Trust Deficit in South Asia

DIPLOMATS MISS GOLF AS INDIA, PAKISTAN BICKER
by Bharat Bhushan
The Telegraph: January 06, 2007

New Delhi, Jan. 5: Is India really ready to trust Pakistan with a joint mechanism on Kashmir when it does not even trust the presence of its diplomats in Noida and Gurgaon?

The trust deficit between the two countries is so huge that they regularly tail each other's diplomats, restrict their movements, harass their family members and always seem to be looking for opportunities to show who can be more cussed towards the other.

Three months ago, India had indicated to the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi that its diplomats could not go to the adjoining towns of Gurgaon and Noida. Informally, they were allowed to go there till Diwali last year. Soon thereafter, they were told to take permission each time they needed to go there.

Pakistani diplomats are members of golf clubs in both Noida and Gurgaon. They claim that their families also like to visit the malls and the cinemas there. So Pakistan High Commission apparently asked the Indian foreign ministry to reconsider its decision or else it would also have to take similar action.

When Delhi did not reconsider its decision for nearly three months, Pakistan responded by a tit-for-tat measure. It restricted Indian diplomats to Islamabad - asking them to henceforth seek permission if they wanted to visit the twin city of Rawalpindi or the nearby hill station of Murree, where India owns a guesthouse used by its diplomatic staff in Islamabad.

The latest round of spy vs spy began in August last year with Pakistan declaring Indian visa counsellor Deepak Kaul persona non-grata for "indulging in practices incompatible to his status" as a diplomat. Kaul was allegedly caught by Pakistan while receiving some documents from a Pakistani source in the mid-point restaurant on the Islamabad-Lahore Highway.

India responded within hours and expelled the political counsellor in the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, Syed Muhammad Rafique Ahmed, also for "activities incompatible with his diplomatic status".

Both India and Pakistan regularly post intelligence personnel in their respective missions under the garb of diplomats. However, both sides usually know the identities of such spooks.

After Kaul's expulsion, India also imposed a new requirement on Pakistani diplomats posted in Delhi - it mandated that each time they travelled by road to Pakistan they would have to seek prior permission. Earlier, the requirement was only to "inform" the foreign ministry. Pakistan did the same.

Then followed the Gurgaon and Noida restrictions. India apparently said it was willing to allow access to Gurgaon but only if Pakistanis allowed Indian diplomats to also travel to Taxila and Hasan Abdal (where Gurdwara Panja Sahib is situated)in addition to Rawalpindi and Murree.

Islamabad rejected the demand - Taxila is next to Wah Cantonment, where its ordnance factories are situated.

India apparently suggested that it might even restrict the Pakistani diplomats to the precincts of New Delhi. The Pakistanis pointed out that Islamabad also had two parts - Urban Islamabad and Rural Islamabad - and that they would retaliate by restricting Indian diplomats to urban Islamabad.

Ultimately, the movement of Indian diplomats has been restricted to Islamabad (both urban and rural) and that of Pakistani diplomats to Delhi (including old Delhi).

All this has happened while intensive back-channel diplomacy was going on between the two countries for reaching some sort of working formula to resolve the Kashmir imbroglio.

One of the measures being proposed is a joint consultative mechanism or even joint management for the two Kashmirs - on the Indian side and on the Pakistani side.

The question that is being asked in this context now is: What do such proposals mean when we don't trust our diplomats to travel even 40 km outside their respective diplomatic missions?