Lessons, warnings on India-Pak front

MIAN Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistan Muslim League (N) supremo who has thrice served as Pakistan’s Prime Minister, recently met a group of Indian journalists in Lahore in the office of his daughter, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz. Sharif urged India and Pakistan to begin talking and “live like good neighbours”. One newspaper report quoted him as saying, “We should not go into the past, and should look to the future”. However, he could not resist going into the past himself; he recalled his efforts to ‘mend’ the relationship, but said his efforts were disrupted. He advised the two countries to pick up the threads from his interaction with PM Narendra Modi.

The Ganderbal terror attack is Gen Munir’s way of showing that the Pak army has the wherewithal to disrupt political progress in J&K.

Sharif turned nostalgic about then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore in February 1999. He said, “Vajpayee’s Lahore visit is still remembered very fondly… His speech was very good. I sometimes watch YouTube videos of the visit and the speech to revive good old memories”. This writer was present in the Punjab governor’s house lawns when Vajpayee delivered a truly memorable address to the Pakistani people. The objective of his speech was to convince them that India wanted to live in peace and harmony with them. It was the same aim which took him to visit the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore.

More than 25 years have passed since Vajpayee’s Lahore visit. I will be betraying nothing of strategic value if I dwell on how the idea that Vajpayee should directly speak to the Pakistani people came to pass. Vajpayee’s Lahore trip was decided in early February. I was then Joint Secretary in charge of the Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan Division of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). I had, therefore, a role in preparing for the visit. The more I thought about the visit, the more I realised that India’s greatest asset, in the context of the visit, was Vajpayee’s oratorical prowess. And, the only way in which this asset could be utilised was if he made a public speech on Pakistani soil. Naturally, this could not be in an open public meeting; it had to be in a setting where security could be guaranteed. I mentioned the idea to my superiors in the MEA. No one objected.

I was present when the idea was presented to Vajpayee. He was surprised and asked, “Kya wahan bolna bhi hoga?” Everyone kept quiet. Since it was initially my idea, I said, “Sir, iska bahut faida hoga.” He turned to me and said, with some sharpness, “Bolna toh mujhe hai.” That meant that he wanted time to mull over the idea. Before I accompanied the advance team to Lahore, I got the clearance that he had agreed, but the Pakistanis were not informed of his intention. I was asked where and whom should he address. I thought the right venue would be the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), where some of the best and brightest of the Pakistani youth studied and which was founded by Syed Babar Ali. Babar, now 98, is one of Pakistan’s most respected industrialists and philanthropists. I got a nod to sound him out during the advance team’s visit to Lahore.

By the time I got free on the first day of the two-day visit, it was about 10 pm. I was leaving for Delhi the next evening, and the next day was also packed with meetings. I shared my predicament with Ghanashyam, who was a counsellor in our High Commission in Islamabad but was in Lahore then. He said he had the phone number of Babar’s son, and that the father-son duo lived in the same house, close to the Punjab Government Guest House, where we were staying. Before he called the son, I told Ghanashyam to tell him that my uncle, who knew Babar, had instructed me to convey his regards to him in person and that I could not return to Delhi without doing so.

It was well past 10 when Ghanashyam called the son. He told him who I was and that I needed to see Babar sahib that late evening itself. The son said Babar had retired for the day but that he would call back. He did so within minutes and said Babar would be happy to meet me. So, Ghanashyam and I went to his house.

As we reached Babar’s beautiful home, it became clear that the family had retired for the evening. The lights in the reception room of the house were switched on, and the son was there to graciously welcome us. After some time, Babar came down in a dressing gown. He was the embodiment of courtesy and brushed aside my apologies. I conveyed my uncle’s salaams and then broached the objective of my visit. He listened attentively and said Vajpayee sahib’s visit to LUMS would be a great honour, but naturally he would have to consult the Pakistani Government.

I do not know what Babar did, but the message that Vajpayee wanted to address the Pakistani people obviously went to the right quarters. In a few days came the response that Vajpayee was welcome to speak to a select but large group of persons at the Punjab governor’s house. Naturally, that would be a secure environment and easier to control than LUMS. As Vajpayee’s speech would directly reach the Pakistani people, our purpose would be served, as it indeed was.

The Lahore visit’s promise died in Kargil. Gen Musharraf’s misadventure is condemned by most thoughtful Pakistanis. The Indian Army, paying a great price in blood, recaptured most of the Kargil heights. Indian diplomacy did well too. Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf fell apart after the Kargil war, but there was a fleeting period, in the operation’s early stage, when Sharif dreamt of becoming ‘Fateh-e-Kashmir’. I write this with a sense of responsibility.

In 1999, it had seemed that the Sharifs had gained substantial influence over the army. That proved false. Prime Minister Modi did not pay heed to the Kargil lesson. The Pakistan army soon made that obvious to him after his visit to Lahore in 2015.

Recently, the Pakistan army held back, allowing the J&K elections to be held peacefully. It did not want any issue to prevent the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of Government meeting in Islamabad from proceeding smoothly. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s participation in the SCO event led to speculation among die-hard optimists that it may pave the way for the normalisation in ties, though no bilateral talks were held.

The Ganderbal terror attack, in which six workers and a doctor were killed when an infrastructural project was targeted, is Gen Asim Munir’s way of showing that the Pakistan army has violent intrusive capabilities which it can use to disrupt political progress in J&K. It is also a signal to ex-PM Imran Khan that he would not be given the opportunity to blame Gen Munir for being soft on India, whatever the Sharifs may want. It is also a warning to the Valley’s political class as Ganderbal is CM Omar Abdullah’s constituency.

Finally, the Ganderbal incident has made the Indian cricket team’s visit to Pakistan in 2025 for the ICC Champions Trophy far more difficult.