Nawaz Sharif under siege, Modi in a hole

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Pakistan policy gamble has stuttered and come to a grinding halt. After four months of investing in his counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, Modi finds himself in a hole dug by his own impulsive policies to engage with Pakistan. As for Sharif, he is gasping for survival.

Nawaz Sharif is under virtual siege. His fiefdom Lahore is literally under siege from the army. Given the manner and the pace at which the army has whittled down Nawaz Sharif’s power, it’s not a question of whether but when Pakistan will slip under the army’s rule. The talk of a coup is gaining currency in Pakistan.

Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit’s statement that the peace talks with India stands "suspended" comes as no surprise. More than Pakistan’s anti-India obsession, Basit’s statement reflects Pakistan’s internal turmoil. It reflects the growing schism between the elected government and the army in Islamabad.

Basit’s hint that the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) was unlikely to be allowed to visit Pakistan in connection with the Pathankot attack probe following Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT) visit to India is also in line with the internal developments in Pakistan.

This writer said in an article on April 5 that Nawaz Sharif has lost all powers to the army with regard to Pakistan’s foreign, defence and security policies. Now Sharif has lost Punjab too.  

How could Pakistan allow the NIA to visit at a time when Lahore is reeling under the army’s grip? The Pakistani army has forced Nawaz Sharif to go down on his knees and let the army take charge of his fiefdom in Punjab.

Pakistan’s army has moved into Punjab overriding opposition from Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab. After the March 27 carnage in Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal park, the army has begun combing operations against the terrorists in Punjab. At least 10 persons have been killed in the army operation and thousands have been arrested.

Nawaz Sharif had feebly tried to stop the army taking charge of the Punjab operation, arguing that the police could do the job. But the chief of army staff Raheel Sharif insisted on sending the army.

More significantly, the army moved in even before the government and the army had reached a formal agreement to launch the operations in Punjab.

Punjab was the only province where the army was not out on the streets to combat terrorists. All the major terrorist outfits - Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, Sipah-e-Sahiba and Tehreek-e-Taliban have been active in Punjab but the Sharif brothers have overlooked their activities. Formr Pakistan interior minister Rehman Mallik said after the Lahore bombing that over 150 terrorist sleeper cells are present in south Punjab only.

After Jamaat-ul Ahrar, a faction of the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Lahore killings and announced that it had challenged the government in Punjab, General Raheel Sharif ordered the army to move.

He viewed the Lahore attack as an open challenge to his authority. His vacillation, he realised, would have dented his soaring popularity in Pakistan as a result of the army’s relative success in containing terrorists in North Waziristan and Karachi. 

With the army taking control of counter-terrorism operations in Punjab and his only stronghold slipping out of his hands, Nawaz Sharif is faced with a grim prospect.  His status has been reduced to a lame-duck prime minister. Now, the Pakistani media and civil society are speculating as to for how long he can hold on to seat of power in Islamabad.

Nawaz Sharif’s position has further become untenable with the links of his family members, his sons and daughter, figuring in the Panama Papers. Opposition has mounted pressure on him to come clean on the offshore accounts related to his family business. Sharif has set up a judicial commission but it has failed to satisfy the opposition parties, especially cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf party.

Imran Khan is in good books of the army. It is speculated that the army may install him in power to replace Sharif even if it doesn’t take direct charge of the government.

Of late, the Pakistani army has upped the ante against India. There has been a jump in anti-India statements coming from men in uniform in Rawalpindi.

Pakistan’s u-turn on Pathankot attack, the JIT’s ridiculous statement that India had staged the drama of airbase attack to malign Pakistan, Basit’s statement on suspension of talks and the refusal to allow NIA to visit Pakistan are clear straws in wind suggesting that Pakistan is in no mood to carry on normalisation of relations with India.  

Its collusion with China to block the proposed ban on Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar at the UN and the arrest of alleged RAW spy Kulbhushan Jadhav with a view of defaming India as a culprit in Balochistan insurgency speaks volumes of Pakistan’s army gameplan.

Modi has to reset his Pakistan’s policy. He has to give up optics in favour of realism.