Modi's Heady Oratory Fails To Move Xi On Pakistan

Through 109 paragraphs, our partners in BRICS have gently reminded us that BRICS is about mutual cooperation on global economic issues, not a tool to help Modi win the UP elections. Modi did his best to make the Goa summit as Paki-centric as he could. His spokespersons, particularly the Foreign Secretary, went further. They twisted and turned stray comments in a confidential conversation between Heads of State/Government to portray Modi as overwhelming his interlocutors with his eloquence and his argument.

The Heads of State/Government were not amused. Between them, they ensured that whatever the host government's priorities and preoccupations might be, Pakistan would not be "named and shamed", not decried as the "mothership of terrorism" (in Modi's colourful turn of phrase), and not even labeled a "terrorist state". Indeed, they ensured that neither Jaish-e-Mohamed would be mentioned, nor Lashkar-e-Taiba referred to. Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar got away unscathed.
 That China would not go along with India on Pak-sponsored terrorism was a given. Did Modi really expect to isolate China at Goa? If not, then surely BRICS was the wrong forum to transmogrify into a gladiators' stadium, thundering, while no one listened, "Tragically, the mother-ship of terrorism is a country in India's neighbourhood. Terror modules around the world are linked to this mother-ship". Later in the day, he continued that this country "embraces and radiates the darkness of terrorism". Not one of his fellow-summiteers endorsed this view. Fortunately, however, no asked either how "darkness" could be "radiated"!

President Xi kept his cool in Goa, limiting himself to gently advising the gathering to adopt a "multi-pronged approach (to terrorism) that addresses both symptoms and root causes". Yet, no sooner was the summit over than the Chinese Foreign Office launched a broadside against Modi's attempt to hijack the conference. Unsparing in her riposte to Modi, spokesperson Ms. Hua Chunying praised Pakistan for the "great sacrifices" that country had made in fighting terrorism. She reiterated the standard Chinese line that while China opposed "terrorism in all forms," they did not believe in "linking terrorism with any specific ethnicity or religion." This, she said, was China's "long-standing position". Long-standing it certainly is. Did Modi's advisers not know that? Or did he simply ride roughshod over professional Foreign Office advice in the arrogant belief that his heady oratory would lead President Xi into a somersault? Or is it just that he was not addressing the summit at all but delivering an election speech?

And if China was known all along to not toe India's line on Pak cross-border terrorism, why was Putin not sounded out gently first to persuade him to champion our cause? Here was the highest representative of our most "time-tested" friend. In any sane diplomatic scenario, Russian backing for India's stand should have been secured long before Putin landed in Goa. Instead, the Sunday Times headline read, "Modi gets Putin's support on terror." The opening sentence of the front-page lead story read: "India received Russian President Vladimir Putin's strong backing against Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism". This was simply not true. Since the correspondent was not present at the conversation, clearly he was briefed by a high-level source that the reporter took at his word. 

Putin must have been furious at this kind of media manipulation by the Modi team. Therefore, next day, in his country statement, he snubbed the Indian spin-doctors by pointedly not mentioning Pakistan at all, and but glancingly referred to terror in general terms in a last throwaway sentence. This was his way of telling off Modi. 

Moreover, Putin did not shift his position on the unprecedented new Russian initiative to promote military cooperation with Pakistan. The initiative would continue, indeed be strengthened. Pakistan is too valuable to Russia as the potential theatre from which to take on ISIS and Al-Qaeda as these are driven out of Iraq and Syria and move to Afghanistan. That is why the same Putin and Xi who joined hands to keep Pakistani terrorist outfits out of the Goa Declaration ensured that the outfits that threaten them, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Daesh, were unambiguously named. Pak-based terrorism, in their view, is for India to handle bilaterally, preferably by resuming the dialogue with Pakistan, and not to be put in the same league as the great terrorist organizations threatening Russia and China.

A senior MEA official hit the nail on the head when he told the media: "I guess it doesn't concern them since these groups don't attack them." Quite right, old boy - only you should have thought of that before launching Modi on his tirade. His partners simply ignored him. India was isolated in its attempts to isolate Pakistan. Has foreign policy ever so misfired before?

Mani Shankar Aiyar is former Congress MP, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

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