What India Got Wrong With Rajnath Singh's Pak Visit

Should we be even be concerned about the reception that Pakistan gave Rajnath Singh on his short visit there? Yes, the optics were terrible - India's Home Minister and his Pakistani counterpart barely shook hands, and tensions ran high between the Indian delegation and their hosts when the media were barred from covering Singh's speech. 

But let's remember this: India's Home Minister wasn't there to talk to Pakistan. He was there to talk to all of SAARC - a grouping that has for too long been held hostage to the constant friction between its two largest constituents. We need to grow up, and stop looking at India's foreign policy through the single lens of the India-Pakistan relationship. The growth of SAARC institutions is vitally important for India too. 

The problem is that the emotional overtones attached to the India-Pakistan relationship tend to overshadow any rational discussion of India's neighbourhood policy. And the current government has done little to break out of this trap. It began by treating Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in as some sort of imperial durbar, with all the neighbourhood satraps in attendance; it then moved on to breaking a decade-long ceasefire on the Line of Control to pretend to its macho, assertive base that it was tough on Pakistan; it broke off secretary-level talks in inexplicable dudgeon just because Pakistan talked to the Hurriyat; then, chastened by lack of results, it began talking again. And let's not forget Modi's dramatic and pointless Christmas visit to Sharif's house. The Modi government has operated throughout on emotion, and not with a clear goal in mind. 

Seen one way, this is odd; seen another way, this is unsurprising. 
 It's odd because this government could indeed be argued to have a clear goal in mind when it comes to Pakistan. It wishes to isolate Pakistan globally - indeed, the Prime Minister himself has telegraphed that aim in his statements. That underlay the PM's early reaching out to the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, hitherto friends and supporters of Pakistan, but markedly less so of late; and his embrace of Iran and Afghanistan, which do not exactly view their eastern neighbor with favour. Whatever you think of the merits of this policy of outreach to global actors with a stake in Pakistan, it is both consistent and defensible. Why is such consistency of vision not brought to India's own interactions with Pakistan?

This divergence, between how you talk about Pakistan in general and how you actually deal with Pakistan yourself needs an explanation. But when it is seen from the standpoint of the Bharatiya Janata Party's pathologies about Pakistan, it becomes a little clearer. Indeed, when you consider the expectations of Narendra Modi's base, it becomes downright unsurprising. 

A crucial part of Modi's appeal to his strongest supporters was that he would terrify China and Pakistan. This is not a rational expectation; it demands emotional fulfilment. Modi's government may seek to take a rational approach to Pakistan when its base is occupied by some other controversy or issue. But when the base is paying attention, then Modi's government has neither the intellectual strength, nor the moral fortitude, nor the political imagination to counter its base's expectations.
 Consider how it has dealt with Pakistan in the weeks since Burhan Wani was killed in Kashmir, and the Valley erupted in anger. Remember, even most within the government will agree readily that there is little or no Pakistan angle to the Wani phenomenon. But India has tried to make the story about Pakistan over and over again. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj delivered a tub-thumping speech in Parliament that took on Pakistan, and declared that its desire for Kashmir would "not be realized to the end of eternity". OK, sure - but is that the point? This is a weird inversion of the standard positioning. India has always said Kashmir is an internal matter but the moment we have the option of treating it like an internal matter, we desperately try to internationalise it by whining about Pakistan. 

The atmosphere around Singh's trip to Pakistan, and what he said at the SAARC meeting, are another manifestation of this strange inversion. India has a wonderful opportunity to insulate how it deals with Kashmir with how it deals with Pakistan - which has been its strategic ambition all along. But the government's craven fear of alienating its base, and its unwillingness to tell its base that the Kashmir protests are, this time at least, entirely our problem and not fomented from overseas, means that it is reduced to macho posturing even at a SAARC event. 

Sure, Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif called Wani a martyr. Big deal. Words are cheap. After Wani's death, did Pakistan up the transfers of cash or AK-47s across the border to stoke the protests and inflame violence? If so, show us. If not, then I say again: words are cheap, and India would have done well to ignore them. Sharif will say what he must say to cover his doing what he wants to do.

The fact that Sharif called Wani a martyr - or that the murderous madman Hafiz Saeed was allowed to hold a rally as Singh arrived - should have neither dominated our coverage, nor been the takeaway from Singh's speech. Protests will happen and Pakistani premiers, as long as they want to get elected, will have to pay lip service to Kashmiri Islamists. India has other fish to fry. What a pity that the government is too scared of its own supporters to fry it. 

(Mihir Swarup Sharma is a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.