Tough road ahead for India, Pak NSAs

The intensive continuous firing — through large calibre weapons — from the Pakistan side at different locations along the Line of Control in J&K since August 8, and repeated episodes of exchange of fire between the two countries in weeks following the July 10 Ufa meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistan counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, are far from being good signs for a prospective improvement of ties. Relations plunged to an abysmal low when India cancelled a meeting of foreign secretaries, taking strong objection to Pakistan’s consultation with Kashmiri separatists before that meet, deeming it a calculated provocation.

Since Ufa, it is evident that ambitious attempts — at Gurdaspur and Udhampur — have also been made by elements in Pakistan to launch large-scale terror attacks. Fortunately, the plan failed in each case and the casualties could be contained — at Udhampur through fortuitous circumstances, or we might have had a Mumbai-like situation on our hands. A terrorist caught live in the Udhampur attack is offering graphic details on his training and despatch. But Islamabad is taking resort to the old trick of flatly denying that the man caught is a Pakistani, the same line of defence as in the cause of 26/11 in Mumbai until the falsehood was exposed within Pakistan itself.

Given such a backdrop, even if the consultation between the national security advisers of the two sides goes through on August 23, the atmosphere has become thoroughly vitiated. The signs are that the NSAs might be talking past one another. If an observation of Pakistan high commissioner in New Delhi Abdul Basit to the media, when he was summoned on Sunday to the ministry of external affairs to officially receive our complaints about intensive firing on the LoC which was killing ordinary villagers, is any indication, Pakistan NSA Sartaj Aziz could demand a mechanism to monitor which side engages in unprovoked ceasefire violations.

This sounds reasonable until we see in this the Pakistani ploy to involve third parties, including the UN, to mediate in Kashmir, a line rejected in the Simla agreement and the Lahore declaration. The NSAs’ discussion — to focus on terrorism — was meant as a step leading up to another meeting of the Prime Ministers in September on the sidelines of the UN session. Can the principals meet if the NSAs’ talks gets bogged down in rhetoric? This not to argue against the NSAs meeting but to urge that they focus on being fruitful. In his message to Mr Modi on Independence Day, Mr Sharif expressed the hope that “comprehensive” dialogue could begin. That’s nice to hear except that elements within the Pakistan military don’t exactly seem to be dialogue-minded.