HVK Archives: Dove among hawks
Dove among hawks - The Telegraph
K. P. Nayar
()
19 May 1997
Title : Dove among hawks
Author : K. P. Nayar
Publication : The Telegraph
Date : May 19, 1997
Gohar Ayub Khan, Pakistan's foreign minister, has done what his
illustrious father could not. He has created the most serious division
within the Indian government in half a century of dealing with Pakistan.
Ranged against each other and taking fundamentally divergent positions
at the end of the Indo-Pakistan summit in Male, in the Maldives, last
week were the prime minister, I.K.Gujral, and his foreign secretary
Salman Haidar.
Fortunately for Gujral, the bonhomie between the Indian and Pakistani
prime ministers and the euphoria over their meeting swept under the
carpet the unprecedented differences between the political leadership
and the civil service in the ministry of external affairs on the vital
issue of Pakistan.
For the Pakistanis, the summit meeting with India went like clockwork,
just as they had planned. And plan they did to the last detail.
Pakistan's foreign secretary, Shamshad Ahmad, arrived at the venue of
the summit with a folder which contained talking points for the
Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, with a difference. Ahmad's
papers, on the basis of which he briefed the press immediately after the
summit, listed in detail and step by step what Sharif had told Gujral.
What made the document curious, however, was that it had all been
written in the past tense, and written before the Sharif-Gujral talks
actually took place. The meeting between the two prime ministers had
gone just the way the Pakistanis wanted.
The differing ways in which India and Pakistan approached the talks
showed later in the day. When Haidar briefed the press in the evening,
he read out from a notebook in which he had made notes while the talks
were in progress. Sharif, it was clear to all those who wanted to go
beyond platitudes, had steered the talks, set the agenda and was the
master of the Male summit.
The Indian approach to the summit was reactive, not proactive. No wonder
then that Sharif confidently addressed the press both before and after
the summit while the Indian prime minister was smuggled into the summit
venue by his special protection group, the media kept at bay.
For the lunch which Sharif hosted when the two prime ministers met, the
Pakistanis had taken elaborate care to find out Gujral's culinary
preferences. They altogether eschewed seafood, to which the Indian prime
minister is allergic, and avoided red meat, which he dislikes.
Baingan Patiala, stuffed chicken breast served with tomato almond sauce,
bhindi do-piazza and vegetable samosas - all Gujral favourites -
probably lulled Gujral into the same complacent mood in which he had,
only a few days earlier, forgotten who had ordered the refuelling of
United States air force planes during the Kuwait war. As Gujral recited
Urdu couplets in absolute nostalgia for his beloved Lahore, Sharif drove
a hard bargain on the issue of joint working groups with India.
When Gujral and Sharif jointly addressed the media after their meeting,
the Indian prime minister conceded that the summit had resolved to
address all outstanding issues between India and Pakistan: a euphemism
which implied that Kashmir had been put on the agenda.
Within minutes thereafter, Pakistan's foreign secretary briefed the
media and he categorically said the two leaders had agreed to set up a
joint working group exclusively devoted to Kashmir. This tied in with
what Gujral had said in his brief comments after the summit, although he
did not elaborate on the joint working group or, for that matter, go
into any details about the talks.
When Haidar addressed the press in the evening, he took a completely
different line. He said the two prime ministers had merely instructed
their respective foreign secretaries to meet and talk about what issues
should be discussed bilaterally Haidar's attention was drawn to what
Gujral had said earlier in the day and to Ahmad's assertion that a joint
working group on Kashmir would soon be a reality. Flashing his famous
temper, the Indian foreign secretary snapped: "It is his [Ahmad's]
preoccupation".
The bonhomie that was evident between the two prime ministers was
totally missing between the two foreign secretaries. Pakistan's foreign
minister too kept up an aggressive posture, accusing the Indian army of
rape and murders in Kashmir since the foreign secretary level dialogue
was resumed in March. The idea was to turn the heat on India, knowing
that Gujral, in his obsession to leave a mark on Indo-Pakistani
relations, could be exploited by Islamabad.
But they had not reckoned with Haidar and South Block's bureaucracy the
same bureaucracy which played a devastatingly effective role a few days
earlier in scuttling the appointment of Bhabani Sengupta in the prime
minister's office. For once, Haidar, who had been perceived as a dove
on Pakistan during Pranab Mukherjee's tenure as external affairs
minister, had acquitted himself marvellously.
Haidar acted because he and the professional diplomats in South Block
had been driven to the wall by Gujral and his cohorts on Pakistan. When
Ahmad and his delegation arrived in New Delhi in March for the foreign
secretary level talks, Gujral ordered not only Haidar, but the entire
Pakistan desk at the ministry of external affairs to receive the
Pakistani team at the airport. The Indian officials smarted over the
order because the Pakistanis had shabbily treated all Indian officials
visiting Pakistan in recent years.
K. Srinivasan was the last Indian foreign secretary to visit Islamabad.
He had gone to Pakistan well after the Indo-Pakistan bilateral dialogue
had broken down, having undertaken the journey to attend a meeting of
senior Commonwealth officials. Islamabad made it clear that Srinivasan
was unwelcome: Pakistan's foreign secretary even told the media that he
happened to exchange a few words with Srinivasan only because they
happened to stand next to each other during a coffee break during the
Commonwealth meeting.
When Vivek Katju, a Kashmiri who heads South Block's Pakistan desk, went
to Islamabad on a familiarization visit shortly after he took over, the
Pakistanis ordered every single official whom Katju contacted not to
meet him. When India's deputy high commissioner in Islamabad hosted a
dinner at his residence in honour of Katju, not a single Pakistani
official turned up: they did not even show the courtesy of regretting
the deputy high commissioner's invitation.
That was not all. Customarily, Indian officials visiting Islamabad are
allowed to go to Murree. On this occasion, Katju was denied permission
to travel outside the capital or go to Murree. Professional diplomats
in South Block have several similar stories to tell and they are all
angry that the Gujral doctrine now obliges them not only to swallow
these insults, but also to be effusive with those in Islamabad who
insult them.
Haidar's recalcitrance in Male has raised question marks about the
agenda for the foreign secretaries meeting in Islamabad next month. If
he sticks to his tough stand, the euphoria over the Male summit may be
shorter than anticipated. The growing belief in South Block is that
Gujral may find a way out of the impasse by naming a new foreign
secretary. This will make Haidar a lame duck even if he travels to
Islamabad. A second option may be to delay the meeting of foreign
secretaries till Haidar retires on June 30.
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