India’s decision to grant visas to attend a peace conference in Dharamsala with the Dalai Lama next month to a Uighur dissident leader, Dolkun Isa, now resident in Germany, and a Canada-based Baloch dissident, Naela Qadri Baloch, is a step in the right direction.
China and Pakistan are cross, but so be it. Let the “all-weather friends” — in essence, military dictatorships both — ponder over the Indian action and have a deep think. Diplomacy is also about reciprocity, and this instrument has not been used consistently by India.
For the provocations on Kashmir, and the un-demarcated border that China offers us, India is not known to make its displeasure known in an impactful way, although there have been exceptions. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had refused to cancel the Dalai Lama’s visit to a monastery in Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, to Beijng’s annoyance.
Pakistan makes such a song and dance about its diplomatic contact with the Kashmir separatists. It is time this game was taken to a deeper level. Basically, it is a matter of utilising pressure points, just as the China-Pakistan axis did recently with Beijing stopping India’s effort to place terrorist kingpin Masood Azhar on the UN’s prohibited list for plotting the attack on the IAF airbase at Pathankot. Besides reciprocity, our diplomatic instruments should also certainly stand for our democratic spirit, which emphasises peace and concern for the oppressed — the Tibetans, the Uighurs of East Turkestan, and the Baloch and the Pushtun in Pakistan.
