The Rediff Special/ K P Nayar

Gujral finds himself at odds with the IFS over talks with Pakistan

Male revealed a deep divide between the prime minister and his foreign service over policy towards Pakistan.

Gohar Ayub Khan, Pakistan's foreign minister, has done what his illustrious father could not. He has created the most serious division within the Indian government in half a century of dealing with Pakistan. Ranged against each other and taking fundamentally divergent positions at the end of the Indo-Pakistan summit in Male, in the Maldives, last week were the prime minister, I K Gujral, and his foreign secretary, Salman Haider.

Fortunately for Gujral, the bon homie between the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers and the euphoria over their meeting swept under the carpet the unprecedented differences between the political leadership and the civil service in the ministry of external affairs on the vital issue of Pakistan.

For the Pakistanis, the summit meeting with India went like clockwork, just as they had planned. And plan they did to the last detail. Pakistan's foreign secretary, Shamshad Ahmad, arrived at the venue of the summit with a folder which contained talking points for the Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharief, with a difference. Ahmad's papers, on the basis of which he briefed the press immediately after the summit, listed in detail and step by step what Sharief had told Gujral.

What made the document curious, however, was that it had all been written in the past tense, and written before the Sharief-Gujral talks actually took place. The meeting between the two prime ministers had gone just the way the Pakistanis wanted.

The differing ways in which India and Pakistan approached the talks showed later in the day. When Haidar briefed the press in the evening, he read out from a notebook in which he had made notes while the talks were in progress. Sharief, it was clear to all those who wanted to go beyond platitudes, had steered the talks, set the agenda and was the master of the Male summit.

The Indian approach to the summit was reactive, not proactive. No wonder then that Sharief confidently addressed the press both before and after the summit while the Indian prime minister was smuggled into the summit venue by his special protection group, the media kept at bay.

For the lunch which Sharief hosted when the two prime ministers met, the Pakistanis had taken elaborate care to find out Gujral's culinary preferences. They altogether eschewed seafood, to which the Indian prime minister is allergic, and avoided red meat, which he dislikes.

Baingan Patiala, stuffed chicken breast served with tomato almond sauce, bhindi do-piazza and vegetable samosas -- all Gujral favourites -- probably lulled Gujral into the same complacent mood in which he had, only a few days earlier, forgotten who had ordered the refuelling of United States air force planes during the Kuwait War. As Gujral recited Urdu couplets in absolute nostalgia for his beloved Lahore, Sharief drove a hard bargain on the issue of joint working groups with India.

When Gujral and Sharief jointly addressed the media after their meeting, the Indian prime minister conceded that the summit had resolved to address all outstanding issues between India and Pakistan: a euphemism which implied that Kashmir had been put on the agenda.

Within minutes thereafter, Pakistan's foreign secretary briefed the media and he categorically said the two leaders had agreed to set up a joint working group exclusively devoted to Kashmir. This tied in with what Gujral had said in his brief comments after the summit, although he did not elaborate on the joint working group or, for that matter, go into any details about the talks.

When Haidar addressed the press in the evening, he took a completely different line. He said the two prime ministers had merely instructed their respective foreign secretaries to meet and talk about what issues should be discussed bilaterally. Haidar's attention was drawn to what Gujral had said earlier in the day and to Ahmad's assertion that a joint working group on Kashmir would soon be a reality. Flashing his famous temper, the Indian foreign secretary snapped: "It is his (Ahmad's) preoccupation."

Kind Courtesy: The Telegraph

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