Basit goes off the diplomatic radar

It would be a violation of diplomatic propriety if Abdul Basit is still in this country as Pakistan’s high commissioner when this appears in print. Indian responses to Pakistani developments are not always logical or mature but this is one situation where only firm and prompt action can ensure the dialogue between the two countries is maintained at a civilised level and not allowed to descend into squabbling recrimination.

Mr Basit had earlier been summoned to the external affairs ministry over Pakistan’s continued support to cross-border terrorism in Kashmir. But that offence was by his government, not him personally. In this instance, he grossly violated the propriety that must guide the conduct of ambassadors who are also respectable men in private life. There are many precedents for invoking Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations for less than Mr Basit’s speech on his country’s independence day. If any Indians were present on the occasion, the only honourable course for them would have been to stage a dignified walkout.

This instance of diplomatic misconduct must be treated in isolation from the gamut of provocations that compound the disputes and differences that have always divided India and Pakistan. It should not be linked to Pakistani shooting in Poonch. Or to alleged Pakistani exports of terrorism, illicit weapons, narcotics and fake currency. Nor should Mr Basit’s outrageous explosion be seen as justifying support of either Balochis who celebrated their independence day on August 11 or of those Kashmiris who no longer wish to live under the yoke of the so-called “Azad Kashmir” regime.

The tussle between India and Pakistan is fought at political, military and diplomatic levels. They must not be confused. Yet, confusion has marked the relationship from the very beginning when, for instance, Jawaharlal Nehru objected to Britain pressuring the Sultan of Mucat and Oman to transfer Gwadar to Pakistan. Presumably, Nehru would not have objected to Britain pressuring Portugal to transfer Goa to India. Similarly, anyone who complains about the mix of political legerdemain and force majeure used to bring the Khan of Kalat to heel and thereby secure Balochistan should pause to consider Indian strategy in Hyderabad and elsewhere.

In many respects, India and Pakistan, Siamese twins in their nationhood, are mirror images of each other. Sanctimonious denunciations by either may be tinged with guilty self-recognition. Humayun Khan, one of Mr Basit’s far more sophisticated predecessors who went on to become Pakistan’s foreign secretary, told me once that although he strongly denied every single Indian charge, even if they had been true they would have been justified “after Bangladesh”.

So, Nawaz Sharif’s vow to “liberate” Jammu and Kashmir is par for the course. There is no reason to gloat he is doing so only because his political base is fragmented and he needs to unite the country behind him. Nor is there any consolation in the thought that the high commissioner must have received his orders from Pakistan’s military and not political authorities. New Delhi was right to give a dusty answer to the impertinent offer of supplies to Jammu and Kashmir. But that won’t stop such fun and games. Every Pakistani leader will forever continue to be seen trying to put the “k” back into Pakistan.

That is the permanent political challenge no Indian Prime Minister can hope to escape. But a certain decorum must be maintained. The immediate problem is ambassadorial insolence for which there can be two main explanations. Either Mr Basit is too ignorant of international diplomatic norms to understand the gravity of his misdemeanour or he was being deliberately offensive to provoke an angry Indian reaction.

Allowance may also have to be made for two supplementary factors. Indo-Pakistani exchanges are so often peppered with informal nonsense that Mr Basit may have thought anything goes. The other factor — and I hesitate to mention this — is that Pakistani politicians have traditionally been more crude than their Indian counterparts, witness the late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s abusive outbursts. But Indian politicians now seem to be catching up.

New Delhi must insist that diplomats behave like diplomats, not street toughs, agents provocateurs or fifth columnists. Other governments have done so before. Bolivia’s first indigenous Indian President, Evo Morales, sent Philip Goldberg, the American ambassador, packing for hob-nobbing with Ruben Costas, governor of Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s predominantly white richest province which threatened secession. Mr Morales may also have remembered that in 1903 the US encouraged some Colombians to secede and create the new state of Panama in return for the Panama Canal. Serbia expelled the Montenegrin, Macedonian and Malaysian ambassadors when their countries recognised Muslim breakaway Kosovo’s independence.

Expulsion can be on a grand scale. When Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Romania, Abdulrahman I. Al Rassi, refused to answer charges of sexually abusing and murdering a 25-year-old Romanian medical student who worked in his embassy as a secretary, the entire legation staff was given 48 hours to leave the country. The diplomatic ballet between Belarus and the European Union meant the latter withdrawing all EU ambassadors after Belarus expelled two of them, as well as banning 200 Belarusian judicial and law-enforcement officials.

It was all within the law. Article 9 of the Vienna Convention empowers the host government to declare a diplomat persona non grata “at any time and without having to explain its decision”. Unless he is recalled, the host country can strip him of his diplomatic rank. Of course, Pakistan will make a hero of any expelled envoy. Even Delhi society will probably lionise him. But South Block must not flinch from doing its duty to save the diplomatic dialogue from deteriorating to the level of the bazaar and the bustee.

The writer is a senior journalist, columnist and author