Marking the scheduled visit of External Affairs Minister of Pakistan Hina Rabbani Khar to India, SYYED MANSOOR AGHA writes extensively on her political career and the daunting task she has ahead especially in relation to the Indo-Pak relations.
On July 27 when S.M. Krishna, Union Minister for External Affairs will sit on the table to deliberate with his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar, he will first have to cope with a gap between the two: ‘the generation gap’.
Krishna (79) will find a young lady (just 34) leading the other side. Consider the gap! He first entered in the Assembly in 1964 and his Pakistani counterpart was born 13 years later in January 1977 in Lahore. This is not the only gap. The gap in education and training is also significant and wide. Krishna is a Law graduate, had been Attorney, Chief Minister, M.P., Governor and Union Minister. He did his law from Dallas, while Hina is a Management Graduate (B.Sc. from Lahore and M.Sc. from Texas). Krishna is holding the portfolio of External Affairs since May 2009, while Hina was elevated as Cabinet Minister only on Tuesday, July 20, 2011.
Hina Rabbani entered in politics only in 2002; served in Parvez Musharraf Govt. as Minister of State for Economic Affairs and Statistics. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani retained her with the same portfolio. In that capacity she presented budget speech in the National Assembly (June 13, 2009) and earned admiration. She is the first Pakistani woman to do so.
Hina also earned the distinction of being the first Minister of Foreign Affairs in the subcontinent, born after division of the country in 1947 and creation of Bangladesh in 1971. So she does not have scars of partitions and armed conflicts between India and Pakistan on her slate of mind. Another distinction is her gender. She is the first lady to be elevated to the coveted post in Pakistan. In India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi is the only lady to hold this portfolio (Sept 67-Feb 69; July-Oct 84), while she was the Prime Minister. Management professors presume youngsters more capable than old hands, to handle challenging situations. The perception of ‘young blood, fresh vision’ also evokes hope in her posting.
Khar’s elevation to the key portfolio is a departure from the set practice of entrusting the job to some senior and experienced person. President Zardari attributed her promotion from junior minister to the cabinet as a tribute to her skills. Javed Siddique, Islamabad editor of Urdu daily Nawa-e-Waqt, acknowledged that Khar had already proven herself an effective minister, meeting Hillary Clinton, William Hague and Nicholas Sarkozy in recent months. She has also proved her guts as Minister of State for Economic Affairs during her discussion with various interest groups.
It is hard to expect for a country like Pakistan to have a woman as senior minister, where only 41% girls are lucky enough to complete primary education; where self-coined religiosity has broken all bonds of human dignity and respect for and rights of fair colour in Islam. To Mr. Siddiqui she must be considered an asset for the country. President Zardari hopes her elevation will also send positive signals about the “soft image” of Pakistan. In such a society, Khar’s status is certainly special but to a large extent it attributes to her family background, too. She belongs to a political feudal family. Her father Malik Ghulam Noor Rabbani Khar is a former member of National Assembly. He is a big landowner in Muzaffargarh district in Punjab province. Her uncle Malik Ghulam Mustafa Khar has been Chief Minister and Governor. The family has great influence on the voters.
Ms Khar entered politics by default. She belongs to a generation of educated parliamentarians who happened to be close relatives of the politicians who were disqualified under a 2002 law that required election candidates to hold a college degree. She stepped in the electoral battle to fill the void created by disqualification of her father, who represented the constituency in National Assembly. Hina won two consecutive elections first on PML(Q) ticket and then as a candidate of PPP, not because of her own charisma or political weight, but due to her family’s influence in the area.
Even if her entry into politics was by default, her career as minister is a story of her talent, political manoeuvres, and her manners. She is eloquent, measures her words while she speaks, and takes her political career with serious passion. Her elevation to Foreign Minister was a unanimous decision of President Zardari, Prime Minister Gillani and of course the Generals. She has been given a big responsibility at a crucial juncture. Only time will tell if she will be able to live up to the confidence placed in her talent.
During the last five months, as Minister of State, she has familiarised herself with the task ahead. She is considered to have done well in spite of all odds. Fast changing regional scenario, ongoing crucial talks with India, escalating frictions with America and internal tussle to bring the control of foreign policy under elected government and get rid of string pulling by armed forces is a challenging task. For breakthrough in relations with India, she will also have to manage the Generals who are believed to dominate the two big foreign policy areas of India and Afghanistan.
“This will not be an easy ride,” as Shaukat Tarin said, “because of the complex issues being faced by Pakistan and the way the foreign policy is formulated within the country, where there are many influence groups which she will have to work with.” Mr Tarin served as Pakistan’s Finance Minister when Khar was Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs.
She understands the challenge very well. At a recent meeting with the Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal, Ms. Khar expressed satisfaction at the resumption of the talks and urged to make the dialogue process “uninterrupted and uninterruptible”, to help build trust between the two countries. In an interview to Wall Street Journal she made it clear that she believes in an evolutionary change in the foreign policy rather than a revolutionary one. She is quoted by WSJ, while answering a question about civilians taking back the control of the army-dominated Foreign Policy: “There is a real change in Pakistan for who’s responsible for what. But it’ll happen in an evolutionary way, not a revolutionary way.”
Regarding daunting task before her, the Express Tribune, (Edit, July 21) wrote, “It is essential to the needs of Pakistan and its people that its foreign policy be an independent one, with parliament exercising control over it as should be in the case of a democracy, with the military establishment in the background. Of course, this is easier said than done, and hence the perception that the Foreign Office acts on the dictates of the establishment will be hard to change any time soon. On some issues, such as ties with India and the US, the civilians need to assert themselves and if they did it could have a positive outcome – certainly in the case of India where all political parties want greater engagement with it. Foreign policy should be based on the wishes and aspirations of the people of Pakistan as expressed through their elected representatives and should not be based on other extraneous factors.”
The ET hoped, “In the first place, she is a woman; in the second she is young. We must hope these factors alone can bring in some fresh thinking into the running of foreign policy and how to improve Pakistan’s declining standing in the region. Ms Khar has shown over her relatively brief career as a politician that she is quite capable of going about her mission with determination and sincerity. This is what the Pakistan Foreign Office needs right now. There have been too many months of floundering, bickering and uncertainty.”
Khar’s immediate test to prove her knowledge of the subject and skills to negotiate on complex problems will come on 26-27 July when she will face S.M. Krishna in New Delhi. Much will depend on Krishna, an octogenarian politician, who is delighted on her posting and has warmly conveyed his good wishes to her. Krishna is live to the need to accommodate political leadership and strengthen democratic institutions in our next neighbour who has seen long spells of martial laws and where democratic governments have been under dark shadow of military establishment. India understands well that progress in the ensuing round of talks is crucial for developing new bonds and for creating an atmosphere of mutual trust, buzzing cooperation and free from decades old fears. There are indications that during recent rounds of talks officials of both countries have prepared ground for agreements aimed to enhance trade and travel on LoC and easing Visa norms, etc.
The atmosphere is conducive for the change in the region. Let us see how the leadership seizes the opportunity to elevate fortunes of the people of third world. During her recent visit to India, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has exhorted India to take up a leadership role in the whole Asia-Pacific region. She said, “India’s leadership in south and central Asia is critically important”. “It’s time (for India) to lead. It has to do more to integrate economically with neighbours Afghanistan and Pakistan and take a more assertive role across the Asia-Pacific,” Clinton said. Certainly India is stepping ahead in the direction, but we need to be curious in our endeavour. We cannot exert ourselves in a fashion US and its allies did in the world. Building bridges of confidence in Governments and peoples, free flow of goods and men, engaging extensively in trade and industrial activities, and most importantly strengthening the democratic institutions from Rangoon to Bagdad, to Istanbul must be our priority.
[email: syyedagha@hotmail.com]