By Aamir Latif and Mubasshir Mushtaq
KARACHI, Pakistan
Large sections of the Pakistani and Indian media have showered praise on their respective country's governments for taking a rigid stance during the build up to the now cancelled national security advisers-level talks between the two sides.
Pakistan’s vernacular press, including the majority of local Urdu language dailies not only blamed India entirely for the breakdown in talks that were supposed to be held on Sunday, but also claimed that the decision demonstrated that the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif-led government had “not bowed before India’s preconditions”.
The Pakistani English press such as the daily Dawn, however, questioned both sides for the collapse in talks, which was supposed to usher in a new era of hope and friendly ties between the two nuclear-armed countries.
In its Sunday editorial titled "India-Pakistan spectacle", Dawn pondered if the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi even intended for the talks to be held. “That the Indian government reacted so angrily to what was to have been a fairly innocuous and standard meeting between a visiting Pakistani leader and representatives of the Hurriyat Conference [Kashmiri leaders] is perhaps a sign of Modi’s true intentions. He does not really want dialogue with Pakistan, but does not want to be seen rejecting talks outright in front of the international community”.
The editorial also took to task Sharif’s PML-N party-led government. “Yet, for all the Indian obstinacy, there have been some serious errors by the PML-N government in Pakistan. To begin with, what was the understanding in Ufa, Russia, that led to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Mr. Modi issuing a joint statement? Did Mr. Sharif mention the Kashmir dispute or bring up the composite dialogue? If not, why not?”
Senator Abdul Qayyum from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz group party continued to stress on the importance of Kashmir issue for any talks between the two countries to succeed.
“If we drop Kashmir from the agenda of talks between the two countries, it will yield no result whatsoever”, Qayyum said.
In India, political commentators such as Aakar Patel also questioned the strategy of the Modi-led Indian government.
Patel wrote that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led federal government cannot pass ‘sulking’ as a foreign policy on Pakistan.
“There is no strategy, there is no thinking. There is only reaction to the immediate event. Look at the comical manner in which the Hurriyat leaders were held and then freed. What must the world make of ‘the world’s largest democracy’ locking its citizens up for fear that they will gossip with the enemy? But have we seen any shame or embarrassment? Not a chance,” Patel wrote for the Times of India daily on Sunday.
“I am absolutely sure that this government has not understood it, but what we have done is give Pakistan a veto over our relationship. This policy, if it can be called that, has made us smaller,” he added.
Patel also said that if India was serious about getting something out of Pakisan, India had to engage Pakistan even if it was inevitable that at some point the country would have to “bend”.
However, the Indian media landscape was also full of reverence for the Modi government and praised it for sticking to its guns, and not allowing Pakistani officials to meet Kashmiri separatist leaders.
Author Minhaz Merchant praised Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj for calling Pakistan’s “bluff”.
“About time India cracked the whip on Pak and its local collaborators. They’ve been mollycoddled far too long,” Merchant tweeted Saturday night.
Pakistan on Saturday night announced that it was canceling the meeting between Pakistani and Indian national security advisers after Indian Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj said her country would only welcome Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz if he did not meet pro-independence Kashmiri leaders.
