Right, Wrong and Correct

Before the deluge of budget news yesterday, all eyes were on the meeting of foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan. Our nation has a certain view and position on issues ranging from the arrest of 26/11 perpetrators to what is the best and lasting solution to the Kashmir problem. It must have been plenty obvious by now that Pakistan doesn't see things the same way as we do. So to expect that Pakistan will be overawed by our gesture to talk and will change its views overnight is sheer insanity. If our ability to persuade was so magical, and if Pakistan was willing to objectively approach matters, then the impasse would have been resolved long ago. As the editor of The Dawn pointed out on Newshour, we are sitting on the opposite sides of the table, for God's sake!

It is now too late to sit in judgement and say who's right and who's wrong. 50 years back maybe that was an option, but not anymore. To even make an attempt to try and get Pak to see our side of the story is a waste of time and resources. The only way forward is to acknowledge the current situation and evaluate options as alternatives to status quo and not the originally stated positions of the two countries. Agreeing to LoC as the international border must not be evaluated against whether Kashmir rightfully belonged to us or Pakistan; rather, it should be compared to the constant firing that currently takes place, and will continue if no resolution is reached. Some concessions have to be made by both sides.

Today's HT has a piece by Gopalkrishna Gandhi on Prez K R Narayanan, who once asked the Mahatma that the struggle often faced by humans is not so much to choose between the right and the wrong, the truth and the untruth, but rather to choose between one right and another right, and one truth and another truth. Apparently, he did not receive a direct answer, even from the Mahatma. It is easy to distinguish the right from the wrong, but the right option is not always the correct one.