Needed: desi deconfliction strategy |
Sometimes a handshake is just a handshake. Right? Well, not in the South Asian political tinderbox. For context, at the former Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia's funeral, India's external affairs minister and Pakistan's speaker of the national assembly briefly shook hands. Both countries' press then offered a masterclass in how not to cover such a development.
The thrust of the Indian coverage was to downplay it as an insignificant happenstance. And while covering Pakistan, why not smuggle in a few choicest insults?
The Pakistani media, by contrast, treated it as a significant breakthrough. Could ice be melting between the two South Asian rivals? And, for good measure, we were reminded of the drubbing India received in May.
I am biased in Pakistan's favour and would still choose our coverage over whatever mad cow disease is afflicting the Indian media.
But in both cases, what I dislike is our shared bad habit of hogging all the attention at such emotionally charged events. The late Begum Khaleda Zia was a giant of Bangladeshi and regional politics. The visually stunning images from the funeral, showing the sheer number of participants, were a reminder enough. While the politicians did nothing wrong by being polite, the media on both sides could perhaps exhibit better funeral-side manners. How many times have our other SAARC partners complained about our unfortunate tendency to hold multilateral forums hostage to bilateral politics?
After living in the real world and being disappointed by several false starts over the past twelve years, I have given up on magical thinking. My motto is simple: if a significant breakthrough occurs between the two........