New Delhi: Describing the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot terror attacks as acts of “betrayal”, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor Monday said uninterrupted dialogue with Pakistan at the moment is not possible because one cannot continue talking as if nothing has happened, even as he batted for people-to-people ties.
He asserted that “not talking is also not a policy”.
In response to a question on India-Pakistan ties during an interaction hosted at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) here on the occasion of a book launch, Tharoor said he stood very much for peace most of his adult life, “but I too feel I have been mugged by reality”.
Recalling an old report by the Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs, which he had chaired a few years ago, Tharoor said, “If you want to create a constituency of goodwill in Pakistan, giving more visas would be my broad answer.” “At that time, we had advocated that mistrust of the government on strategic aspects of the relationship was entirely warranted because of the events in preceding years, but the committee advocated people-to-people relations, particularly, opening up visas to segments of Pakistani society.” “The argument that we made, and I will repeat it today, undoubtedly, it is in our strategic interest to help create a constituency for peace in Pakistan,” he said.
The senior Congress leader said he was yet to meet a Pakistani who has been to India and “not fallen in love with our country”, notwithstanding that there may be “some who are official haters”.
“But the average tourists, average visitors, singers, musicians, sportsmen, they love… want to come back (to India),” the Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram said, batting for improved people-to-people ties.
The current government has maintained that terror and talks cannot go together.
While the 26/11 Mumbai attack took place in 2008, the Pathankot terror attack happened in 2016.
In his address at an event here, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said that the “era of uninterrupted dialogue” with Pakistan is over even as he had noted that India was “not passive” and whether events took a positive or negative direction; either way, New Delhi would react.
Tharoor said any government in India that has taken a hard line, has been forced into it by Pakistan.
“First of all, I actually agree with the foreign minister that uninterrupted, uninterruptible dialogue is not possible. Because you cannot but react. For example, we were in the process of a dialogue when 26/11 happened. Obviously, we were interrupted,” he said.
“You can’t continue talking as if nothing has happened. Of course, uninterrupted dialogue is not possible. Whether a dialogue should be completely suspended for all times is absurd, not talking is also not a policy. But, for the moment, we have not seen enough evidence to justify a major resumption of official dialogue,” Tharoor added.
