statistic in the long litany of rail accidents!

So much has changed in the city that it is no longer possible to negotiate it on my own. The old, gracious bungalows with their quaint tiled roofs and huge gardens and orchards have been carved into smaller plots and an assortment of apartments has sprung up like weeds over graves. The urban squalor that is now a necessary collateral damage of ‘development’, with its familiar litter of waste, garbage and plastic; overflowing drains and narrow streets choked with traffic that is chaotic to say the least — all this is now so much a part of modern India that it does not raise the same anger it did a few decades ago. What is tragic is the receding levels of civility and grace that were so much a part of small-town India. The spacious boulevards and cultivated gardens of the old Civil Lines were markers of a tamed and cultivated wilderness. All that is now vanishing and the subject of a book of essays titled ‘The Last Bungalow’ edited few years ago a by the poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and brought out by Penguin as a part of its city biography series.

The youth needs more than just lip service.

However, the soul of the ancient city, still called by many Prayag, always lay elsewhere. It bordered the two rivers that gave Prayag its historical and religious significance and had localities with atmospheric names such as Alopi Bagh, Atarsuiya, Muthiganj, Jhoosi, and of course, Chowk. As young girls, we were not allowed by our parents to go to these ‘dangerous’ areas and I had visions of goons and gangsters who would kidnap us if we dared to defy our parents. What was denied to me then was available now: the venue of the event that had taken me to Allahabad this time was in Atarsuiya, close to the famous Khusro Bagh, the site of the tomb of Jahangir’s rebel son, Khusro, who was first blinded and then killed by his brother Prince Khurram (later Shah Jahan). During the mutiny, it provided sanctuary to the rebel sepoys. Its orchards are renowned for their delicious and fragrant guavas that have given the Allahabadi ‘amrood’ its fame in North India.

Each year, a girls’ college, run by the Khatri community, hosts a national essay competition in honour of a distinguished elder, the late Damodar Das Khanna. The competitors submit an essay and then make a presentation before a jury that evaluates their performance in an open house. The process is quite daunting and would unnerve many of us, forget the young students who are grilled. Frankly, I had never imagined that I would encounter such a talented pool of young boys and girls. To my utter delight, the girls did better than the boys and the first prize, a handsome cheque of a lakh, was given to a young girl who studies at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. The despair that I had felt when confronted with the degraded city was overcome by the experience of listening to these confident youngsters who had so much hope and courage that I felt ashamed at the despondency of our generation. The other wonderful discovery was their command over Hindi, a language we seldom hear in Delhi. Unlike a previous generation of youngsters who felt vanquished by their inability to speak fluent English, the speakers who chose to express their views in Hindi made me proud of a language that is my mother tongue. Mind you, it was not the laboured Doordarshan idiom but the voice of a confident, rooted self that gave their thoughts an authenticity that a foreign tongue can seldom copy.

I came away from Allahabad with several points to ponder over: the rise of a new India in cities that have not yet been poisoned by the cynicism of our metros. A new language is being forged in our backyards and those who have developed theories of political reality based on statistics would be well-advised to step outside the leafy environs of their Civil Lines lives to see, hear and understand what it is that disturbs and angers the youth. The pampering of our metros at the cost of our mofussil towns and the total breakdown of civic amenities has created a tsunami of such anger that this mutiny, when it strikes, will sweep the Centre away like a house of cards.