Pak thinks ties better off with Imran, India sceptical | India News

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The mercurial former captain of Pakistan cricket team and Army's protege, Imran Khan, is all set to form the government but his ascension to the hot seat has been greeted with scepticism by the Indian government and strategic community alike. If anything, the Pakistani side seems more hopeful of a breakthrough in bilateral relations which have continued to head south.

Khan, unlike Nawaz Sharif who was seen as soft on India, will certainly not want to be seen as giving any concession to India. According to Pakistan diplomats though, India shouldn't mind dealing with Khan despite his dalliance with extremist and jihadist forces, as his neighbourhood policy, again unlike Sharif's, will have the full backing of Pakistan's powerful army.

Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal is not buying into it as he says that, more than good or bad news, Khan as Pakistan PM is "indifferent" news for India.

"India has dealt with Pakistan army chiefs directly in the past. What makes us think that a civilian government backed by the army is a better bet?

"For any positive movement with India, there has been a radical change in the thinking of the army and if that really is the case why did they force Sharif to ramp up his rhetoric against India and prevent him from improving relations," asks Sibal.

This is contradicted by a serving Pakistan diplomat who wants India to understand that, unlike Sharif, Khan does not suffer from what he describes as a credibility deficit.

"It's not just about the corruption cases. Sharif was seen even otherwise by many as representing corporate interests and he didn't enjoy the confidence of other institutions including the army. Khan has a clean image and anything he does with India will receive the full backing of the army," said the Pakistan based diplomat on condition of strict anonymity.

India learned the hard way about the limits of any diplomatic 'success' with the Sharif government in 2015 when the Pakistan army hauled Sharif over coals for not specifically mentioning the Jammu and Kashmir issue in the joint statement issued after his meeting with PM Narendra Modi in Ufa. As a top Pakistan diplomat had revealed to ToI, it was Sharif's decision alone and that the army would never have approved of it. Sharif's foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz lost his job as NSA to army man Naseer Janjua months later.

Indian high commissioner to Pakistan TCA Raghavan says Khan will know that Sharif paid a price for his view which he had developed over a long period of time. Khan as PM, he says, will be very different from what he was as an opposition leader.

"Initially though he'll be self-absorbed with focus on domestic politics," he says.

Pakistan officials agree that Khan will look to focus on the economic situation first as his campaign was built around promises to check corruption and provide good governance. To the surprise of many here, India hardly figured in the election campaign of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) party, or indeed that of any other party.

Pakistan is faced with an economic crisis which may require another IMF bailout soon. As Khan said in his victory speech, the precarious financial situation was the biggest challenge Pakistan was faced with. And with India too slowly getting into election mode, hopes of any substantive engagement soon appear far-fetched. The last real dialogue India had with Pakistan was in December 2015 when foreign minister Sushma Swaraj traveled to Islamabad for the Heart of Asia conference and announced the resumption of the dialogue process under the new name of composite bilateral dialogue. That dialogue could never take off because of the Pathankot attack weeks later.

As Sibal says though, India will be sceptical about Khan also because of the support he received from extremist forces.


"Even Sharif had links with religious extremist elements but these links are even more obvious in the case of Khan. I believe he'll do army's bidding," says Sibal, adding that Khan may also want to wait for the outcome of Indian elections before making any serious attempt to reach out.


In his speech, Khan spoke about the importance of trade ties, which India sought to improve with Sharif too and later blamed the Pakistan army for blocking such attempts, but he simultaneously underscored Pakistan's position that Kashmir remained the core issue.


India's position still remains that Pakistan must take some "tangible" action against terror groups like LeT and JeM to prove that it is serious about improving ties. In that regard, it will expect Khan to ensure some progress in the Mumbai attacks trial and also the Pathankot investigations.

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