‘Almost resolved Pak issue through back channels’

Ansari made these comments during an interactive session with scholars after delivering his address on “Challenges of Global Governance in the 21st Century” at the Prague Security Studies Institute. When questioned on India’s relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan,the Vice-President commented on how India had not been as lucky as the Czech Republic to go through a “velvet divorce” and that even after a bitter Partition,Pakistan has attempted “war,sabotage,terrorism and insurgency” on India. “We repelled all that and the fact is that the desire to normalise relations has been characteristic of every Indian government,” he said.

He then talked about former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s historic bus ride to Lahore and recalled how,known to few,India was engaged in a “successful back channel dialogue which was a roller coaster of sorts. “We almost got there and solved the problem,” he said. He was quick to clarify how the back channel dialogue was “on the premise that any agreement had to be on existing realities and looking to the future and not the past,that redrawing boundaries was out of question. I am not pessimistic on Pakistan though people tell me I should not be optimistic. We will get there… we South Asians have a strange way of solving our problems.”

On a day when the Vice-President was again assured support for India’s bid for becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council as well as for a non-permanent seat for the year 2011-12,during his meeting with Czech President Vaclav Klaus,he took a somewhat critical view of what the body had been able to achieve in terms of resolving political conflicts. “Anything that is not political,like FAO and UNICEF,have succeeded,but anything that is political is still to deliver results. Even global financial institutions have been of very little help in the world economic crisis and thus we need a global structure which is more representative of the realities of today,” he said.

Ansari spoke of India’s multiculturalism and democratic churning. “Societal conflict is written into the idea of India… living in isolation is not an option in the era of globalization… integration is necessary and desirable.”He listed caste injustice,competing claims of rural-urban populations and internal migrations as some dimensions of conflict in India.