With the announcement of our Government that the Prime Minister will be visiting India to witness the semi final the hopes of some people have gone up. And that is what is exactly wrong with his attending the semi final on the invitation of the Indian Prime Minister. It has raised hopes unduly and when nothing will come out of it (as it never does) the people and the media will be disappointed.
It will raise expectations about how the offering of a cup of tea can affect the relationship of the two neighbors. One cup of tea cannot remove the shadow of suspicion which the two have had for about a thousand years. The baggage of a thousand years could have been easily dumped but then someone came up with the idea of taking revenge for a thousand years of despotic rule by the Muslims.
Also let us keep in mind the fact that the 2004 invitation of Pakistan was not accepted by India (they did not turn it down either). Let us also keep in mind that this meeting will have no formal agenda and as such no tangible minutes to follow up on. Besides what about the next steps agreed on so far. Since nothing has been done on those one can be reasonably sure that nothing much will come out of the ones that emanate from this meeting.
Sometimes its all about managing peoples expectations. However political expediency and the nagging fear that turning down an invitation would show the world that we are not an amiable lot got the better of our politicos and so they accepted the invitation.
What is wrong with accepting the invitation is that we have done a million and one confidence building measures and a trillion people to people contact and yet we are no where on the Pakohind (as against Indo-Pak) relationship. Here I would tend to agree with Gen Musharaf that you cannot be anywhere on this relationship unless you address the core issue, which is Kashmir.
I think we have given more than our share of proposals on Kashmir and now it should be India's turn to give a counter proposal. We are not involved in Mumbai attacks and since we are not therefore we should not go to the match holding our hats. The people favoring this meeting put forward the point that this is the first high level meeting since Mumbai. My point is that since we are not involved in those attacks then why should we even link them to this meeting.
When Gen Zia did cricket diplomacy he was justified in doing so because the situation was really so dangerous then. But there is no such urgency now. If there is no urgency now and we have a legit govt. in place (unlike Gen Zia) then we are actually belittling our own issues.
We are really not going anywhere with this kind of diplomacy.
It will raise expectations about how the offering of a cup of tea can affect the relationship of the two neighbors. One cup of tea cannot remove the shadow of suspicion which the two have had for about a thousand years. The baggage of a thousand years could have been easily dumped but then someone came up with the idea of taking revenge for a thousand years of despotic rule by the Muslims.
Also let us keep in mind the fact that the 2004 invitation of Pakistan was not accepted by India (they did not turn it down either). Let us also keep in mind that this meeting will have no formal agenda and as such no tangible minutes to follow up on. Besides what about the next steps agreed on so far. Since nothing has been done on those one can be reasonably sure that nothing much will come out of the ones that emanate from this meeting.
Sometimes its all about managing peoples expectations. However political expediency and the nagging fear that turning down an invitation would show the world that we are not an amiable lot got the better of our politicos and so they accepted the invitation.
What is wrong with accepting the invitation is that we have done a million and one confidence building measures and a trillion people to people contact and yet we are no where on the Pakohind (as against Indo-Pak) relationship. Here I would tend to agree with Gen Musharaf that you cannot be anywhere on this relationship unless you address the core issue, which is Kashmir.
I think we have given more than our share of proposals on Kashmir and now it should be India's turn to give a counter proposal. We are not involved in Mumbai attacks and since we are not therefore we should not go to the match holding our hats. The people favoring this meeting put forward the point that this is the first high level meeting since Mumbai. My point is that since we are not involved in those attacks then why should we even link them to this meeting.
When Gen Zia did cricket diplomacy he was justified in doing so because the situation was really so dangerous then. But there is no such urgency now. If there is no urgency now and we have a legit govt. in place (unlike Gen Zia) then we are actually belittling our own issues.
We are really not going anywhere with this kind of diplomacy.
