Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif recently at Moscow and it was reportedly decided that Modi will make a “landmark visit” to Islamabad. (“Thaw: Modi to visit Pakistan next year,” July 10) Media was soon found agog with comments and headlines calling the decision as “thaw in ties” and “hopes of better relations.”
See the shortsightedness of M.J. Akbar, currently spokesman for ruling the Bharatiya Janata Party, and a journalist. He says: “It is the first time Pakistan has accepted to combat terrorism in ‘all its forms’ … after years of unclear delays, it is the first time Pakistan has promised to expedite” the 26/11 attacks trials. Just three days later, his comments fell flat when Islamabad lobbed the 26/11 ball back in India's court saying it wanted "more information and evidence" before they considered handing over the Mumbai attack accused to Delhi. This comedy of errors goes on with every, or any, effort to patch up turns for the worse and relations between the two neighboring countries spiral down to an abyss of uncertainties and mistrust.
Handshakes or photo ops in public could be at best a display of diplomacy, but it is just a diplomacy, the prime object of which is to say to the world — and more to their home constituencies — that everything is OK.
Not really a pragmatic approach to handle with such volatile relations as those between India and Pakistan, which need to begin with basic efforts to establish at least a minimum understanding and confidence between the two peoples than to maintain a status quo with a cosmetic exercise. — A. K. Pasha, Jeddah
Abyss of mistrust
