Three-time Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has consistently taken a conciliatory approach towards India and sought peaceful co-existence and economic prosperity, earning him Indian approval as the businessman politician brings a pragmatic approach to politics wherein ideology takes a backseat and he appears willing to give more and take less
Cricket has been among the few common grounds through decades of mostly hostile India-Pakistan ties. Imran Khan, Pakistan’s greatest cricketer ever, once epitomized the potential of sport in bridging divides. A debonair sportsman, Khan enjoyed a fan following in India that no Pakistani could now imagine emulating.
Khan’s appeal partly stemmed from his background. Khan comes from the upper-class Westernized elite, who admired the idea of India that its secular and democratic founding fathers articulated. His early days as the Prime Minister reflected this admiration until it perhaps became clear to him that India had fundamentally changed under the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s rule.
The BJP leadership has no time or inclination for the niceties of their secularist predecessors. It has reshaped India to the extent that there are perhaps now no common grounds between the two countries. This is reflected in rhetoric on both sides. Khan was particularly intemperate towards India after the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status in August 2019 and the prolonged siege of the region.
Khan’s belligerence brought him into the crosshairs of the BJP’s cyber ‘warrior army‘, and much of India’s media. His critics, including Khan’s second wife, were given generous space and airtime to dig out dirt on him and project him negatively.
Villians
Khan was now no exception and joined the long list of Pakistan politicians seen as villains in India. The list includes Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani leaders are more unpopular in India when they are in power. Jinnah tops the list of villains in India as Pakistan’s originator. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is known in India for talking about a 1000-war and for nurturing Pakistan’s atomic programme for parity with India. He vowed to make the bomb even if they had to eat grass.
Benazir Bhutto is blamed for her role in the insurrection against India in Kashmir in the late 1980s. Her son and former foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, also took a hard line on India. He targeted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Indian counterpart, S Jaishankar, and said BJP’s parent organisation Rashtriya Swayemsewak Sangh drew inspiration from the Nazis.
The Exception
Three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been an exception among the largely disliked Pakistani leaders in India. Nawaz Sharif has often praised India and has been consistent in his conciliatory approach. His brother, Shehbaz, who replaced Khan as the Prime Minister in April 2022, was expected to continue Nawaz Sharif’s conciliatory approach to India but had little breathing space as Khan’s popularity soared after his ouster.
Khan swept by-polls and took to the streets demanding fresh polls before his arrest, allegedly at the behest of the Pakistan military, which is believed to have thrown its weight behind Nawaz Sharif ahead of the 2024 general election. India may not have any direct influence over Pakistan’s domestic politics, but it would have been relieved to see the return of the Sharifs to power. The return did not lead to the expected resumption of stalled talks, given the Sharifs’ willingness to play second fiddle.
Nawaz Sharif’s friendly approach to New Delhi began in the 1990s when he came into his own after starting his career as military ruler Zia-ul-Haq’s protégé. Zia, who is seen to be the architect of anti-India insurgencies in Kashmir and the Indian side of Punjab, handpicked Nawaz Sharif and ensured his rise as a national leader while he was still in his 30s. He tried to replicate his success against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with the US help in Kashmir and Punjab.
Break With Past
Sharif sought to turn his mentor’s policy towards India on its head by signing the Lahore Declaration with his Indian counterpart, Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in 1999. Vajpayee travelled to Pakistan to sign the pact for peaceful co-existence years after his BJP led a movement for the demolition of a 16th-century mosque, which triggered one of the worst episodes of anti-Muslim violence and left thousands dead.
Nawaz Sharif has repeatedly denounced the 1999 Kargil war between India and Pakistan, which was fought months after the signing of the declaration. He maintained that the Pakistan Army planned the war without his knowledge and continued his conciliatory policy while he was in exile after his removal from power following a military coup in October 1999.
Staying Course
Nawaz Sharif backed unilateral visa-free travel for Indians ahead of the 2013 polls in Pakistan. He also called for demilitarisation of the world’s highest battlefield—Siachen Glacier—while linking his quest for peace with India to Pakistan’s prosperity. In its manifesto, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML (N), promised special priority to a peaceful settlement of outstanding issues with New Delhi while proposing to connect India with Afghanistan, Iran, and other energy-rich Central Asian republics via Pakistan.
PML (N)’s promises came even as Islamabad saw India’s presence in Afghanistan before the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in 2012 with suspicion and accused New Delhi of using the Afghan territory to stoke separatism in Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif said he could even visit India without an invitation after his victory in the 2013 polls, which he saw as an endorsement of his conciliatory approach towards India. He called his quest for peace with India ‘the cardinal principle’ of his foreign policy in his Independence Day speech in August 2014.
Months earlier, Nawaz Sharif flew to New Delhi to attend Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony after the Indian leader was voted to power for the first time. He ended a tradition of visiting Pakistani leaders by refusing to meet Kashmiri separatists as per the wishes of his hosts.
Swim Against The Current
Nawaz Sharif even developed a good personal rapport with Modi, who has used anti-Pakistan rhetoric to win elections since his days as a provincial leader in the western Indian state of Gujarat. This ensured a short-lived turnaround in the bilateral ties when Modi flew to Lahore to meet Nawaz Sharif in 2015. Modi embraced Nawaz Sharif at the Lahore airport’s tarmac before they walked hand in hand. The meeting held out hope for better ties.
Nawaz Sharif and Modi risked the meeting despite much baggage. Modi was banned from entering the US until he became the Prime Minister a year earlier on the grounds of violating religious freedom over his alleged role in the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002, when he was the chief minister. Nawaz Sharif’s risk was also greater as he hosted Modi in the absence of his national security advisor and foreign ministry officials. He drew flak for his contempt for institutional procedures, as Pakistan is said to have no record of the meeting.
Nawaz Sharif’s attacks on Pakistan’s military establishment gained him much admiration in India. They have earned him laudatory coverage in the Indian press, which largely sticks to the state’s line on defence and foreign affairs. The Indian media amplified his criticism of Pakistan’s army’s leadership as part of a campaign against Imran Khan’s government. They have echoed the line that the army propped up Khan and had a role in the removal of Nawaz Sharif, who was disqualified in 2017 after his family was found to have bought properties in upscale London through illegally obtained money through offshore holdings.
Nawaz Sharif has been portrayed as a champion of democracy even as he repeatedly failed democratic tests during his time in power by slandering his rival, Benazir Bhutto, in the 1990s with organized campaigns to malign her. Imran Khan’s first wife faced a vicious anti-Semitic campaign allegedly at Nawaz Sharif’s behest in the 1990s. Nawaz Sharif harassed the media and got journalist Najam Sethi arrested. He influenced the judiciary to get his rivals convicted. His party attacked the Supreme Court. Nawaz Sharif has also faced criticism for promoting dynastic politics and nepotism. But the businessman politician brings a pragmatic approach to politics wherein ideology takes a backseat, and he appears willing to give more and take less.
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