Was government afraid to show Modi and Nawaz Sharif bonding in Paris?
Watching Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak seriously but animatedly, as Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif listened to him, on the margins of the Climate Change summit in Paris - you would be forgiven for thinking the two were friends, just catching up.
Modi drums his long fingers on the table occasionally, in between gesticulating a finer point with his left hand. His face, with its closely cropped white beard, is a few inches away from that of the clean-shaven Pakistani prime minister and in the 160-sec photo-op the world has since seen, he is looking at him almost constantly. Sharif is seen listening, very, very carefully.
Instinct
What a far cry from the measured, minute-by-minute engagement ordered by the protocol-conscious ministry of external affairs in Ufa, Russia, only in July? That had been the result of a carefully choreographed, step-by-step return to normalcy by foreign secretary S Jaishankar - first, travelling to Islamabad in February, as a part of his so-called "SAARC yatra", then calling his counterpart in June and proposing talks on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Ufa, and then the meeting itself in July, when Jaishankar supposedly insisted that the "Kashmir" word should be omitted in the joint statement, to which the Pakistan foreign secretary mysteriously agreed.
What happened in Paris was much more Atal Bihari Vajpayee than Narendra Damodardas Modi. If you didn't know Modi better - as the chief minister who hadn't been able to control the 2002 Gujarat riots, or as the man who demolished the Congress in 2014, or hadn't heard and seen him delivering variously combative speeches in the recently held Bihar elections - you would think this man is pure instinct. He has the instinct to take the opportunity that presents itself to him and convert it into something real, something with possibility.
That is why the meeting in Paris is so important. Nothing may come of it - not immediately, at any rate, although cricketing ties between India and Pakistan in Sri Lanka, already agreed upon between the BCCI and Pakistan Cricket Board, could be the first manifestation of Modi's intention to jumpstart the relationship with Pakistan.
Standing
Think about all the advantages that could accrue from it. By shaking hands with the Pakistani prime minister, Modi has in one stroke distanced himself from all the mad hats in his own BJP whose choice of abuse, especially with Muslims, is to "go to Pakistan if you don't like it here". From Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath to Nagaland and Assam governor Padmanabha Acharya, Modi is telling them - and anybody in the RSS who backs them- that he is getting ready to do business with the prime minister of Pakistan. It's a perfect recipe. Modi wants action taken against those who masterminded the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, while Sharif wants Modi (and India) to understand that he is as much against terrorism, especially in his own country, and that he needs Modi's help to fight it.
With Modi by his side in the hopeful future, Sharif can also tell his own army chief, General Raheel Sharif, to pipe down a bit. That would certainly strengthen Sharif's standing inside his own democratically-inclined Pakistan and help him recover some of the spine he has lost to the army since he was elected on the people's mandate in mid-2013.
Perhaps, the MEA seems nervous about this unscripted encounter in Paris. Imagine the consequences that could follow, including the opening of trade and easier visas. If Modi is able to pull off a people-to-people revolution with Pakistan, the world will be his oyster. All the naysayers on the Left and Right inside India could be left with mud pie on their faces.
Breakthrough
Certainly, Modi's strutting on the world stage over the last 18 months - hanging out with US President Barack Obama, among others - gave him the courage to walk up to Sharif in Paris. If you think very carefully, you will see that Modi was only imitating what his good friend Obama did with his own enemy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, only a fortnight ago, when he pulled him aside and spoke to him for an hour in the lounge meant for the summit leaders.
Obama and Putin, sworn enemies since the latter annexed the Crimea in March 2014, a sin that was compounded by the fact that the US and Russia are on different sides of the war in Syria, Libya and Iraq. Modi was there in Turkey, he must have noticed that that's how the big boys play - they haggle about a place in the sun for their nations but it doesn't prevent them from talking intimately if they believe it's in their national interest. With the Bihar debacle, the penny has dropped for Modi. If he has to recover India and get the BJP as well as his own legacy back on track, he knows he has to reach out - domestically, to the Opposition inside Parliament, as well as to his "sworn enemy", Pakistan.
If Modi can break the ice with Pakistan, he would have gone where no BJP leader has gone before - not Vajpayee, not Advani. A breakthrough on the western front will mean an easing of the South Asian puzzle. Glory beckons.