Statesmanship should dictate Pakistan policy

From a few days ago, when the Pakistan cricket team was touring India after years, allowing cricket fans on both sides to savour the passionate rivalry, with prospects of further measures to supplement the slow peace process, such as visa-free travel for senior citizens on both sides, the situation has turned positively ugly. That visa measure is now on hold, hockey players from Pakistan have been sent back, other sporting events shifted from allotted venues, and even PM Manmohan Singh, with his forward-looking vision on ties with Pakistan, has been forced to issue a terse statement, amidst growls of military commanders and the rantings of hardliners on both sides. It was precisely to avert such a meltdown that the notion of uninterruptable and continuing talks and a peace process between the two countries was sought to be put in place. And it is quite illustrative of the Indo-Pak relationship that one incident, one spark, can unravel slow, halting progress on other fronts. The immediate need is to eschew jingoism and warmongering and then start getting back on track with the peace process.

Of note in this seeming freefall in ties has been the hysteria put out by sections of the media, particularly TV. Such hysteria obscures facts. It is clear that while mutilating a soldier's body is a despicable act, contrary to all conventions of war, the LoC is also a site of attrition, of heavily militarised zones, where localised hostilities were par for the course until the ceasefire was agreed on. Both countries have lost, and continue to lose, soldiers and even civilian lives. For both, the ceasefire had allowed a life of some semblance of normalcy on the LoC. Of course, we must guard the LoC, make clear the unacceptability of such mutilations, and also respond adequately to violations. But there is absolutely no alternative to pursuing a calibrated process of engagement and peace with Pakistan, as part of the effort to bring about a change in the military establishment's mind-set there; or even hope that events finally make hardliners marginal and irrelevant. Statesmanship should dictate policy, not sabre-rattling by politicians or sections of the media.