The following article originally appeared in the Huffington Post India on December 26, 2015.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's brief stopover in
Lahore--to visit his counterpart Nawaz Sharif on his birthday and the occasion
of his granddaughter's wedding--came as a complete surprise to observers in
both countries. A lot of speculation has followed about the circumstances and
implications of the visit, much of it uninformed if not completely erroneous.
Despite being the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Pakistan in almost
12 years, the meeting's full significance will only make itself known in due
course. But a few points are worth considering.
First, by meeting without advance public notice, Modi and
Sharif have effectively de-linked India-Pakistan engagement from the pressures
of domestic political opposition and the media. The almost farcical
circumstances surrounding the cancellation of talks between India and
Pakistan's National Security Advisors (NSAs) in Delhi earlier this year
demonstrated the extent to which the two countries' media--rather than the
leadership--were determining the pace and nature of diplomatic engagement. This
was clearly unhelpful and unproductive.
Precedents for less formal and less scripted meetings
were partially set by the prime ministers in Paris and by the NSAs in Bangkok.
But in Lahore, Modi and Sharif effectively set a new standard for meeting on
their own terms--not anyone else's.
Second, the apparent spontaneity of Modi's stopover in
Pakistan is also an attempt to create a new normal in India's regional
engagement, something the prime minister attempted when he invited the leaders
of eight South Asian countries to his inauguration ceremony in May 2014. If he
is to be serious about regional integration, Modi's conviction is that he must
make meetings with leaders in his neighbourhood more routine.
India-Pakistan (or, for that matter, India-Bangladesh or
India-Nepal) summits must begin to resemble meetings between, say, two European
or two Southeast Asian leaders, barely making news even in their home countries
rather than being intensely debated or held hostage to domestic pressure
groups. This, Modi seems to believe, is the only way forward for the region as
a whole.
Third, before the 'Aman ki Asha' brigade becomes too
euphoric, the meeting in Lahore should not be misinterpreted as a radical
change in India's Pakistan policy. Nor does it mean, as some critics are
suggesting, that India is somehow dropping its guard or ignoring the threat of
terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
The Indian government has repeatedly made it clear that
attempts at derailing normalized relations--whether or not supported by a
"meddling" Pakistani military--will be met with appropriate
retaliatory measures. All too often over the past year-and-a-half, India's
twin-track approach to Pakistan--developed after a steep one-year learning
curve--has been mistaken for policy schizophrenia. Modi's visit on December 25
rather nicely complements, rather than contradicts, measures taken in the past
(and possibly again in the future) to deter and dissuade destabilizing
activities by terrorist and insurgent actors and Pakistan's security forces.
Overall, after some dramatic ups and downs in
India-Pakistan relations, both sides can be content to have ended the year on a
high note.