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A Small Beginning in South Asia

Unfortunately, it seems it is the cynics who will have the last laugh all over again.

The secretary-level talks in New Delhi Thursday appear to have made little progress. This was probably only to be expected. The talks between India’s Nirupama Rao and Pakistan’s Salman Bashir at the historical Hyderabad House were supposed to have been about breaking the ice and setting the agenda for real negotiations, perhaps at a higher-level, in months to come.

While in the run up to the talks, Pakistan insisted that all issues including Kashmir were on the table, India asserted that the continuing terror attacks allegedly by militant groups based in Pakistan was the main and real business on the agenda.

In fact, both countries seemed to have totally differing agenda. And this isn’t the first time this has happened.

If the neighbours cannot agree on the agenda of their talks, expecting such meetings and negotiations to lead to any fruitful outcome is perhaps not too realistic.

But talk the neighbours must. The irritants afflicting their relationship and problems they share are too serious for them not to talk. Besides, when they do not talk, the extremist fringe on either side of the geographical divide begins to speak for them. This is why the fact that the nuclear-armed neighbours have agreed to return to the negotiating table and open vital communication lines is in itself a step forward.

Now the neighbours must build on this small beginning and expand the window of opportunity into a serious, honest and meaningful dialogue. While an overwhelming majority on both sides wants genuine peace and friendly relations between the two countries, there are also strong lobbies and vested interests keen to derail the dialogue and expand the gulf.

While militant groups in Pakistan want no peace and normal relations with India until and unless Kashmir is “freed,” Hindu extremist groups are against making any “concessions” to Islamabad. Even as foreign secretaries were meeting in New Delhi yesterday, Mohan Bhagwat, president of Rashtriya Swayam Sevaksangh, the ideological parent of Hindu nationalist parties, rejected the talks as “fruitless.”

This radical constituency is aided by a hawkish media on both sides that constantly demonises the other side and tries to undermine all well-meaning efforts to bridge the divide.

But these challenges must make leaders of India and Pakistan to make greater efforts to build peace. They must gift their people a future that is secure and better than their bitter past. If blood-thirsty European nations can transcend two Great Wars and centuries of hostilities to build a better world for their people, there’s no reason why South Asian twins who were one and the same not long ago can’t do so. It’s time for the winds of change in South Asia.