Does Centre have a plan to tackle Pak?

The fundamentals have not changed on Pakistan, but the Narendra Modi government has chosen to let bygones be bygones and decided to re-engage with Islamabad. For this it will be lampooned by many, just as the BJP used to mock the earlier UPA government for returning to the dialogue mode even when the issue of terrorism remained unresolved. However, the decision to try and begin on a fresh slate has practical uses. Not talking is not a policy even if talking does not always produce the desired results in a given timeframe. Diplomacy rests on the notion of effective and constant engagement.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, after her recent visit to Islamabad, categorically told Parliament Monday that there was no difference in the material situation between last September — when India eventually refused to have the Pakistan national security adviser over for talks since he was insistent on also talking to the Kashmiri separatists while in New Delhi — and the present time, when the NSAs, as well as the two foreign secretaries, have met.

And yet the Modi government had found a way to break the ice and resume the conversation. Ms Swaraj said India was going on “trust”. She didn’t elaborate further. But presumably this means New Delhi expects Islamabad to do the right thing, specially in bringing the trial of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and others over the 26/11 Mumbai attacks seven years ago to a quick conclusion. We have to wait to see how that goes.

From the word go, the Modi government’s line was that “talks and terror” can’t go together. And Lashkar-e-Tayyaba founder Hafiz Saeed has just dared India to try and link him with the 26/11 attacks. One other thing. Even as Ms Swaraj was briefing Parliament, the Pakistan high commissioner was briefing a Kashmiri separatists’ team in New Delhi the same day on the Indian minister’s visit to Islamabad. But the external affairs minister has preferred to be stoical and take these things in her stride. Indeed, her government seems to have taken a leaf out of the Congress’ playbook. The talk about “trust”, about not letting provocateurs and saboteurs disrupt the dialogue, and about keeping the dialogue “uninterrupted”, was heard aplenty in the UPA years, and is typically part of a liberal’s quiver of arguments. Even Mani Shankar Aiyar, with whom is rightly associated the idea of “uninterrupted and uninterruptible” dialogue, would approve. What is still not clear is whether the Modi government has a gameplan on dealing with Pakistan, of which the moves we have seen in the past fortnight are a part. So far a Pakistan policy has not been much in evidence, though there has been plenty of declamation.