“Pakistan’s economic vested interests are not in peace with India”

If there is one person who is most eligible to speak on India’s foreign policy, particularly in the context of Indo-Pak relations, it is Shashank Shekhar. After all, Shashank Shekhar has remained at the helm of affairs as India’s Foreign Secretary and has worked as the senior most Secretary in the Indian External Affairs Ministry. Besides serving as Secretary (Europe, Africa and Amerca), he has held postings in a host of countries including Pakistan, Denmark, South Korea, Libya, Egypt, Vietnam, Brazil and in India’s Permanent Mission at the UN, during his long and distinguished diplomatic career. Shashank Shekhar had a long and exclusive talk with Life Watch on Indo-Pak diplomacy and what future beholds for both the countries. Present here are the excerpts from the interview:
Life Watch: How important is strategic partnership for both of us viz. India and Pakistan?
Shashank Shekhar: We are a big and powerful country. For us it is important to build strategic partnerships and developing our resources within the region. For Pakistan, only the US is important. They do not put that kind of attention as we are putting on regional partnership because their only priority is to keep themselves aligned with the rich countries so that they continue contributing in their economy and they can seek more money from them. Therefore, the needs are totally different.
As long as this money is used for the welfare of common people there is no problem. But they are procuring more and more arms for use against India. We do not have any claims on the Pakistani territory so they are not going to help us. It is only Pakistanis who have some claim on Indian Territory and they want to see what they can achieve. We will therefore have to find a way.
There are some people in Kashmir who might be thinking that they, with Pakistani support, will acquire greater autonomy for themselves and they may get lot of money from America, Europe and rich Kashmiris settled around the world. They are trying to use Pakistan and Pakistan based terrorists. Pakistanis are also behaving in a cynical manner. They feel they can keep India bleeding. They help India bleed and at the same time collect money from American and other countries because they are partners in Af-Pak region.
Life Watch: How are they benefiting from keeping India bleeding when they themselves are bleeding at the same time?
Shashank Shekhar: Annual number of deaths may be the same on both sides. It is not that they are bleeding more or we are bleeding more. Anytime they see number of deaths on their side is more they will kill another 100 people in India. That does not help anybody. I remember I was in Pakistan in the 80s and that time US House of Commons came with a report that 70-80% of drugs to Europe were reaching through Pakistan. When Pakistan got that negativity, they developed their smuggling through India in such a manner that after 10 years UK report came that 70% of drugs were being routed from Pakistan and India.
That too does not help anyone! We need to have good relationships because we are neighbouring countries and because we have porous borders. But better relations should not be seen as a sign of weakness. It should be seen as a sign of better regional understanding.
Life Watch: Do you mean to say that the political will is not there because there are no economic vested interests?
Shashank Shekhar: Economic vested interests, on the contrary, are in the other direction. If they don’t make friends with India, they get more money. If they somehow prove to be helping in containing terrorism, they get money. But to counter terrorism, there has to be terrorism first. They somehow feel they can separate out groups of terrorists who will ultimately be their partners in carrying out their strategic plan in Afghanistan, India, Iran, etc. On the other hand, they will be able to contain those who may hurt the interests of those countries who are giving them money. Unfortunately things do not work that way. And that is why there is dichotomy.
Life Watch: So there is no hope…
Shashank Shekhar: There is still a glimmer of hope that because of this dichotomy they come to realize that time has come to treat the things differently. They have to reach that position. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh keeps hoping they have reached that position and will give better response. Till now, better response is only in words.
Countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, of course China and India are moving ahead with a futuristic plan. Pakistan too will have to build its own strategic plan. It is for their leadership to decide what kind of plan they are going to make. They have got all benefits of their partnership with the Western World but if they think this partnership is to be based only on getting money, buying weapons and using them for various strategic interests, it doesn’t help.
Life Watch: It appears US is with Pakistan. But we have seen arm-twisting as well, just recently Hillary Clinton…
Shashank Shekhar: I think we should leave it to Pakistan and the US to sort out their affairs because they know each other much better.
Life Watch: What counts more, strategy, strength or an effective PR exercise?
Shashank Shekhar: PR exercise can take you only till a level. Ultimately, it has to be your own strengths, economic strength, military projections, technological upgradations, etc. Unless you have them, simple PR campaigns won’t work. If we build our strengths and like our neighbouring China, build strategic partnerships with countries like Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Europe and America, besides China, I am sure we will be able to entice these western countries. Rapid economic growth, technical manpower and consumer base is in India, and we are starting from a small base. So we can get up to 50% growth rate. EU is feeling very happy because they got 0.25% growth rate. Compare that 0.25% with 10-12% of China and 7-8% growth of India. Potential is in India. In another 15-20 years, the largest young technically qualified professionals will be in India, and not in China. And China knows it that their population is ageing. We will have to go beyond merely a PR exercise.
In nutshell, there are advantages of a good relationship and Pakistan must understand that!