Click to play videoThere was a heated debate in Parliament on the Indo-Pak joint statement on Wednesday. Though the Prime Minister said there had been no dilution of India's stand on terrorism emanating from Pakistan and he even invoked the Vajpayee legacy to say prime ministers have always tried to make peace with Pakistan, a range of Opposition MPs attacked the joint statement. Nonetheless, the Prime Minister stuck to his guns and said that dialogue with the neighbouring country was the only way forward.
The question that was being asked on CNN-IBN's Face The Nation was: Do Manmohan Singh's Pak initiatives deserve support?
To try and answer on the question on the panel of experts were Union Minister of State for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor; Senior Congress leader, Mani Shankar Aiyar; Rajya Sabha MP and BJP Spokesperson, Ravi Shankar Prasad; and former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, G Parthasarathy.
At the beginning of the show, 52 per cent of the people who voted in agreed that Manmohan Singh deserved support on his Pakistan initiatives, whereas 48 per cent disagreed.
THE JOINT STATEMENT DEBATE
Ravi Shankar Prasad kickstarted the debate by asking a question. "What binds Pakistan - the statement in the Indian Parliament or the joint statement issued after the meeting between the prime ministers of the two countries?" he asked.
He answered his own question saying, "Elementary knowledge of foreign diplomacy suggests that Pakistan is bound by the joint statement. The PM talked of Mr Vajpayee. Yes, I agree that the Agra Summit failed but Mr Vajpayee was able to convince then president Musharraf on January 6, 2004 that dialogue would work only when they could stop abuse of Pakistan's territory in fermenting terror against India. Musharraf agreed to this. Now, PM Manmohan Singh said the same thing when he met Pakistan President Zardari in Russia. But now he is saying that terrorism will not be bracketed and that the fight against terror will not stall dialogue. This is a fundamental shift. And while the PM is assuring the nation here, General Kayani is saying that India is fermenting trouble in Pakistan."
He added that the Pakistan Home Minister has clearly said that they would not detain Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed. "Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a recognised, banned terrorist organisation. They produce Saeed in Lahore High Court, don't give the evidence, they produce him in the Pakistani Supreme Court, don't give the evidence, and today they are saying that they have no evidence at all against him. This is even as the Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram is saying on television that India has given all evidence to Pakistan. What is the purpose of all this?"
Prasad said that the destiny of India and Pakistan can never be together. "You can try and talk to them but the differences are fundamental. India is secular and democratic while Pakistan is theocratic and controlled by the military. Pakistan has elements who want to bleed India."
Shashi Tharoor said that he did not agree at all that the Prime Minister had made any fundamental shift in his stand. "The fact is very simple. With this diplomatic statement, two countries are reflecting what they have discussed, but what counts is action and the PM has always said that you should judge action not words. He said that we do need to talk to our neighbours, he said we cannot choose our neighbours, but he also said that we expect certain things from them. And he spelt these things out really clearly in Parliament on Wednesday - that the perpetrators of 26/11 be brought to justice and that credible steps be taken to dismantle terror infrastructure in Pakistan from which attacks have been launched on India."
Prasad shot back saying that Tharoor was new to Indian politics and still needed to learn its nitty-gritties. He said that India had actually made a commitment with the joint statement to Pakistan that terrorism would not be bracketed and will not stall dialogue.
TRUST AND VERIFY?
G Parthasarthy joined the debate here saying, "I just want to say one thing for the Opposition parties. The PM said trust and verify, I say verify and then trust. General Kayani has been caught on tape describing Siraj-ud-din Haqani as an asset to Pakistan. So I have my serious doubts. Also, but for the fact that we captured Kasab and American and British nationals got caught in 26/11, Pakistan would still be in denial. I don't want to get caught in the debate but I would be very cautious about giving good conduct certificates to the Pakistanis."
Mani Shankar Aiyar interrupted here saying that we have to trust else, we on't even be in a position to verify. "Are we going to have the strategic vision to move forward with a dialogue which has infact been on the backburner and has resulted in a large number of draft agreements being available for us to actually put the India Pakistan relationship on a more even keel? That's the question. It is what we must do."
He said that Ravi Shankar Prasad should remember that after the attack on Parliament, the then NDA government had entered into dialogue with the very government they were accusing of perpetrating the attack on the Indian Parliament.
"The fact of the matter is that there is no alternative other than war to dialogue and engagement," he stated.
He also said that the wordings on the issue of Balochistan were quite clear in the joint statement. In fact Baluch nationals are quite happy with the issue being internationalised especially since as the Prime Minister said, India has nothing to hide there.
Prasad retorted here saying that Pakistan PM Gilani had quite clearly said that India had owned up to anti-Pakistan activities in Balochistan. He said that even General Kayani had agreed to this and said the same thing about India.
"Today, when Pakistan will not only raise Kashmir but also India's insidious role in fermenting trouble against Pakistan in Balochistan at the world stage, then we will have to prove to the world that we are not involved in Balochistan in any way. Out of 60 years, we have been in power only for six years, the rest of the time it has been Congress - either as a coalition or alone. Why then did they break this national consensus now and mention Balochistan? The issue has been on since the time of Zia-ul-Haq. Why has it been brought to the limelight now?" he asked.
Tharoor responded to this saying, "PM Gilani raised an issue which concerned Pakistan, PM Manmohan Singh addressed his concerns on Balochistan because India has nothing to hide there so no national consensus has been broken. We as you know don't like internationalising matters. As Mani Shankar Aiyar said, the joint statement did not imply that India had owned up to anything relating to Balochistan. So as far as we are concerned, if Pakistan wants to talk about Balochistan, they are free to do so - it's their problem and their country."
NO CONFIDENCE ON OPPOSITION?
Another question which Opposition MPs are raising is why the Prime Minister did not take them into confidence. To this Tharoor said, "It is simply because the Opposition was not with him in Sharm-el Sheikh. He was there alone. These things are done usually at the end of meetings when foreign secretaries of countries craft some documents which the prime ministers then bless. It's not like you can send the text back to Delhi to consult the Opposition because if these things aren't released immediately, then there is no point in releasing them."
He said that he wanted to urge everyone to look at the bigger picture, which was the foriegn policy challenge with our neighbour Pakistan.
"The Prime Minister has articulated today (Wednesday) a strategic vision in which he has said that we do need to engage with our neighbour whether we like it or not and this is infact a national consensus because the Opposition government when they were in power had followed exactly the same approach. By this we are not implying that we will go in with naive illusions, but we will verify it all," he added.
G Parthasarthy added here that talks did not mean just sweet talking. They have to be combined with some pressure. "Don't give them freebies. There is something called diplomatic pressure. There are means of getting the Pakistan army to behave and I am not talking about coercive diplomacy here. I have no doubt in my mind that President Zardari is well-meaning and wants good relations with India but unfortunately the point is that everyone - all foreign powers when they are in Pakistan - call on General Kayani and not on the Pakistan Foreign Minister. So let's be clear about who calls the shots there and we have to get their army to behave."
Tharoor replied to this saying that one statement did not summarise Indian foreign policy - be it on Pakistan or on any other nation.
"I think the critics of the statement are guilty of blowing it all out of proportion. We will deal with Pakistan with eyes wide open. I don't think the people who are planning attacks frankly are studying diplomatic statements. I also don't think that it serves the national consensus by attacking ourselves over a few words here and there when the fundamental issue for us is our safety and security and the need to live in peace in our sub-continent," he concluded the debate by saying.
FINAL SMS/WEB POLL: Do Manmohan Singh's Pak initiatives deserve support?
Yes: 55 per cent
No: 45 per cent
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