Abstract
The late Satinder Lambah, who entered the Indian Foreign Service in 1964, had more interactions with Pakistan than any other Indian ambassador. His posthumously released book examines relations between the two countries since the Indian subcontinent was divided. As India’s High Commissioner and Deputy High Commissioner in Pakistan, as Joint Secretary (Pakistan and Afghanistan) and as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s special envoy engaged in protracted back-channel negotiations, it focuses particularly on his own extensive experience in aiding the nation’s leadership in managing this complex and gravely troubled relationship. His book also discloses that even though he was working on jobs unrelated to Pakistan, people still sought his counsel on matters pertaining to that country.
The relationship between India and Pakistan has been harmed by hostility, prejudice, a lack of trust and war—both overt and covert. The Indian public’s outrage over Pakistan’s behaviour and electoral tactics on the subject has recently given rise to an increasingly ignorant debate in some corners of our media and political environment.
The posthumously released book is a breath of fresh air in light of the India–Pakistan relations. It is a priceless account of diplomatic history, in-depth analysis and policy suggestions that could only have been written by someone like Lambah, who focused on Pakistan-related issues for more than half of his nearly five decades in public life.
The book’s first chapter offers some insightful analyses on how Pakistan became a military state, the army’s and ISI’s prominent roles, as well as Pakistan’s ‘India-centric’ and ‘Kashmir-oriented’ strategic culture. An anecdote of the then prime minister Benazir Bhutto warning a senior Indian interlocutor in Karachi in 1988 that the conference room was probably bugged and that important issues would be discussed via scribbled exchanges on a notepad illustrates the predicament of civilian leaders in Pakistan. Other intriguing incidents abound in the book. The author, on the other hand, highlights the significance of top-down decisions in light of the lack of clear-cut solutions and the propensity of bureaucratic and political processes to favour safe options and the status quo, as well as the significant role that Indian prime ministers have played in influencing Pakistan policy.
The remaining chapters take the reader on an interesting diplomatic journey with six prime ministers from 1980 to 2014, introducing significant figures and historical moments along the way, such as Mrs Indira Gandhi’s declaration of Dhaka as the capital of a free nation in the Lok Sabha on 16 December 1971, and the turbulent welcome she received in Dhaka in March 1972. He and his wife, whose family were from Peshawar and Lahore, respectively, were also on a discovery voyage.
As Pakistan’s High Commissioner, the author recalls 6 December 1992 as one of the most difficult days of his professional career due to Pakistan’s harsh and violent response to the destruction of the Babri Masjid. He and his colleagues came under fire for the treatment of minorities and Muslims in India, as well as for criticising Indian secularism. They answered by highlighting the significant contributions made by minorities and the role played by Muslims in secular India as opposed to the circumstances in Pakistan. He laments how decades later, the situation in India too is undergoing a change.
The author refers to Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the ‘Persistent Statesman with a Vision of Peace’ and quotes him as saying to the Pakistani envoy in 1977 that there would not be a change in policy towards Pakistan because the current approach ‘was based on more or less a national consensus’. Later, in 1994, Vajpayee played a crucial role in the successful attempts of the Narasimha Rao government to thwart Pakistan’s attempt to have a resolution passed by the UN Commission on Human Rights accusing Jammu and Kashmir of violating human rights. In view of recent political scuffles around issues with foreign policy, particularly Pakistan policy, it is crucial to keep in mind these instances.
The author served as the head of the Indian delegation at the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in December 2001, and the book has an intriguing and illuminating account of that event.
The back-channel conversations on Kashmir between the Musharraf and Manmohan Singh governments, in which the author served as the Indian mediator from 2005 to 2014, are covered in the chapter titled ‘A New Sustained Approach and a Near Solution’. It reveals some previously hidden facets of the procedure and the reasons why it could not be carried through to its logical end. In addition to conversations inside the administration, information was also shared with former Prime Minister Vajpayee, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha L. K. Advani, former NSA Brajesh Mishra and certain significant J&K politicians.
The best indication of the content of the back-channel agreement is the text of the author’s address on a potential resolution to the Kashmir issue, which was given in Srinagar in May 2014 and is included in the book. It includes, among other things, the prohibition on border redrawing, Pakistan’s denial of terrorism as a state policy, respect for the truce along the Line of Control (LoC), and the notion that the LoC should function as a boundary between any two normal states.
The author claims that after PM Modi took office, he briefed him about the back channel. The new administration looked over the documentation on the matter, and they even told him that no significant changes were needed. A senior PMO official informed him in April 2017 that Prime Minister Modi wanted him to travel Pakistan to speak with his counterpart Nawaz Sharif, but the trip never happened.
The back channel in India has been criticised, although the author only makes passing mention of it. He might have been prevented from doing so since the back-channel deal was not made public. He correctly asserted that great powers should not wait passively for events to develop but should instead endeavour to mould their environments in pursuit of their national interests and that it could be carried out with or without modifications.
The author makes several insightful recommendations for moving forward: While responding to Pakistan’s covert operations appropriately, the engagement process does not need to be frozen. It is not a wise decision to avoid engagement with a fiercely antagonistic neighbour with a growing nuclear arsenal and deteriorating stability. Expectations must be kept at a realistic level, and policies must be designed to manage the relationship.
It is abundantly obvious from the book’s plot that the author was a realist even though he toiled tirelessly for peace. He was a tough-minded diplomat, but he was unyielding when he saw an opportunity to advance India’s interests. Most importantly, he was faithful to his profession as a diplomat and never lost faith in the importance of engagement and diplomacy even in the most trying of situations.