Sushma Swaraj took to the UN General Assembly podium and demanded that "if any nation refuses to join this global strategy" - she was referring to the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that India introduced in the UN 20 years ago - "then we must isolate it." Very good - except that if she had Pakistan in mind, I am very sorry but their position is the same as that of several member-States: that, despite the passage of two decades, much work still needs to be done on producing a consensual draft of the Convention acceptable to all. Indeed, as veteran Indian diplomat at the UN Hardeep Puri, now with the BJP, pointed out in the Left, Right & Centre programme on
NDTV, the main nay-sayer has been the United States of America (he also added Syria). Not Pakistan. It is all very well for our External Affairs Minister to say that "such countries should have no place in the comity of nations" - but who is going to bell the American cat?
The last reported statement of Pakistan in the Ad Hoc Committee that is trying to draft the Convention under the chairmanship of Sri Lanka's Rohan Perera is that of Masood Khan on October 7, 2014 saying Pakistan regrets that "the monster of terrorism seems to be getting bigger" and was being used as an "instrument of asymmetric warfare." He was far from being alone - the Arab nations, NAM and OIC backed him - in insisting that the CCIT "must clearly differentiate between acts of terrorism and legitimate struggles for self-determination of people living under foreign occupation". Indeed, when I, as Joint Secretary (UN) in 1983, was representing India in the UN Sixth Committee, my instructions were to say much the same thing.
To achieve our goals as spelt out by Sushma Swaraj, we would, at a minimum, require the support of the US, Russia, and China as Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, and the unstinted backing of the Nonaligned Movement and the member-states of South Asia in the UN General Assembly.
Where do we stand with each of them in the aftermath of Modi raking up Balochistan on 15 August, Gilgit and Baltistan the same day, and the Uri attack on 18 September - against the background of the continuing agitation in the streets of Kashmir since July 8?
As far as the United States is concerned, notwithstanding Modi's heroic efforts to impress Obama with his ten-lakh rupee
bandhgala and his repeated invocation of "Barak" so that TV conveys his closeness to the US president, and Obama having designated India, during Modi's State visit to Washington in June, as a "Major Defense Partner", the US reaction to Modi's remarks on Balochistan was conveyed to the world by the US State department spokesman, John Kirby, in response to a pointed question from an Indian journalist about a month later, on September 13: "The government policy," he
said disarmingly, "is that we support the territorial integrity of Pakistan". He added, for good measure, "We do not support independence for Balochistan".
Thus, in one sentence, he not only put paid to India's interference in Pakistan's internal affairs but also sloughed off Modi's bear hug (don't forget his 56-inch chest) for poor Barak Obama. He also made clear the United States' total lack of sympathy for Brahumdag Bugti and Hyrbyair Marri, both of whom have sought asylum/refuge in India in order to continue their campaign to prise Balochistan out of Pakistan's grip.
Unfazed, the Indian correspondent persisted with a supplementary, "So, do you have any reaction to the Indian Prime Minister's statements on that particular subject?" Kirby socked it back to him: "I think I just gave our reaction to events there" - and moved on to the next question.
Well, the Uri attack on 18 September came five days later than Kirby's statement, so that should have changed the US position. Instead, on 22 September, four days
after Uri, US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif and underlined their "strong, long-term bilateral partnership" and their mutual desire to "build upon the US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue", then went on to "commending recent efforts by Pakistani security forces to counter extremist violence." One would have thought "recent" would include the Pak-sponsored terrorist attack on an Indian army base just four days earlier. Instead, Pakistan's actions to "counter extremist violence" were lauded. Was this the "unkindest cut of all?"
No. More followed. Virtually anticipating Modi's challenge to see who between India and Pakistan would win the "War on Poverty and Illiteracy" and the Indian media's desperate attempts to portray the Pakistani economy as on the verge of collapse, Kerry actually "
commended the (Pak) Prime Minister for restoring macroeconomic stability to Pakistan" (emphasis added). So is Modi's economics lesson to Pakistan cutting any ice at Foggy Bottom (where the US State Department offices are located in Washington, DC)?
The joint statement then turned to Kashmir. At this point, the joint statement stops talking of Kerry and Sharif separately and conjoins both to say that the two of them together "expressed strong concern with recent violence in Kashmir"! Nothing about Pakistan stoking that violence. Nothing about the violence in PoK. At the very best, India and Pakistan are lumped together in the reference to "recent violence". Cheekily, Nawaz gets Kerry to include in this joint sentence "the army base attack", which Nawaz actually pretends to condemn - and the US, at the level of the US Secretary of State, acquiesces in with the Pakistanis that Pakistan is not responsible for "particularly the army base attack"!
And only then do we come to the really "unkindest cut of all" - Nawaz, with his tongue stuck firmly in his cheek, and Kerry, in what one might forgive as wide-eyed innocence, urge together "the need for all sides" - that includes Modi - "to reduce tensions". For all the overblown rhetoric of Modi, Amit Shah and Ram Madhav, the US hyphenates India and Pakistan and holds both equally responsible for rising tensions in South Asia. That rules the US out of any "isolation" of Pakistan or damning it as a "terrorist state".
Well, what about the Russians? Before Modi started muddying the waters of our foreign policy, Russia was regarded by every Prime Minister from Nehru to Vajpayee to Manmohan as our "time-tested friend", our most reliable backer and supporter. On 18 September, Pakistani terrorists attack Uri. Five days later, on 23 September, Lt. Gen Asim Bajwa of Pakistan tweets: "A contingent of Russian ground forces arrived in Pakistan for
first-ever Pak-Russian joint exercise (two weeks) from September 24 to October 10." And where, pray, are these exercises to take place? In Gilgit-Baltistan!
Till Modi broke upon the scene, the Russians had consistently agreed with us that Gilgit-Baltistan was an "integral part of India" illegally occupied by Pakistan. Modi's diplomatic manoueverings and his naval exercises with the US off the Russian Pacific coast have led to Russia not only abandoning our cause but also adding insult to injury by conducting their first-ever joint military exercises with Pakistan in a part of Pakistan that Pakistan has brutally snatched from us, thus consigning to the winds Modi's recent bleatings over the wrongs inflicted on the people of Gilgit and Baltistan.
With telling significance, Russia's "joint war games with Pakistan" are dubbed "Friendship 2016"! And the "joint military drill is seen as another step in fostering military-to-military cooperation". Oh, where is that Russia of yesteryear that saw it standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us through the grueling fortnight of the War for Bangladesh's Liberation right until their veto in the Security Council enabled us to end the evil of Islamabad's rule over Dhaka? As MK Bhadrakumar, former Indian diplomat (and, in my view, India's shrewdest observer of Pakistan and the Asian scene) pithily puts it in
Indian Punchline: "it (the persistence of Russia's military exercise with Pakistan even after Uri) is a diplomatic snub as, evidently, the Russians don't buy into India's argument that the Uri attack was staged by Pakistan". To what further depths can Modi drag our oldest, most consistent and reliable relationship in international affairs?
As for China, Atul Aneja reports from Beijing (
The Hindu) that far from denouncing Pakistan in Modi's or Ram Madhav's terms, the Chinese have simply said what is anathema to Modi's ears, that India and Pakistan should "exercise restraint" and "resume their stalled dialogue". And as for the Non-Aligned Movement, whose summit Modi skipped in a calculated downgrading of NAM, not one member has had a word of condemnation for Pakistan. Indeed, Iran, till recently chair of NAM, arranged for their President, Hassan Rouhani, to meet Nawaz Sharif in New York on 21 September, three days after Uri and the morning after Sharif's thundering denunciation of India at the UN, and "lauded PM Nawaz's vision" in translating the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor - Modi's bugbear - "into reality",
describing it as "vital to the progress of the region" and seeking admission to it. Then Rouhani delivered himself of a string of poetic aphorisms: "Pakistan's security and progress is the security and progress of Iran"; "development of any part of Pakistan is the development of a part of Iran"; "borders of the two countries are border of security and friendship". Iran's Chahbahar port, that India sees as its gift to Iran, and as an alternative to CPEC, lies in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province. Why would Iran support Modi on a demand that Chahbahar (or Gwadar) be handed over to the Bugtis and the Marris?
As for South Asia, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have their gripe against Pakistan but would three votes (out of a total of 198) amount to enough to censor Pakistan at the UN, brand it a terrorist state, and secure sanctions that will bring Nawaz Sharif (and Gen. Raheel Sharif) to their knees?
Now that counter-terrorist, military and quasi-military options are ruled out, Modi is fooling everybody, including himself, into thinking he has a diplomatic weapon as a sidearm. Nothing he has done in his 30 months in office has succeeded in moving any country out of Pakistan's orbit or bringing any country into India's orbit. The sad fact is that Modi's Pakistan policy lies in tatters.
(Mani Shankar Aiyar is former Congress MP, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.)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.