Will Narendra Modi become the first Indian prime minister not to attend a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Summit in Islamabad?
India’s High Commissioner to Pakistan Gautam Bambawale said in Karachi on Tuesday that Modi would indeed attend the Saarc Summit. Soon, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Vikas Swarup clarified in New Delhi: “Decisions and announcements of such nature are not made so far in advance.”
Islamabad is slated to host the Saarc Summit in November this year. Altogether, 18 such gatherings have taken place since the first in Bangladesh in 1985. Islamabad will be hosting the 19th one, also its third. It had hosted the fourth Summit in 1988 and the 12th in January 2004. Rajiv Gandhi, the then prime minister of India, had attended the 1988 Summit, while Atal Bihari Vajpayee attended the 2004 one.
In recent months, India, led by the PM himself, has ratcheted up the heat on Pakistan being an exporter of terror. The PM flagged this even at the just concluded G20 Summit. Harsh words have also been said by Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif on the violence in the Kashmir valley.
The war of words is in some contrast to the warmth of last year. In the end of November, 2015, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met Sharif and his family on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) Summit in Malta. Subsequently, the foreign secretaries and national security advisers of the two countries met in Bangkok. Swaraj then attended the ‘Heart of Asia’ conference on Afghanistan in Islamabad and Modi stopped over in Lahore to attend the wedding at the Sharif household in the dying days of the year.
But the Pathankot terror attack in early January forced New Delhi to alter its Pakistan outreach in face of criticism from within the Sangh Parivar as well as Opposition parties. But India will host the ‘Heart of Asia’ conference around November and Pakistan will be an invitee.
Will the PM decide to skip a multilateral event because of bilateral tensions? November could tell us. It would, however, look unseemly if Modi were to indeed opt out and send Swaraj instead since all other South Asian leaders are unlikely to skip.
India’s attitude could also help China consolidate its argument with other Saarc countries to allow it entry into the forum. In the run-up to the Kathmandu Summit in 2014, India had blocked Chinese efforts to become a Saarc member state, writing to all other members that it was uncomfortable with Beijing joining the body.
In the precursor meetings for the Saarc Summit, Home Minister Rajnath Singh had a cold reception during his visit to Islamabad for Saarc Home/Interior Ministers’ conference while Finance Minister Arun Jaitley skipped the Saarc Finance Ministers’ Conference.
But if the PM is to visit Islamabad in November, both the Sharif as well as Modi governments will need to work on reducing tensions between the two sides.
