Modi lands in Pakistan via birthday diplomacy

Surprise pit stop in Lahore to wish Sharif signals thaw in ties after 11 years

Prime Minister Narendra Modi left Moscow early on Friday morning, had breakfast in Kabul, a light lunch and tea in Lahore and reached Delhi in time for his dinner.

In between, Modi dropped in at the ancestral home of his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif, to wish him on his 66th birthday, touched the feet of Sharif's mother, Shamim Akhtar, and took part in the wedding celebrations of his granddaughter, Mehrun Nisa.

The whirlwind surprise visit, the first by a serving Indian PM to Pakistan since Atal Bihari Vajpayee's in 2004, left people on either side of the India-Pakistan border marvelling at the audacity of Modi's out-of-the-box approach to international diplomacy. It also left a trail of questions, including whether the PM's panache for optics will result in any substantive gains in improving India-Pakistan political and economic relations. Or if the "adventure", as a Congress leader put it, might result in a repeat of what Vajpayee faced after his bus ride to Lahore in February 1999. Incidentally, Vajpayee shares his birthday with Sharif. Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was also born on Christmas.

Modi landed at Lahore's Allama Iqbal Airport in the afternoon, a couple of hours after having tweeted that he wished Sharif on his birthday and was meeting him "in Lahore today (Friday) afternoon, where I will drop by on my way back to Delhi." Apparently, Sharif invited Modi home to be part of the wedding ceremony.

The two embraced warmly at the airport and travelled together to Sharif's palatial ancestral home at Jati Umera, nearly an hour's flight from Lahore, in a helicopter.

Both sides claimed it to be an impromptu visit fixed on Friday morning, but Pakistan news channel GEO TV reported that the air traffic control had been alerted about the Modi visit on Thursday. The other giveaway was the presence of Pakistan's High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit in Lahore for the last four days.

Soon after Modi's tweet, Swaraj tweeted: "That's like a statesman. Padosi se aise hi rishte hone chahiyen (this is the kind of relations one should have with a neighbour)." A Pakistan foreign ministry spokesperson described Modi's stopover as a "goodwill visit". He said the two leaders discussed the ways to take forward the recently agreed upon 'comprehensive bilateral dialogue'.

"It was agreed that foreign secretaries will meet in Islamabad next month," Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chowdhury said. He said the two leaders agreed to "open ways for peace and better atmosphere," while understanding each others' concerns.

The Indo-Pak ties have witnessed a sudden turnaround ever since External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met Sharif and his family in Malta in end-November on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, or CHOGM. There, Swaraj held long discussions in Urdu and Punjabi with Sharif, and spent time with his mother and daughter who had accompanied the Pakistan PM to Malta.

PREVIOUS VISITS BY INDIAN PMS TO PAKISTAN

• Jul 25-27, 1953 Jawaharlal Nehru: It was the first serious effort by the two countries to settle all disputes, including Kashmir. Nehru visited Karachi to hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart
• Sept 19-23, 1960 Jawaharlal Nehru: His second visit to Pakistan was to sign the Indus Water Treaty. Nehru visited Karachi, Murree, Nathiagali, Rawalpindi and Lahore, received by huge crowds
• Dec 29-31, 1988 Rajiv Gandhi:  The first visit to Pakistan by an Indian PM in 28 years, Rajiv was in Islamabad to attend the fourth Saarc Summit, within months of Benazir Bhutto having been elected Pakistan’s PM. The two signed three bilateral pacts — banning attacks on each other’s nuclear installations, improving cultural cooperation and in civil aviation
• July 16-17, 1989 Rajiv Gandhi: It was a rare bilateral visit by an Indian PM to Islamabad but delivered little, with both Rajiv and Benazir embattled by pressures of domestic politics
• Feb 19-20, 1999 Atal Bihari Vajpayee: Vajpayee took the brave step of travelling to Lahore on the inaugural Lahore-Delhi bus service and walked across the border to be received by his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. The promise of the Lahore Declaration vanished within months with a military takeover in Pakistan and the Kargil war
• Jan 4-6, 2004  Atal Bihari Vajpayee: Vajpayee visited Islamabad to attend the 12th Saarc Summit. The visit consolidated the composite dialogue that the succeeding Manmohan Singh-led UPA-I government pursued with intent until it was severed after the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008

A couple of days later on December 1, Sharif and Modi held an animated 120-second long discussion as they sat side by side on a sofa on the sidelines of the climate change talks in Paris. On December 6, the two National Security Advisors, along with the foreign secretaries of the two countries, met in Bangkok. Swaraj then travelled to Pakistan ostensibly to attend a conference on Afghanistan, but the high point was the two neighbours agreeing to revive their stalled structured dialogue.

Modi's visit was also the biggest vote of confidence that there could have been from a democratically elected leader of India to the civilian leadership of Pakistan. Sources say the Pakistan Army supports the recent thaw. Although, Modi and Swaraj's personal rapport with Sharif and his family implies the Indian leadership has invested much in the current Pakistan PM.

The visit to Lahore displayed Modi's courage, given the security concerns. It, according to a BJP leader, was also a message to extremist elements in the larger Sangh Parivar that common Muslims in India shouldn't be harassed in the name of Pakistan when the two PMs can sit together like brothers and visit each other on social occasions. However, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader reminded that the Sangh had approved of Modi government's efforts to improve relations with "cousins" Bangladesh and Pakistan, and do whatever it takes to establish dharma.

Interestingly, Modi seems to have taken a leaf out of former PM Manmohan Singh's book as well. Modi's predecessor had wanted to visit Gah, his birthplace in Pakistan, but couldn't during his 10-year-long tenure. In 2007, Manmohan said he dreamt of a time when people could have their breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. "That is how my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live," he said.

Earlier in the day, Modi, while inaugurating the new Parliament building of Afghanistan that India has helped construct, without referring to Pakistan said Afghanistan will succeed only when terrorism no longer flows across the border and when nurseries and sanctuaries of terrorism are shut. Modi ended his day by visiting Vajpayee's residence to wish the leader on his 91st birthday. He tweeted that he was personally touched by Sharif's gesture of welcoming him at Lahore airport and coming to the airport to see him off. Modi said Sharif recalled his interactions with Vajpayee and "asked me to convey his regards to Atalji. "Nawaz Sahab's birthday and granddaughter's marriage made it a double celebration," he said.

The recent upswing in ties is being seen in the context of the rise of ISIS in the region, and international pressure on India and Pakistan to bury their mutual differences to brace for the challenge. The history of India-Pakistan relations, however, suggests that disaster awaits whenever leadership of the two countries exhibit extraordinary bonhomie.