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Nawaz Sharif has assumed office as the Prime Minister of Pakistan after a historic election, with the army sitting back and watching the electoral process go ahead. Soon after the election results were out, showing his party, the PML (N), winning a majority in the National Assembly Nawaz Sharif said that he looked forward to visiting India even if he was not invited.
Dr Manmohan Singh promptly responded with an invitation to the Pakistani leader to visit Delhi. Dr Singh went a step ahead and despatched veteran diplomat Satinder K Lambah as a special envoy to meet Nawaz Sharif and work out the visit. Lambah is popularly known as a veteran diplomat on Indo-Pak matters for over a decade. He was involved in the back channel discussions with so many Pakistan leaders, including General Musharraf.
Satinder Lambah was born in Peshawar and he is thereby a continental expert on Indo-Pak affairs as well as Afghanistan issues. His return to Delhi from Islamabad after a discussion with Nawaz Sharif was eagerly awaited.
What are the issues which Pakistan has to face while discussing with India? Stephen P Cohen, the veteran American political analyst and an authority on Pakistan and South Asian affairs, has said that Pakistan’s well-known problems continued and there was a race between growing incompetence and problems. The challenges facing Pakistan are serious internal insurgency, sectarianism, a struggling economy and an uncertain civil-military relationship.
Cohen went on to say that the whole world now wanted to see a Pakistan that is stable and willing to further normalise relations with its neighbours. India and Pakistan should take the lead in promoting regional cooperation which will include trade, energy and environmental issues, let alone an understanding of how to manage their nuclear weapons programmes.
Cohen also said that India needs a stable and forward-looking government in Pakistan, one that has the confidence of the Pakistan army and can move forward. New Delhi should provide assurances and inducements to Pakistan, and this should become the agenda of their shared future and not another 65 years of hostility.
While on a visit to Saudi Arabia, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid was asked whether there was a possibility of Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit to Pakistan, now that Sharif had planned to visit to India. Khurshid said that it was too early to say if the Indian Prime Minister would visit Pakistan but Dr Manmohan Singh had an open mind on the subject. Obviously, everything would depend on the outcome of the visit of the Pakistan Prime Minister to India during this year.
During the electioneering campaign in Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif had said that insurgency had no role in Indo-Pak affairs and all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, would be resolved peacefully. There was a report from Pakistan that Sharif was reviewing the progress made in prosecuting those involved in the 26/11 attack in Mumbai. If true this was a good sign. Hopefully, it will be taken to its logical conclusion.
Speaking to media persons after elections were over, Sharif said that the Pakistan constitution made it clear that the army was under the control of the civilian government and he would ensure that it would remain that way. It will, therefore, also imply that the ISI would be effectively monitored by the government and that it would not be at liberty to conduct any rogue operations in India.
At another level, Sharif would be judged on what he does to rein in the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamat-ud-Dawa and their chief Hafiz Saeed as well as the training centre of Lashkar-e-Taiba at Muridke.
A report from Islamabad in April said that some of Pakistan’s best educated men were being dispatched to die in the unending conflict with India over Kashmir with Punjab providing the bulk of cannon fodder. Based on historical precedents, the study on "The Fighters of LeT Recruitment Training, Deployment and Death’ warns that the reduction of the US footprint in Afghanistan could bring them back to Kashmir.
It may be noted that this study was conducted with the support of the Combating Terrorism Centre at the US Military Academy, West Point. According to the study, the expansive and overt presence of LeT throughout the country and its ability to recruit from schools, mosques and madrasas besides circulate its publications continued.
If Nawaz Sharif really believes that Islamic insurgency has no role to play in Indo-Pakistan relations henceforth, he should enforce immediate control and effectively neutralise LeT and its parallel organisation, the Jamat-ud-Dawa.
Professor V.S. Subramanian, Head of the Computer Studies in the University of Maryland, has made an extensive computer study of the activities of various Islamic insurgency groups, including LeT. Addressing the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi recently, Professor Subramanian gave an exposition of the activities of the various insurgent groups in several hotspots in West Asia and the Indian subcontinent. When asked specifically whether LeT was likely to resort to insurgency activities in India in the foreseeable future, he replied that LeT was likely to carry out attacks in small towns in India. He could not be more specific in the sense where these attacks are likely to take place.
Even though this information was of limited use, it is enough to show that LeT has still not given up its hostility towards India and that it will continue to carry out attacks sooner or later. When asked whether the return of Nawaz Sharif to power in Pakistan and his positive approach to India would make any difference to his forecast, Dr Subramanian said that it would make no difference since Sharif did not effectively check the activities of LeT during his first term. Be that as it may, one hopes the emerging situation would lead to amicable relations between the two countries and insurgent groups like LeT would be held on a tight leash.
After the elections in Pakistan, when Sharif was making initial conciliatory statements about India, Hafiz Saeed warned him to go slow in his friendly approach to India. All these factors are enough to show that LeT has not at all given up its hostility towards India.
On the economic front however, Nawaz has to take positive steps to finalise the decision to accord the "most-favoured nation" trading status to India, and thereby encourage an improvement in economic ties, consistent with his policy during his previous tenure as Prime Minister. It is also of significance that he has announced a dialogue with India on Kashmir. India can pick up the threads of the back-channel dialogue conducted during General Musharraf’s time.
By Special Arrangement with : Observer Research Foundation (www.orfonline.org)