It must have caused the Congress party great political discomfort to watch Prime Minister Narendra Modi make a surprise >stopover in Lahore , exude bonhomie with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, and behave as if he could will India towards better ties with Pakistan without help from anyone else. What the Congress-led government failed to do for ten years between 2004 and 2014, despite the good intentions of its Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its Prime Minister, Mr. Modi, seem able to do with ease: take the initiative in visiting Pakistan and set the agenda for talks with Pakistan. The Congress is free to rue its missed opportunities, and, maybe, even blame a combative BJP-headed opposition for the unimaginative and constricted foreign policy vis-à-vis Pakistan in that decade. But what it should not do is undermine the efforts of Mr. Modi as he sets about doing what it would have liked to have done by itself. Of course, Mr. Modi can be faulted for the U-turns in India’s South Asia foreign policy. But the time for such criticism is not now, when he and his government are moving ahead in the right direction. The sudden boost to ties with Pakistan might have been ‘unpredictable’, as Congress leader Anand Sharma saw it, but ‘predictability’ is no virtue either. Also, it is of no great consequence if the visit was prearranged days in advance or was the result of an impulsive decision. What matters is what ensues from Mr. Modi’s sudden overtures to Pakistan. If the relations move up a level or two, and the surprise visit helps build greater trust between the two countries, then it would have served its purpose. The visit can be termed ‘frivolous’ only if the end results do not go beyond wishing Mr. Sharif on his birthday or greeting his granddaughter on her wedding. To be dismissive of the Modi-Sharif meeting even without giving it a chance to bear fruit betrays the political nervousness of the Congress more than anything else.
That, during its years in power, the Congress took its cautionary instincts on Pakistan to an absolute extreme was obvious. Indeed Prime Minister Singh did not get the necessary support from his party or his Cabinet colleagues when he tried to take the initiative in resolving outstanding issues with Pakistan — most spectacularly, on the Sharm el-Sheikh joint statement. This might have had to do with the fear of the BJP, then in opposition, taking political advantage of any normalisation of relations with Pakistan by projecting it as a sell-out. But without doubt, Prime Minister Singh was seen as apolitical by the Congress leadership, and was not given a free hand in taking initiatives of the kind that Mr. Modi has. The Congress should seriously introspect about the need to place national interest above petty political calculations. For his part, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too must reach out to take opposition leaders into confidence on his vision for India-Pakistan talks — else, bipartisan consensus on such a crucial issue will remain elusive, with populist grandstanding continuing to threaten the country’s strategic and foreign policy challenge.
