Pakistan’s missing India policy: Between a rock and a hard bilateral place
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Pakistani foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto’s biting words to his Indian counterpart on the sidelines of a UN meeting in New York last week came when he was asked to respond to India’s repeated labelling of Pakistan as “the host of Osama bin Laden” and the “perpetrator of terrorism.”
Pakistan’s top envoy replied: “Osama Bin Laden is dead but the butcher of Gujrat is still alive... and he is the Prime Minister of India.”
For BJP supporters in India, this was painful plain-speak. On a global forum, Bhutto had spoken the unbearable truth about Narendra Modi. His words sparked nationwide protests in India, and are still echoing across the subcontinent.
The harsh exchange was rooted in facts. The Indian press courageously and widely reported the butchering of sections of Muslims in parts of Gujrat with Modi’s silent approval or benign neglect in 2002. It led to Modi being banned from entering the US. Subsequently, climbing to power ‘cleansed’ him abroad and at home. Indian courts cleared Modi’s partners in crime who patronized rapists targeting Muslim women in Gujrat. It was the Modi re-election that prompted this domestic cleansing.
But last week, in a war of words, Bhutto reminded the UN press corps that PM Modi had the blood of Indian Muslims and Kashmiris on his hands too.
Despite the many dimensions of Pakistan’s interaction with India, a future path of substantive engagement and cooperation seems missing.
Nasim Zehra
Pakistan’s young foreign minister was reflecting a harsh reality; one that other cabinet members had stated while presenting the dossier documenting the Indian state’s involvement in last year’s terrorist attack in Lahore. India was playing the ugly terrorism game by both conducting terrorism against Pakistan and by propagating Pakistan as the one conducting terrorism against India, recalled Minister of State for foreign affairs Hina Rabbani Khar. She acknowledged the unique challenge of Pakistan alone dealing with a terrorism-fanning Modi’s India. What Khar had recalled diplomatically, her minister recalled bluntly.
Given the usually mild-worded Pakistani criticism of Indian policies on terrorism, Kashmir, Pakistan and Hindutva, Bhutto’s words were a stark departure from the past. After his grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s scathing criticism of India’s Kashmir policies in the 60’s, it was Imran Khan whose plain speak on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), RSS and the fascist ideology irked the Indian government enough to have a western diplomat approach a senior general requesting him to ask the then Prime Minister to refrain from labelling his Indian counterpart a fascist.
By the end of 2020, Khan had cleared Pak-India back channel talks suggested by security stakeholders. His ministers in the Economic Coordination Committee had cleared the import of cotton and sugar from India in March 2021, while the cabinet shot it down within 48 hours.
Pakistan’s India policy has wavered. Overall, Pakistan continues its multiple track policy. Four are important; one is the bilateral level engagement in accordance with the Indus Waters Treaty arrangement; two is the interaction and information exchange with Indian counterparts on nuclear facilities and the LOC situation since the March 2021 cease-fire agreement; three is the limited engagement as a SAARC member on matters ranging from climate change to pandemic threats and four, the engagements in multilateral forums including SCO, ASEAN, on military to economic matters.
Nevertheless, the absence of a comprehensive well thought-out India policy has meant ad hoc or fragmented initiatives or responses. They have ranged from opening Kartarpur corridor to the global broadcast of Indian terrorist Kulbashan Yadav’s attacks in Pakistan, to considering import of Indian products, to refusing bilateral dialogue on substantive issues. In recent months, PM Shehbaz Sharif has expressed Pakistan’s willingness to begin dialogue if Kashmir is also discussed.
And the latest: Pakistani foreign minister’s blunt calling out of the Indian PM in New York. For all the protestations against his harsh comments, Bhutto refused to retract his statements.
“I was referring to a historical reality. The remarks I used were not my own..I did not invent the term ‘Butcher of Gujarat’ for Mr. Modi,” he said in his Dec. 20 interview with Bloomberg.
Bhutto’s words were not a substantive departure from Pakistan’s general orientation of the India policy. It’s his blunt statement of facts bereft of all diplomatic niceties that has shocked many Indians. Its sharp impact will be blunted in the coming days but the challenge of Pakistan’s India and Kashmir policy will persist. Despite the many dimensions of Pakistan’s interaction with India, a future path of substantive engagement and cooperation seems missing.
Bhutto’s bold words notwithstanding, Pakistan must formulate a comprehensive and coherent India and Kashmir policy. It will have to be a policy that factors in Pakistan’s commitment to solving the Kashmir question, not ignoring it.
- Nasim Zehra is an author, analyst and national security expert. Twitter: @NasimZehra
