May 25, 2026 13:50 pm IST

Opinion | Why Are Some Of India's Sharpest Pakistan Critics Calling For 'Talks'?

In the past, almost every such initiative has been met with a terror attack.

Tara Kartha Tara Kartha Columnist

Tara Kartha Columnist

To talk or not to talk, that is the question. At least, that would be it for most of those misquoting Hamlet. But for the general populace, talking to Pakistan is a disaster, and even the supposedly learned see little point in it. All that was till the unexpected happened. In a recent interview, Dattareya Hosabale, General Secretary of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), unexpectedly said that people-to-people contact was key to breaking the deadlock with Pakistan. This was after a visit to the United States. The point is that the main organisation that is the backbone of the ruling party has given the green signal to talk.

Most were too astonished to say much. But the support by former Army Chief Gen MM Naravane, where he said that "the path to peace was and is, through negotiations to arrive at a just settlement that meets the aspirations of the people", raised heckles, since the language was straight out of the Pakistani playbook. Scribes described the Track-2 process as a 'dangerous illusion', leading to complacency, till the next terrorist attack brought some reality back literally with a bang. True, also, that all governments - much to the exasperation of security experts - usually opened their innings with friendly reach-outs, from former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee's trip to Lahore to Manmohan Singh's restarting of the Composite Dialogue, and an invite to the then Pakistani Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, to India for a cricket match. Most recently, PM Modi dropped by to greet Sharif on his birthday. 

Each and every one of these initiatives was met with a return to a terror attack. In fact, the more successful the reach-out, the worse the terrorist retaliation. For instance, Modi's visit was on December 25, 2015. The Pathankot attack was barely a week later, on January 2, 2016. 

Consider, however, that Pakistani Prime Ministers have also reached out - and suffered for it. In this instance, Sharif asked his commanders why violence occurred immediately after an outreach to India. There was no answer. In 1999, the Kargil War was launched after the Lahore bus journey, and prior to this, Prime Minister Zardari's suggestion to ISI Chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha to go to India and provide full cooperation on........

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