Will He Bat For Peace?
Imran Khan had once said, “You contest elections to win. You don’t contest elections to be a good boy. I want to win.” After 22 years of toiling arduously, win he did. Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) or the Movement for Justice formed in 1996 and led by Imran Khan, did exactly what it was supposed to — open its innings from the garrisons of the Pakistan army.
The political makeover of the maverick in Pakistan politics is as staggeringly radical as his personal life. An election that was ostensibly near-rigged makes no difference in Pakistan, as polls there have had no real impact on the ground. The cricketer-turned-politician had been yearning to be the prime minister for two long decades. He would scarcely jeopardise his chance by overstepping the line set by the Pakistan army.
Nawaz Sharif and the independent stance he took in 2013 is a grim reminder of what a “daring outreach” to India can do to a Pakistan premier. Sharif paid his price in that long conflict with the Pakistan army.
Building up on the outreach initiated earlier, Prime Minister Modi spoke to Khan and congratulated him as the leader of the political party that had won the largest number of seats in the National Assembly of Pakistan in the recently concluded general elections. Modi said he hoped democracy would take deeper roots in Pakistan. A thaw in bilateral relations could be a harbinger of a spurt in Indo-Pak trade relations.
Ashok Sajjanhar, President of the Institute of Global Studies, who is also a former Indian Ambassador to Kazakhastan, told BW Businessworld: “As far as India-Pakistan relations are concerned I expect no significant change. It will be ‘more of the same’. In fact, the Pakistan army will get a more pliable and deferential head of Pakistani civil administration because Khan knows that he has been put in that position by virtue of the collusion between the Pakistani deep state and judiciary. He cannot afford to go against the wishes of the Pakistan army even if he wanted to.”
The makeover
In Pakistan, the heat of election propaganda does not die out once the grand throne is usurped. Some political analysts talk of Khan’s sportsmanship, his good relations with and friends in India. But these haven’t ever stopped him from spewing venom against India and conforming to the tradition of propaganda on Kashmir. Khan, for example, has repeatedly expressed a strong desire to resolve the Kashmir dispute — an objective that undermines his professed wish for better relations with India. New Delhi will not be interested in a formal dialogue with Pakistan if there is any chance of Kashmir being on the agenda.
Says Ambassador Sajjanhar, “The Pak army will hence be able to continue unchecked and brazenly in its policy of cross-border infiltration, cease-fire violations and more support to terrorist elements and organisations like LeT, JeM, etc. to carry out terrorist attacks against India in Kashmir and other parts of the country.”
The man at the helm of the Pakistan government is not really the handsome cricketer with a reputation of a Casanova. Over the years, he has embraced a hardline approach to Islam. The new Khan is a staunch supporter of Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, which dictate the death penalty for flouting them. Khan has been advocating the viewpoint of ultra-conservative Islamists and politicians who are opposed to Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States in the war on terror. He has been vehemently opposing action against militants in the tribal areas.
On BBC’s ‘Hard Talk’ programme, Khan has praised the Taliban’s justice system. He has even supported the barbaric practices in the tribal areas of Pakistan, which are a hotbed of radicals and fundamentalists. The enigmatic Pakistan cricketer is now often dubbed ‘Taliban Khan’.
The leveler
Meanwhile, the Pakistan economy is heading toward a severe crisis. Its foreign exchange reserves have dwindled to $9 billion, which is barely enough to pay import bills of a few months. Pakistan may soon have to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $12 billion bailout package. In 2018 the Pakistan rupee has been devalued three times. Pakistan is close to defaulting on the staggering loan taken for infrastructure projects that are part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Pakistan needs at least $3 billion to stay afloat. Incidentally, US President Donald Trump has expressed his reservations about IMF bailing Pakistan out of a debt incurred in a trade-off with China. Will the state of the Pakistan economy entice Khan to open talks with India?
“Pakistan’s economic crisis in the past, has never been a factor at all for their leaders to address and open talks with India,” says former Indian ambassador to Pakistan Vivek Katju.
Ambassador Ashok Sajjanhar, however, sees only temporary ruffles in India-Pakistan relations. “The Pakistan army could, however, adopt a tactical posture because of pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) by whom it has been put in the grey list and is required to show action against terrorist groups and against money laundering to temporarily decrease its terrorist attacks against India.”
Bilateral trade
India’s bilateral trade with Pakistan hovers around $5 billion. The last attempt to normalise trade ties occurred as far back as November 2011. The Pakistan cabinet took a decision then to normalise trade relations with India, which included granting a Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status. In February 2012, the commerce ministers of the two countries agreed that both sides would scrupulously adhere to the road map drawn up by the commerce secretaries for normalisation of trade relations, inter alia phasing out of the Negative List for imports from India by end 2012, and advancing preferential trading arrangements through SAFTA. Pakistan, though, is yet to grant MFN status to India.
In August 2012, India announced a 30 per cent reduction in its SAFTA Sensitive List for non-Least Developed Countries, bringing down tariff on 264 items to five per cent within a period of three years. The measure benefited Pakistan’s exports to India, which had been stalled since the vicious terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008. “MFN- based trade was favourable to Pakistan,” says Ambassador Katju, “but it was disallowed as the army thought they would not be able to control it.”
The olive branch
Prime Minister Modi’s gesture to Pakistan’s new prime minister should be viewed in context. As Ambassador Sajjanhar points out, “The NDA government led by PM Modi has shown considerable stamina and resilience over the last two years by sticking to its stated policy position that ‘talks and terror cannot go together.’ While parleys between NSAs on terror and Track II dialogue may continue.” He goes on to say, “The real, substantive talks in the form of the Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue (CBD) agreed to between the two governments during the visit of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to Islamabad in December 2015 should not be allowed to take place.”
He says, “India’s position has been that till terror from across the border stops, no substantive dialogue will take place. India needs to remain steadfast to that position. No change has been visible from Pakistan’s side to consider a change in the Indian stance.”
In his courting of both hardline religious elements and the military establishment, Khan is willing to work with more or less anyone in his pursuit of power. Even so, one may hope that he would carve out a different path of better governance, if only to uplift a wobbly economy?
