Friends and neighbours

US President Barak Obama���s warm greeting on our 51st Republic Day ��� ���India will have no better friend than the US��� ��� should go a long way in soothing feathers ruffled by British foreign secretary Miliband���s visit earlier this month. Nevertheless, our newspapers have been filled with worried OpEds speculating what approach the newly-appointed US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, will adopt towards our country (a revived if limited India-Pakistan-Kashmir hyphenation?).

There is little doubt that ambassador Holbrooke���s appointment signals a new era in US-South Asia relations, with the emphasis firmly on western South Asia. At the very least, peacemaking between Afghanistan and Pakistan will be put on a fast track, will all that this entails. The Afghanistan government will be under much greater pressure to build alliances that will enable it to govern; a strategy that might work but might also lead to deepening rifts in the fragile coalition of today.

Pakistan has already been put under fresh pressure to deliver against the Taliban in FATA and beyond, including the possibility that non-military aid will be made conditional on Pakistan stabilising its western border (i.e., tackling the armed groups more effectively). This too will further weaken the already weak civilian government ��� unless there is simultaneous pressure on the military to reform, and in particular to coordinate policy and strategy towards the militant groups with the civilian government in the NWFP. Indications are that there will be pressure on the military, but it will be private, and whether or not it will focus on guidance by the civilian authorities is an open question.

Many Indian analysts fear that the US will be assiduously lobbied and might succumb to the temptation to push India to ���give��� on Kashmir in compensation for ramped up demands for action in FATA and the NWFP. We should certainly expect Kashmir to come up in Pakistani conversations with ambassador Holbrooke, but his response will depend to a large extent on how India deals with Pakistan on Kashmir.

If we put on our traditional prickly ���who are you to ask?��� mantle, we can be sure to alienate an envoy who is at present inclined to be attentive to Indian concerns. Our government misplayed the Miliband visit badly by personalising what was a political issue ��� it was shocking to see the media full of stories on how frequently the British foreign secretary interrupted the Indian foreign minister, even complaining that he should not have hugged a much older man. Have we become so petty?

If, on the other hand, we see ambassador Holbrooke���s appointment as an opportunity to work with a man who means business and who can therefore speed up much-needed stabilisation on our west, we might find a common cause. Indeed, if we don���t do so, we run a number of risks. The focus on punishing the Pakistani militant groups guilty of terrorist attacks in India might slip; worse, some of the cadre that had gone to FATA might return to Kashmir. There is little doubt that the militants attacking India, Pakistan and Afghanistan are linked ��� but the US envoy���s mandate is for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and ensuring culpability for crimes committed in India will entail regular Indian contact with him.

As regards Kashmir, here too we have an interest. We do not want a Kashmir settlement with Pakistan to be tied to their performance against militant groups in the NWFP or Afghanistan. But we do tie it to Pakistani action against militant groups that attack India ��� we say that the peace process cannot resume unless we see results on punishing the Mumbai guilty. What better way could there be to ensure these twin goals than to suggest that a Kashmir settlement can indeed be reached, based on the considerable progress made in the Lambah-Aziz dialogue, where a framework for settlement had been all but agreed?

Foreign secretary Miliband���s error was that he did not refer to the many achievements that the India-Pakistan peace process had made, especially on Kashmir ��� and he called for talks on Kashmir before Pakistan had delivered any results on the Mumbai investigation and hopefully prosecution. Both are errors that the Indian government could have set right by simply saying, ���We look forward to resuming the composite dialogue with Pakistan as soon as the Mumbai planners have been identified and prosecuted���. Similarly, why could we not have welcomed Pakistan���s setting up a special investigation team instead of lecturing them to be transparent? Surely there is time enough for a lecture if the SIT does not deliver soon?

Once again, our official rhetoric has become repetitively schoolmarmish instead of diplomatic. For this, our policy wonks and media bear a large part of the blame. The air waves are full of call to war, or at least covert operations, while our government pursues a policy of seeking legal and negotiated redress and our public, according to a CNN-IBN Hindustan Times poll, opposes war (46% against and 24% for ���direct action���, whatever that means). Can a policy community that debates war and covert operations on television be taken seriously?

Most distressing of all is our seeming disregard for the urgent need to have our neighbour stabilise so that we can further strengthen ourselves. There is little doubt in my mind that Hindutva terrorism is rising as a reaction to Pakistan-based terrorism. We need the right to win over the wrong in the battle for Pakistan almost as much as Pakistan does. Fortunately, our friends and most of our neighbours have the same goal. We have an opportunity to work with our friends and our neighbours, after a long hiatus ��� let us not lose it.

(The author is professor of peace and conflict studies in Jamia Millia Islamia)