New Delhi: Former Ambassadors who have had a long experience dealing with Pakistan urged India to engage more with Islamabad and its military but stressed that in diplomacy, one cannot expect success every time but what matters is the approach towards engagement and securing the national interest. Speaking on Track-II diplomacy. They were speaking at the launch of a book titled 'In Pursuit of Peace' on Wednesday written by distinguished diplomat late Satinder Singh Lambah who died last year.
Despite the deep animosity between India and its western neighbor Pakistan for fuelling militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and for creating havoc in the peace process, Prime Minister Narender Modi sent an emissary to restart the back channel talks between the two countries in April 2017 led by Lambah.
At the launch of his book, his wife Mrs Nina Lambah along with other diplomats who served under Lambah in Islamabad including former Ambassadors TCA Raghavan, Sharat Sabharwal, Shiv Shankar Menon, and G Parthasarathy described him as a person "who was extremely hard working, a major player in leading the negotiations and who knew our National Interest."
Speaking on the friction between the two neighbors and the partition, Parthasarathy noted that "the only way to solve the Kashmir issue is to demarcate the LOC. But then again, we are dealing with a neighbor which poses a genuine threat, credits to civil-military disbalance." He also apprised the audience of the times during the early and late 2000 when thousands of visas were issued in order to engage more with Pakistan.
Ambassador Shivshankar Menon who is an expert on Asian Geopolitics and China said "Between 2003-2008, a lot of peace agreements were signed. There was a ceasefire and the back channel talks were going smoothly. Nearly 18000 Pakistani students visited India during that time. So it showed a lot of engagement from our side."
All the panelists lauded Lambah's work who dealt with Pakistan for nearly four decades and whose experience and expertise played a huge role in suppressing the animosity and playing a huge role in the back channel talks.
Signaling towards the 'Deep State', a reference to the dominance of Pakistan's military and ISI in internal politics, Menon said "There was a time when things were going smooth. Peace was about to prevail. (Musharraf-Dr Manmohan Singh tenure) But after the exit of Musharraf, his successor denied all the pre-existing things and the bilateral relations came to a stalemate."
Parthasarathy described an incident of 1982 and said, "Imran Khan back in 1982 was on a cricket tour. So he was asked by someone that when he bowled against India, there was a lot of reverse swings but not against England. In response, Imran Khan replied Whenever I play against India, I think of Kashmir and Jihad."
All the panelists agreed with the notion that "India should play a bigger role in promoting peace in the region for better stability. " They also shared their views on improving India-Pakistan relations by "restoring diplomatic relations, restoring business relations" and stressed that "We should continue to engage with them and especially with the Pakistani military who is the leading player there."
The book also mentions how PM Modi wanted to continue to back-channel talks left by the UPA-2 and Lambah was asked to go to Pakistan and meet then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Even PM Modi visited Navaz Sharif's granddaughter's wedding but that came to a standstill following the Pathankot and Uri terror attacks in 2016, and in April 2017, and the Kulbhushan Jadhav's case.
The event was marked by the presence of former R&AW chief AS Dulat, ex-Vice President Hamid Ansari, Congres stalwart and veteran diplomat Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Minister of External Affairs Natwar Singh and several retired Ambassadors and others.
