India's "Biggest Asset" In Pakistan Is...: Congress's Mani Shankar Aiyar
"So long as Pakistan is an albatross around our necks, we just will not be able to take our due place in the world. It is ludicrous to suggest that India is the 'vishwaguru' when we don't know what to do with our neighbour," Mr Aiyar claimed.
New Delhi: Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former diplomat who is now a politician, is advocating for the restart of conversation with Pakistan and claims that without it, India won't be able to assume its proper position in the world. He calls Pakistan a "albatross around our necks."
The Congress leader has devoted a whole chapter to his time in Pakistan in his autobiography, Memoirs of a Maverick -- The First Fifty Years (1941-1991), which was released on Monday. The Congress leader was India's consul general in Karachi from December 1978 to January 1982.
Mr. Aiyar remarked in an interview with Press Trust of India about his latest book, published by Juggernaut Books, that serving as consul general in Pakistan was unquestionably the pinnacle of his bureaucratic career. He has written extensively about his three years in Karachi in the first volume, which is already available.
The fact that residents of Pakistan did not view India as an enemy nation, he claimed, was India's "biggest asset" there.
Within the first two to three weeks of the posting, my wife Suneet asked me a question that stuck in my mind throughout my time in Karachi: "This is an enemy country, right?"Mr. Aiyar claimed that during the 40 years since he returned from Pakistan and during his three years there, he had been asking himself the same question.
In an interview with Press Trust of India, he stated, "I have come to the conclusion that whatever may be the view of the sections of the army, or sections of the polity, as far as the people of Pakistan are concerned, they are neither an enemy country, nor do they regard India as an enemy country."
Mr. Aiyar continued, "I don't understand why we do not know how to leverage the goodwill of the people of Pakistan as an integral part of our diplomatic approach. Every time we want to show that we disapprove of the (Pakistani) government, visas are stopped, films are stopped, TV exchanges are stopped, books are stopped, and travel is stopped.
He added that all communication between India and Pakistan has been halted for the past nine years.
"Up until Mr. (Narendra)Modi became prime minister of India, almost every prime minister, if he had the time, was trying some kind of a dialogue with the Pakistanis, but now we are in a freeze and the victims of this freeze are not the army of Pakistan which is still swigging its scotch, it is the people of Pakistan whose relatives in large numbers live in India and many of whom have a desire to visit our country," he said.
Mr. Aiyar claimed that despite issuing three lakh visas while serving as a diplomat in Karachi, he received not a single complaint of misuse.
"So why are Pakistanis our target population? The Pakistani establishment can be targeted if you so choose, but the Pakistani people are our greatest asset. We can target the establishment, but we must engage with it, said the former diplomat, who left the Indian Foreign Service in 1989 to join the Congress.
He said he was impressed by a recent book launch event where five former Indian high commissioners to Pakistan took part and all emphasized the value of conversation with Islamabad and the necessity of it for progress.
Dr. Manmohan Singh made it abundantly plain that even the Kashmir dispute might be settled if talks with Pakistanis could be conducted uninterruptedly and without interruption, perhaps outside of the gaze of the public.
After all, a four-point agreement had been drafted and was essentially accepted. The dialogue was interrupted, not because Pakistan withdrew from the Kashmir agreement, but rather because (Pervez) Musharraf's government ran into trouble and ultimately collapsed, he said.
He remarked that in order to build a strong relationship with Pakistan, we must have the patience and persistence to work through any obstacles that come up during any engagement with that country.
"We simply will not be able to assume our rightful place in the world as long as Pakistan is an albatross around our necks. When we don't know what to do with our neighbor, it is absurd to assume that India is the "vishwaguru," Mr. Aiyar argued.
In the book, Mr. Aiyar also makes a compelling case for good relations between the two nations, claiming that ordinary Pakistanis not only speak the same language as us and share much of the same 'tehzeeb' (culture), but also adore Bollywood and its music, laugh at the same jokes, and make friends with us wherever we are outside of the subcontinent.
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