 "Will Modi accept Pakistan’s invite to SCO meet? What happened when Indian PMs visited the neighbour?")
Pakistan has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Islamabad.
The meeting will be held on October 15 and 16.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said a number of heads of states have been invited including Modi.
“An invitation has also been sent to the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi,” Baloch was quoted as saying.
NDTV quoted External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar as saying that the “the era of uninterrupted dialogue… is over.”
Jaishankar added that New Delhi stands ready to react to developments across the border “whether positive or negative.”
The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Comprising India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the SCO is an influential economic and security bloc that has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations.
But what happened when Indian prime ministers visited Pakistan?
Let’s take a closer look:
Jawaharlal Nehru in July 1953 and 1960
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, visited Pakistan in 1953.
This was India and Pakistan’s first attempt at solving a number of serious issues that had cropped up between the two nations – including Kashmir.
Nehru’s trip, from July 25 to 27, 1953, came around five years after the two countries first went to war over Kashmir in 1947 and 1948.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe Print quoted Nehru as saying at the time, “We have in effect to deal with a State carrying out an informal war “but nevertheless a war.”
Nehru visited Karachi at the invitation of then Pakistan prime minister Mohammad Ali Bogra and held talks with his counterpart.
Pakistan at the time was in dire economic straits and Nehru thought Pakistan’s leaders were in despair.
“Their appeals to me were plaintive, even desperate,” Nehru wrote to Kashmir politico Ghulam Muhammad Bakshi.
Bogra wanted peace with India, but he could not abide the status quo in Kashmir.
As per The Print, though India would have accepted Kashmir being divided along the Line of Control, Bogra could not convince the others in his Cabinet.
In the backdrop, General Ayub Khan, who would soon rule Pakistan, was gathering more and more influence.
The visit ended with the two prime ministers agreeing to appoint a new plebiscite administrator.
However, the two countries were soon arguing over the nationality of this administrator and how the vote would be conducted.
Nehru in September 1960 made a second trip to Pakistan – this time with Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan at the helm.
This visit was far more successful than the first with Nehru being greeted by massive crowds in Karachi, Murree, Nathiagali, Rawalpindi and Lahore.
As per Frontline, six months earlier, in March 1960, then Pakistan foreign minister Manzur Qadir had hinted that Pakistan was open to other options in Kashmir other than a plebiscite.
Qadir, speaking at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, said, “If somebody has a solution other than ours, let him suggest it. We can at least start thinking about it.”
Frontline quoted Khan as writing in his memoirs, “I did not get the impression that Pandit Nehru was extraordinarily pleased to see me, but he was quite moved by some of the suggestions I made to him. He struck me as a tired man, though he still had a reserve of fight and political acumen. I missed the idealism or starry-eyed thinking which is often attributed to him. I told him I considered that relations between India and Pakistan had been dictated by drift rather than by any rational design. I felt it was not too late to formulate a plan to put our relationship on a rational and sensible basis.”
“I then raised with him the Kashmir problem. I put it to him that it was the people of Kashmir who should have the decisive say in the matter. It was vital that a solution satisfactory from the point of view of the people of Jammu and Kashmir be found. Mr Nehru did not disagree with my ideas but emphasised the need for the creation of a background of understanding between the two countries and for eliminating, as a start, border incidents and firing.”
Though the Kashmir issue was not solved during this trip, Nehru did sign the landmark Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan in Karachi on 19 September, 1960.
The treaty, which aimed to end the dispute between the two countries with regard to utilising irrigation water from existing facilities along the border, went into effect on April 1, 1960.
Rajiv Gandhi in 1988 and 1989
In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi made the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian prime minister in nearly three decades.
Rajiv, who visited from 29 to 31 December, 1988, attended the fourth SAARC Summit in Pakistan.
His visit came weeks after Benazir Bhutto took power in the first democratically elected government in Pakistan in over a decade.
Rajiv became prime minister of India in 1984 after the assassination of his mother Indira by her bodyguards.
As per Asian Age, Rajiv had outlined his neighbourhood policy in a speech in November that year.
“We want to develop closer relations with each one of our immediate neighbours in a spirit of peace, friendship and cooperation. This is what we have offered to Pakistan. We have always believed that non-interference, peaceful coexistence should be the guiding principles of our relationship,” Rajiv said.
As per Dawn, Rajiv had wished Benazir well after she took office.
He sent her a message saying he hoped their “mutual efforts could bring about peace and prosperity to both countries and the region at large.”
Indian officials had express optimism prior to the trip.
“I think you will find that we will move things forward in these two days more than we have in the past 11 years,” a senior official accompanying Rajiv was quoted as saying by the LA Times.
The official was referring to the death of former president Zia ul-Haq – whose death in a plane crash paved the way for the elections that brought Benazir to power.
However, Pakistani officials noted that Benazir was in a tough spot.
“Within those constraints, she can move, but not too quickly,” a senior Pakistan official added.
“She has only been in office for a month,” another official said. “and not all the facts (about relations with India) are in her hands. So she doesn’t want to do anything too hastily.”
Rajiv arrived with his wife Sonia and his children Rahul and Priyanka on 29 December.
He was received at the airport by then Pakistan president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, then prime minister Benazir Bhutto as well as several high-ranking civilian and military leaders.
Rajiv and Benazir held their first meeting – a cordial one by all accounts – hours after he arrived.
Benazir also hosted a dinner for Rajiv and his family at the PM House.
Benazir’s husband Asif Zardari and her mother Begum Nusrat Bhutto also attended the dinner, as per the newspaper.
As per Dawn, Rajiv and Benazir met again on the second day of the SAARC summit where they discussed several issues including Kashmir.
Rajiv, though he agreed that the two countries should ‘talk openly’, did not give way on India’s stance.
He ended the meeting by calling Kashmir a “dead horse.”
However, the trip wasn’t a failure.
Rajiv and Benazir signed three bilateral agreements including the Nuclear Non-aggression Agreement which banned attacks on each other’s nuclear installations, improving cultural cooperation, and civil aviation.
In July 1989, Rajiv yet again visited Pakistan as Indian prime minister.
The two day trip, which came on 16 and 17 July, was a state visit – the first by an Indian leader to Pakistan in two decades
The Washington Post quoted Benazir as telling reporters before his arrival “we are moving step by step” toward improved understanding.
Benazir and Rajiv walked side by side at the Islamabad airport to inspect a Pakistani military guard of honour.
Rajiv was later given a state dinner in his honour.
Rajiv and Indira discussed nuclear arms control, India’s refusal to withdraw its peacekeeping troops from Sri Lanka and the military situation in the disputed Siachen glacier border region.
However, the trip delivered little with both Gandhi and Bhutto bowing to the pressures of domestic politics.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999 and 2004
As per Mint, on February 2, 1999, then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee told the media, “I would like to have a bus ride from Delhi to Lahore.”
Vajpayee offered few details.
But the trip came just months after the BJP performed poorly in 1998 Assembly polls.
Around two weeks later, on February 20, 1999, Vajpayee arrived in Lahore by bus on the invitation of then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Vajpayee was inaugurating the Delhi–Lahore bus service known as Sada-e-Sarhad.
“It was an act of assertive risk-taking Vajpayeeism, part of the long arc of subcontinental “Nehruvian” peacemaking he had begun as Janata foreign minister,” the piece in Scroll noted.
As per Scroll, Vajpayee was accompanied by two dozen celebrities including Dev Anand, Shatrughan Sinha, Kapil Dev, and Javed Akhtar.
Vajpayee was welcomed at the Wagah border by then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
The embrace between Vajpayee and Sharif was an iconic image – and made headlines around the world.
Both countries, after all, had just tested nuclear weapons.
“I bring the goodwill and hope of my fellow Indians who seek abiding peace and harmony with Pakistan… I am conscious that this is a defining moment in South Asian history and I hope we will be able to rise to the challenge,” Vajpayee said upon arriving in Lahore.
As per The Print, Vajpayee had only planned to cross the border, meet Sharif and head back.
But Sharif had other plans.
“Dar tak aye ho, ghar nahin aaoge? (You have come to the door, won’t you come inside?)” Sharif asked his Indian counterpart.
Sharif hosted a banquet in Vajyapee’s honour at Lahore Fort.
Vajpayee, visited Minar-e- Pakistan, Mausoleum of Allama Iqabal, Gurudawara Dera Sahib and Samadhi of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh.
Then, on February 21, 1999, a civic reception was held in honour of Vajyapee at the Governor’s House.
After talks between the two prime ministers, the Lahore Declaration was signed, under which, among other things, it was agreed upon that the two sides were fully committed to undertaking measures to reduce risks of accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) at the time hailed the declaration as “one more manifestation of India’s abiding desire to build peaceful, friendly and co-operative relationship with Pakistan.”
As per The Print, US diplomat Strobe Talbott, then the deputy secretary of state under Bill Clinton, compared Vajpayee’s outreach to Richard Nixon’s landmark 1971 visit to China and Gorbachev’s opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Unfortunately, peace was not given a chance.
Just months after Vajpayee’s visit, the Pakistan Army under the direction of Pervez Musharraf, and reportedly behind Sharif’s back, began its Kargil Operation – which brought the two countries to the brink of war.
In January 2004, Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Islamabad for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit – his first visit to Pakistan since the nuclear rivals came to the brink of war in 2002.
The neighbours had yet again come to the edge following a deadly attack on India’s Parliament in December 2001.
Vajpayee, perhaps stung by past experiences with Pakistan, had ruled out bilateral talks before departing from New Delhi.
“There will be no bilateral talks. We want to give all our energy to making the SAARC talks successful,” he said.
Vajpayee was welcomed at the heavily-guarded Islamabad International Airport by then Pakistani prime minister Zafarullah Jamali, foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, finance minister Shaukat Aziz, top brass and senior officials when he flew in on a private flight.
“Let us work for settlement of disputes … this will help to generate greater regional cooperation,” Jamali had said before the summit.
The summit was originally scheduled for January 2003 but Indian refusal to attend resulted in its postponement.
In a reference to the lingering Kashmir problem, Jamali said “trade and economic ties cannot be sustained in a political vacuum and an environment of conflict and confrontation”.
“We see the summit in Islamabad as an opportunity for Pakistan to further deepen its engagement with SAARC,” he added.
Vajpayee was saluted by a military guard of honour, after which an armed forces band played India’s and Pakistan’s national anthems. Vajpayee and Jamali held hands and waved jointly to cameras as they left the tarmac in their first ever meeting.
The visit consolidated the composite dialogue that the succeeding Manmohan Singh-led UPA-I government pursued with intent until it was severed after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008.
Vajpayee told the summit, “Mutual suspicions and petty rivalries have continued to haunt us. As a result, the peace dividend has bypassed our region.”
Asserting that any joint endeavour needed mutual trust and confidence, he added “for many decades, South Asian countries, which have a complex and troubled colonial legacies, have been unable to forge an integrated economic understanding circumventing political differences.”
PM Modi in 2015
Prime Minister Narendra Modi shocked many when he made a surprise visit to Lahore on December 25, 2015, to meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.
As per The Hindu, Sharif, who returned to power in 2013, had said he wanted to pick up ties with India where Lahore declaration with Vajpayee left off.
The trip was the first by an Indian prime minister in over a decade – and incidentally came on Vajpayee’s 91st birthday.
It also came on Sharif’s birthday and in the backdrop of his grand-daughter’s wedding.
Modi made the visit after a day-long trip to Afghanistan and a two-day visit to Russia.
“Looking forward to meeting PM Nawaz Sharif in Lahore today afternoon, where I will drop by on my way back to Delhi,” the PM wrote on Twitter.
The announcement came after Modi said he had spoken to Sharif and wished him on his birthday.
As per Indian Express, Modi was given a red carpet welcome.
He and Sharif shared a warm embrace on the tarmac of the Allama Iqbal International Airport, following which he took a helicopter to Sharif’s Raiwind palatial residence on the outskirts of Lahore.
Modi met members of Nawaz’s family at his home.
PTI reported that Modi’s favourite dish ‘Saag’ was among other vegetarian delicacies prepared for him at Jati Umrah residence.
“All dishes, including Saag, daal and vegetable food, were cooked in desi ghee,” a source in the Jati Umra told PTI.
A source added that Kashmiri tea was presented to Modi.
Modi, after blessing the bride, was seen off at Lahore airport by Sharif.
With inputs from agencies
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