“It is true that diplomacy has often not worked (with Pakistan), but wars and the exercise of hard power have also not worked. It is not as if the use of hard power now or in the past have thrown up perfect solutions or perfect options.”
That was TCA Raghavan, former high commissioner to Pakistan (2013-2015), answering questions on The Gist programme of SNG.
In his view, “Your neighborhood is where you are situated in, it is where you are located, and you have to continuously deal with it. And most of all, you have to deal with your neighbors as they are and try to get the best optimum outcomes rather than deal with them as you would like them to be.”
The whole purpose of dialogue with Pakistan is to impart stability to the relationship, he argued, and in the past India has talked to the military. This was the case with Field Marshal Ayub Khan, it was the case with Gen Zia ul-Haq and of course Gen Parvez Musharraf.
He underscored that dialogue of any kind with the agencies of that state and when you talk to the foreign ministry, you assume you are also dealing with the powers that are behind the facade of the state of Pakistan, which in this case is the military.
Ambassador Raghavan acknowledged that “Because of internal civil military, conflicts and civil military, disjunctions in Pakistan, often the engagement process or the dialogue process with India became a casualty. That is, so and, there is no guarantee that it won’t happen again, because one thing which is not in your control is how do you manage the civil military interface in Pakistan?”
Nevertheless, he believes that India has to persevere and when one deals with the government, the message also goes across to the military and perhaps they will agree to the process being considered or modify it in some way.
Tune in for more in this conversation with TCA Raghavan, former high commissioner to Pakistan.
