The forrmer External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid slammed the Narendra Modi government for its “short-sighted” approach in dealing with Pakistan, calling off talks because they were “completely unprepared” and treating Kashmir as though it was a “law and order problem”.
Days after People’s Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti blamed the Congress and the BJP alike for the cancellation of talks that has embarrassed the Congress State unit in Jammu and Kashmir in the run-up to elections there, the Congress officially issued a “corrective” on Friday to clear the impression that it had played a role in the talks being called off.
The Modi government, Mr. Khurshid said, was “convinced” it could “deliver a major breakthrough like a magician” whereas it was “a case of bad preparation with inadequate inputs from the Foreign Office. There are jobs that the Indian Foreign Office can do that the Indian Police Service can’t… Shaking hands and providing a meal may be part of diplomacy, but there is much more to it.”
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“What is needed is an honest and truthful dialogue,” the former Minister continued, “not half-baked, insensitive statements to a gathering of screaming BJP supporters… and then calling off talks out of panic.”
Kashmir was “not a law and order problem,” Mr. Khurshid said, advising the Modi government not to take Kashmir “for granted as it is not easy to solve”.
Mr. Khurshid’s “corrective” comes days after the former Commerce Minister Anand Sharma accused the Modi government of sending out “confused signals” to Pakistan. “The question,” he had said, “is not about calling off the talks. The question is why the talks were agreed to… What prompted the Modi government to decide to hold talks with Pakistan when there was constant provocation from that side?”
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The Congress, sources said, was belatedly trying to alter the impression created by tweets sent out by the former Information Minister Manish Tewari. On August 13, he tweeted: “...Pak Envoy says we Extend moral & diplomatic support to people of J&K in their legitimate struggle why is India going for talks?”
Three days later, he followed it up: “Pak High Comm feting separatists, Pak Army intruding across border, ISI attacking Indian Consulate in Herat BJP govt sleeps Ache Din Agaye.”
These were picked up in the Kashmir valley as instances of Congress pressure on the government to “sabotage the talks”. Indeed, Ms. Mufti said as much. Indo-Pak relations, she said, have become a “cat and mouse game” between the BJP and the Congress, with both trying to create hurdles in the normalisation process when they are in Opposition. If the BJP sabotaged Sharm-el-Sheikh, the Congress was now subverting the resumption of talks, she alleged.