No alternative to talks with Pak

Whether one agrees or not, dialogue is not an option for either Pakistan or India, but a compulsion. An absolute one at that. If a hardliner like Narendra Modi acknowledged the same, his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif may also be coming to terms with this reality.

Another hawk of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharaff, the chief architect of the Kargil skirmish, and who always talked about annexing Kashmir from India, agreed to come to the table once he became the head of the State. The Congress, which criticised Vajpayee for his friendship offer to Pakistan, toed the same line during Dr Singh's stewardship after Mumbai attack.

So what do both nuclear states do, if not talk? Go to war? India should strengthen its borders, modernise its forces further and sanitise the interiors. Double the vigil in anticipation...every day and just do not wait for intel inputs

Pathankot leads, as they keep emerging one by one, are shocking the nation even as the Opposition slams the Narendra Modi-led government for its inconsistent stand on Pakistan. Slamming the BJP regime's neighbourhood policy, Congress leaders accuse him of trying to make history without knowing the history.

The same Congress party's Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, had famously said during his tenure that one could choose friends but not neighbours. The time-frame of two weeks between Modi's impromptu Lahore stopover and the terror visit to Pathankot are just a reminder of the tough road ahead of these two nations.

As heads of State, the leaders of these two countries could see reason in talks and pine for good neighbourly equations. Yes, history is loaded against it. There seems to be little to suggest that these two countries would ever live in peace. This fact is only buffered by the presence of nuclear war heads that both the countries possess.

Whether one agrees or not, dialogue is not an option for either, but a compulsion. An absolute one at that. If a hardliner like Modi acknowledged the same, the Pakistani counterpart may also be coming to terms with this reality.

Another hawk of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharaff, the chief architect of the Kargil skirmish, and who always talked about annexing Kashmir from India, agreed to come to the table once he became the head of the State. The Congress, which criticised Vajpayee for his friendship offer to Pakistan, toed the same line during Dr Singh's stewardship after Mumbai attack.

So what does one do, if not talk? Go to war? To destroy both the nations? There is little evidence to support a war proposal either, as no third country will support it. Take for example, could one believe that the US would allow India to hit Pakistan for its involvement in any of these terror strikes against it? It would never label Pakistan as a terror State even if the latter were to strike India a thousand times more. India should not forget how the US treated General Raheel Sharif last November.

Even though we hear some stray voices in our support, those would not carry enough conviction to force the US administration to seek any sanction against Pakistan. Be it US or China, these all have a layered approach to the world.

Their own interests are paramount to them and hence, whatever evidence India might produce against Pakistan about its involvement in terror in the region, they would turn a blind eye. When the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, urged China to end "business as usual" with North Korea after its fourth nuclear test, the latter did not agree as it did not want any trouble on its borders.

Make no mistake, international reaction would be the same in case of Pathankot, too. Each unto himself is the world order and what is good for the goose may not be so for gander. India had earlier handed over enough evidence against Maulana Masood Azhar and his Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM).

China blocked the same on the pretext that there was not just enough evidence, preferring to play the Pak card. The JeM has been designated as a terrorist organisation in several countries, including Australia, Canada, the UAE, the UK and the US.

In 2009, India had impressed upon the UN Security Council to ban Azhar but China, one of the five permanent members of the group with veto powers, blocked the UNSC sanctions against the JeM chief. There was no lacunae on part of the then UPA government, but China used the "failed to provide sufficient information" alibi to block the UNSC sanctions against al-Akhtar Trust, a JeM front.

In 2010, China placed on "technical hold" India's request to name Azhar, Abdur Rehman Makki and others as terror handlers. Beijing has thrice blocked India's bids to get Jamaat-ud-Dawa added to the UNSC terror list (JuD was finally added to the list in December 2008).

China also stalled India's bid to get Hizbul Mujahideen's Syed Salahuddin added to the 1,267 sanctions list in early 2015. (The UNSC resolution 1267, adopted on October 15, 1999, on the situation in Afghanistan, designated Osama .and associates as terrorists and established a sanctions regime to cover individuals and entities associated with Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and/or the Taliban).

Turning to Pakistan, there is no indication of any change of heart, despite Modi's visit. Look at what the government got to say after its high level meeting at Islamabad on Friday. The Pakistani Prime Minister's Office issued a statement after the meeting which said "issues pertaining to national and regional security were discussed during the meeting.”

The meeting was a high level one no doubt as Pak Finance Minister, Interior Minister, Adviser on Foreign Affairs, National Security Adviser, Foreign Secretary and IB chief amongst others. Pak PM Nawaz Sharif is said to have advised his officials to speed up work on India's request on Pathankot.

But the meeting also made it a point to leak this particular piece of info that "the information provided by India was not enough as it was just limited to telephone numbers". The leak also said that Pakistan might ask for additional information to build a case for action.

"Otherwise courts intervene and the suspects get bailed out easily and immediately,” it was added for a good measure. This is what Pakistan has been saying always and even after Mumbai. So what should India do? The political problem that is crucial to the peace scenario here is Kashmir. It needs a lot of courage even to argue that "let bygones be bygones and let the LAC be the border".

If the Army opposes anyone saying so there, our own Opposition here would not allow one to say so. Both the countries got to digest this fact. Just as PoK is a non-negotiable for Pakistan, Kashmir is a non-negotiable for India.

What is left now is the terrorism issue. The terror modules flourishing in Pakistan would not allow the government there to come to terms with India on Kashmir. The agenda of the real financial masters of Pakistan and the terror modules will not want peace with India, a Hindu majority nation.

Anyway, as we don’t talk to these modules, it is the civilian government that we should look to and expect reason to prevail. The entire Pakistani society does not hate India. There are civil society groups and several rationale and well-balanced heads that could support talks with India.

Then there is a section, perhaps, a large one that sees the dangers of fundamentalism and terrorism that is slowly driving the Islamic world towards the Daesh (the ISIS) and the divide it’s bringing among the Muslims. Talking is a much better proposition than any.

Whether there will be prompt and decisive action as sought by our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, will always remain an open ended question. Sharif had promised it. Will the Pak Army promise it or its ISI? No one could be sure of this. Pakistan cannot continue to live in an illusory world hallucinating over Kashmir forever. But just as India, Pakistan could not afford a war over Kashmir this time around.

India must continue the dialogue process with whoever is willing to talk. Simultaneously, India should strengthen its borders, modernise its forces further and sanitise the interiors. Double the vigil in anticipation...every day and just do not wait for intel inputs. War on terror is not a season or occasional one. It is a daily phenomenon now.