The farce of holding Indo-Pak talks is as foolish as smooching a snake. Each time, India looks as stupid as someone who has swallowed the snake, while Pakistan gains another inch in cross-border pacifist posturing. Last week, after fooling Home Secretary R K Singh to understand that the visa deal was as good as sealed, the Pakistanis backtracked, saying Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram and Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rahman Malik should ink the deal politically. When will India understand that Indo-Pak dialogues are marketing gimmicks for terror-sponsor Pakistan, whose brand ambassador is Ajmal Amir Kasab?
Except for the few pre-Partition families in Punjab, ‘secular’ NGOs and those who want to see cricket matches, who would want to go to Pakistan as a tourist? Does an Indian family from Trivandrum, Chennai, Mumbai, Bhubaneswar, Lucknow or Calcutta want to travel to Swat Valley and be beheaded by the Taliban? Do they want to stroll along Karachi’s markets where a suicide bomber may decide to finger his vest any time? On the other hand, the advantage of an Indian tourist visa for the ISI is a priceless Mastercard of terror.
Pakistan, a basket case of a country, has only one method of scoring peace points: inveigle India’s political leadership with the promise of everlasting accord, only to demand concessions that hurt our national integrity and security. Apart from Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee — who never trusted the Pakis — each and every prime minister has fallen for the fake olive branch, wanting to find a place in the memory register of détente as the one who cut the Gordian knot of enmity.
Our politicians’ folly is to barter the patriotism of thousands of soldiers who died defending India. Mesmerised by their own wannabe importance in history, they forget Pakistanis are patriotic too. Only, in their case, patriotism is the first refuge of the scoundrel. Going by our record of political engagement with Pakistan, patriotism is the last refuge of the idiot.
Perhaps in return for Pakistan naming a school after him, Manmohan Singh wishes to withdraw the Army from Siachen. In his words: “Now the time has come that we make efforts that this (Siachen) is converted from a point of conflict to the symbol of peace.” In late April, Defence Minister A K Antony told Parliament that the government was engaged in ‘meaningful dialogue with Pakistan to demilitarise the Siachen Glacier’ and talks will be held on June 11 and 12. He forgets how treacherous Pakistan is. In 1998-99, when the Indian Army vacated its posts in Kargil — as it did every winter — Musharraf sent his troops to occupy the bunkers. It took hundreds of Indian lives to reclaim Kargil. If India withdraws from Siachen, Pakistan will certainly occupy the vacated posts. Its strategy is as oily as Geelani’s smile: after announcing talks on Sir Creek in mid-May, Pakistan cancelled in order to influence the Siachen talks.
Other politicians have sold out India to Pakistan before. In 1997, I K Gujral dismantled RAW operations in Pakistan, turning over all Indian intelligence assets to Islamabad. Undoubtedly, the Indian agents were executed or jailed because Gujral wanted to bask in the glory of playing peace-broker. Manmohan Singh would be well advised to realise the treachery of our schizophrenic neighbour. Like the scorpion in the fable, it is Pakistan’s nature to sting. It has reneged on all agreements. It bombed the Indian embassy in Kabul. It has sponsored terror attacks across India. It harbours Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim.
India must cancel the Siachen talks. Otherwise, Manmohan’s tourist visa to history will be the ticket to treachery.
Ravi@newindianexpress.com