Vishal Sharma
Our parliamentarians have developed a new predilection. They have started putting pettiness at the heart of the political discourse. Frivolity is the new fad. The more frivolous the issue, the more gut wrenching the debate. There is a new found penchant for bending over backwards to show that one is the staunchest card carrying member of this debating club. The choice of the issues, mediocrity of debates and dead pan and sullen looks on the faces of those who sit in the amphitheatre of governance reflect both the quality of their minds and the times we live in.
Ved Prakash Vaidik, a journalist, who has had a meeting with Hafiz Saeed, JuD chief, recently has stirred up a ruckus amongst our political class. If it had had the wider public in angry mood, it would still make sense. For Hafiz has been pronounced by the Indian state as its foremost enemy. He has been held to be involved in some militant attacks in India; most notably he is believed to be the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai attack. Hafiz has also often spewed venom against India. Consequently, the people of India see in him a clear and present danger. In that sense Hafiz today represents everything and anything the state of India has come to detest.
The fight against terrorism is mostly a fight against an abstract, amorphous enemy whose only constant is ideology even as its proponents change faces in disparate situations. With Hafiz, however, it’s been different, he has been a visible symbol of hatred; hated as much for the ferocity of violence as for the continuity with which he has unleashed it.
On balance, the vilification of Vaidik’s meeting with Hafiz is tad too uncalled for. How does a scribe meeting Hafiz harm anybody’s cause? In any case, why should our political class take offence at a scribe doing what he is supposed to do? Scribes can’t take their agendas from the bickering political class. They never do neither even in the countries of failing democracies nor strong autocracies; much less a functioning democracy like India.
While there is no evidence to prove that Vaidik’s outreach had the Government’s approval except that he is close to Baba Ramdev, who is a dyed in wool saffron ideologue, It is nonetheless a gesture that should not be dismissed out of hand just as it should not be lapped up. Hafiz’s been unusually moderate in his response barring his usual rant on Kashmir. If he could be bought over by negotiations, it will be a victory just as singular as when he is legally or militarily dealt with. Today this rabble rousing ideologue stands across the fence just as strong. Our ranting and raving against him and US’s listing him as a wanted accused has had no effect on his mobility across Pak. He walks around there free and unfettered. His aura, if anything, has grown further.
The oppositional politics that currently plays out in the parliament on almost every issue is a zero sum game. It is a product of the same shortsightedness and grumpiness in which our political and social cultures are irredeemably steeped in. Just because an election has been lost, cross party consensus is not to be forged; ideological chasms are to be further deepened and national interests are to be compromised no matter what the costs are.
As the feud deepens, the extreme brazenness of this oppositional political discourse is being taken to another level: Adversaries are being witch hunted. Cupboards are being dusted off, past skeletons are being taken out and slung across the necks of the adversaries. The drama over National Herald newspaper is an evidence of this political tug of war currently underway between the Government and the congress. If national herald were a legal issue only, it would not be previously lost to those who are currently pursuing it. The timing is important. So are the trade offs that follow. One, which is doing the rounds is of the post of LoP Vs the post of aide of the prime minister.
Much in the same manner, the opposition of our political class, mostly on the other side of the treasury benches, to Vaidik’s interaction with Hafiz is also a part of their petty and expedient politics. Perhaps, it is also to do with their lack of strategic foresight. They know there is very little this change in discourse will throw up to help the Government in the context of the India-Pak relation. They know hafiz’s trenchant opposition to the state of India just as they know India’s stated position on the subject. But in opposing and even upping the ante on the issue, they are merely creating another window for the politics of quid pro quo.
In all of this, Hafiz’s tone, however, has not been as strident. His tweets have been critical of India’s response and he has hit at the democratic traditions that India so proudly parades all around saying that an Indian journalist’s interview with him has had the entire political class up in arms against him. His mellowed response is perhaps because he has been afforded on platter a platform of political legitimacy. But we should not see his reaction to the angst and anger here over Vaidik’s meet with him, and the subsequent uncalled for statement made by Vaidik in an interview to Pak news channel on Kashmir in some straitjacketed way. Vaidik, and, for that matter, no one even of weightier consequence than him, can change the Kashmir’s relation with India. Kashmir is no longer merely a territorial issue. It is now a raison detre for India itself.
Pursuit of conventional wisdom approach on the issue has not led us past the cul-de-sac of hopelessness. Hence, there is a need to grow out of past approaches. It is rather a time to see the other facet of Vaidik-Hafiz interface. Hafiz’s toned down rhetoric suggests that he can be negotiated and perhaps brought round to a view of sanity. Hafiz has the US chasing him. As much as he may deny and pretend and take refuge behind the jihadi ideology, he also wants legitimacy in the eyes of the people outside his country. Sitting across a negotiating table with Indian emissaries, albeit unofficially, paves the way for his legitimacy or a semblance of it, should he choose to course correct. Therefore, his stakes are not any less.
In India the overriding opinion though is that he should be caught and tried for his crimes in India. But can such a scenario in the face of the Pakistan’s all too clear refusal to cooperate on this issue be a reality? Let’s face it: it is well nigh impossible. At the same time, can we just sit back and let him do what he relishes to do against us? Well, ideally, we can’t and, also, we shouldn’t. But we are helpless. In such a situation, we need to look at other policy alternatives even though some of them may look bizarre on the face of it; For instance, negotiating with him as one of the options may appear bizarre. But it may be well worth a try after all.
Against this backdrop, our political class should have waited and calibrated its response instead of condemning the man and his interviewer roundly. Hafiz indeed has blood on his hands. But in view of the obvious constraints, the best course yet could be to engage him unofficially exactly in the way Vaidik has done and see where it all leads.
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