It is a good thing that the national security advisers (NSAs) of India and Pakistan — Ajit Doval and Nasir Khan Janjua — could find a way to meet within a week of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistan counterpart, Mr Nawaz Sharif, holding informal talks in Paris. Evidently, both sides want the doors of dialogue to be open. Not talking lets bad blood fester.
By talking it is hardly likely that the two countries would immediately resolve all their differences, particularly terrorism and Kashmir. But by not talking they would only help matters slide. The obverse also holds: by talking in good faith over a period of time, they may tide over routine difficulties and take the edge of the bigger ones.
The real gain from such a position would accrue if people-to-people contacts open up for good, including the facilitation of travel for journalists, scholars, artists, and business people. Pakistan has to show more flexibility in this regard, especially when it comes to business and trade contacts. India would have to be more accommodating on issues like cricket. Both matter. Even if such positives are lodged, it seems unlikely that the big questions can be cracked in the foreseeable future. The ISI does cultivate the jihadi groups that attack India, and Islamabad does use terrorism and proxy war as state policy. For that to change, deep-going changes are needed inside Pakistan. That’s talking real long term.
But since not talking is hardly a meaningful option, it is just as well that Mr Modi swallowed some pride and permitted Kashmir and questions that are important to Pakistan to be discussed along with terrorism, which is important to India. This is only a small modification of the agreement at Ufa in July under which the NSAs were to converse to discuss terrorism alone, and their discussion was to be followed up by a meeting of foreign secretaries in which Kashmir and other issues could be taken up. The agreed meeting of the NSAs in New Delhi last September was nixed when India refused to permit the Pakistan NSA (Sartaj Aziz at the time) to consult separatist Kashmiri leaders before the NSAs’ meet. By choosing Bangkok as the venue for a simultaneous NSAs’ and foreign secretaries’ meeting, the question of Pakistan’ consultations with Kashmiri separatists was circumvented.
To that extent, Mr Sharif took a step back. But India must recognise that the question of the Pakistanis seeking to meet the separatists prior to a high-level government to government contact in Delhi has not gone away. With the ice broken, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj can travel to Pakistan this week for the Istanbul Process conference on Afghanistan. There she has the chance to build on Bangkok, or at least test Islamabad’s intentions.
