Will Nawaz Sharif open a promising new chapter of India-Pak relations?

by Suhasini Haidar On the final day of campaigning in Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif was due at three massive rallies in Lahore. Crowds grew restive as they waited for their leader, the man they were going to make Prime Minister. Despite that, Sharif chose to spend several hours that evening with members from Christian, Hindu and Sikh groups in Pakistan. He listened as community leaders stood up to talk about the attacks non-Muslims face and the fears they feel. In his address, Sharif reassured them that if he would come to power, he would ensure their safety. “This country was built for us all,” said Sharif, “You are a Pakistani Sikh, you are a Pakistani Hindu, you are a Pakistani Christian, and I am a Pakistani Muslim, that’s the only difference.” He then addressed Indian journalists he had specially invited for the event, and spoke of his desire for better ties, to visit India, and escort his mother to her old home near Amritsar. [caption id=“attachment_795445” align=“alignleft” width=“300”] Nawaz Sharif. AFP.[/caption] While some may dismiss Sharif’s words as purely a politician’s pitch for votes at the n-th hour, the truth is he hardly needed to canvass for votes from these people, and certainly not at that time. After all, minorities form just four percent of Pakistan’s population and the PML-N hadn’t even put up one minority candidate. Neither was it necessary to talk about better ties with India with the election just a day away, given the risks involved. If it was a calculated risk, what was the calculation, many asked? In India they also asked whether Sharif’s words could translate to action, given the past. But Sharif’s message to India was no ‘one-off’. Through the campaign he has made it clear that not only does he want to pick up relations “where they were in 1999”, he would over-rule those within the establishment still opposed to better ties with India. The bigger risk, perhaps, is betting on ties with an Indian government in its final year. Despite the Punjabi bonhomie and the phone conversation between the two leaders Nawaz Sharif and Manmohan Singh, it will be difficult to see how far Singh can go with Pakistan, with just a year to elections in India. In the past two years, Singh has visibly pulled back from ties with all India’s neighbours, and since January, there has been little attempt to engage Pakistan. When media erroneously reported that Singh may consider travelling to Pakistan for Sharif’s swearing-in ceremony, the opposition BJP issued a statement telling Singh not to be “hasty” (even as BJP President Rajnath Singh congratulated Sharif for the victory!). In order to put relations back on track now, Singh would of course, have to be both hasty and gutsy, as unlike Sharif, time is the one thing his government doesn’t have. But the biggest risk by far for Sharif, is that he took on those within his own political supporters - right-wing extremists allied to Sunni, anti-India groups who form the bedrock of his voters in Punjab with his statements. There is no question that Pakistan has taken a right turn during these elections: from the Taliban terror threat to “secular” parties, to the Election commission’s disqualification of candidates on the basis of the illiberal Articles 62-63, to the vote itself- that saw the wipe-out of parties like the ANP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and PPP in Punjab. Analysts say the PML-N has done well not so much for an inclusive broad-based manifesto, as much as for its conservative principles that appeal to an increasingly radicalized rural population. It is best, therefore, if both India and Pakistan take relations one step at a time, avoiding the pitfalls of the past, where big summits and declarations have been followed by horrifying events like the Kargil incursions and the Mumbai attacks, carried out by those within Pakistan who want to derail the process. India will look for several signs that not only is Sharif willing to deliver, but that in this 3rd term in office, he is able to control those elements. To begin with, India will look for proof of militant groups being subdued, and no surge in violence in Kashmir by groups like the Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba, as was evident early this year. Next, it will be important to see where extremists within the PML-N, including leaders like Punjab Law minister Rana Sanaullah, and Sindh PML-N president Ghaus Ali Shah, known for their close ties with the ultra-radical DPC (Difa e Pakistan Council, comprising Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaat ud Dawa, Deobandi’s Sipah e Sahaba and others) are placed in the new government’s structure. Sharif is seen as closest internationally to the Saudi government and royal family, and India may use its new ties with Riyadh (EAM Khursheed heads to Saudi Arabia on May 24th, with energy and anti-terror cooperation on the agenda), to essay the possibility of better relations with Islamabad. While Sharif’s relations with the US, and his government’s moves on the Afghanistan ISAF pullout will be another key indicator for India. Finally, it will be Sharif’s own actions that could pull along the now-stalled engine of India-Pakistan relations. If “fixing the Pakistani economy” is indeed his first priority, he could make an easy beginning by giving India the MFN status that the previous PPP cabinet cleared but failed to grant. Sharif’s ambitions include building more regional infrastructure, and he has often spoken of a highway from “Kabul to Kolkata”. Given the PML-N’s remarkable work in building roads and expressways in Punjab, this may well be a landmark project for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to work on. During his election campaign of 1997, Sharif was heading for a rally along with several journalists (including this writer) when his helicopter landed in the middle of nowhere on a strip of an elevated road. This was his dream project, the Islamabad-Lahore motorway, he explained, that had been shut down by the PPP government. He then swore to remove all roadblocks to it when he came to power, and even to take the motorway beyond Lahore, and Wagah across the border. He made good on the first part of that promise many years ago. Now, if Sharif is able to remove the roadblocks to peace with India within Pakistan, India would be unwise not to meet him halfway on that road. Suhasini Haidar is Foreign Affairs Editor, CNN-IBN. She often travels to Pakistan, and has covered elections there in 1997, 2008 and 2013