To be fair, the Pakistani authorities, despite their goodwill humanitarian gesture in allowing Jadhav's wife and mother to meet him, had serious concerns surrounding the meeting. Foremost amongst these was the possibility of something being slipped to Jadhav that he might use to harm himself. Hence the extraordinary precautions vis-à-vis what the two women wore and carried into the meeting. Logically perhaps such extraordinary measures relate to the mutual paranoia that grips both countries when dealing with each other, given that the meeting took place through a glass partition, thereby avoiding any physical contact. Such an arrangement is not unusual for high profile prisoners, especially someone like Jadhav who is under sentence of death from a military court as a spy. Perhaps if the Pakistani authorities had spelt out to the other side the details of the arrangements, this last minute unpleasantness that spoilt a goodwill moment could have been avoided. The role of the media in both countries cannot be allowed to pass without comment. If we have complaints about our media trumpeting all too often the officially certified truth, the Indian media is arguably worse; Republic World and Times Now seem to be doing anything except journalism. The latter seems motivated by and large by extreme nationalism, which has reached fever pitch since Narendra Modi's ascent to power in 2014. Be that as it may, it nevertheless behoves us to restrain ourselves from the temptation to answer in the same vein, since rational discourse and the desire to proceed towards dialogue and normalisation of relations are badly affected by loud diatribes from either side against the other. The fraught nature of relations is underlined by reports of fresh clashes and casualties on the Line of Control, whose tenuous 2003 ceasefire is by now in tatters. And in case anyone is wondering, it is not only the media that is the culprit but also the national narrative in both countries that is unhelpful. Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, no mean protagonist herself in this regard, was discomfited in the Indian parliament by the strident grilling at the hands of MPs baying for blood. Sadly, it appears Pakistan and India cannot even handle humanitarian issues and considerations in a cool, calm, rational, mature manner in the presence of the mutual hatreds that have sullied the air even more in recent years.
To be fair, the Pakistani authorities, despite their goodwill humanitarian gesture in allowing Jadhav's wife and mother to meet him, had serious concerns surrounding the meeting. Foremost amongst these was the possibility of something being slipped to Jadhav that he might use to harm himself. Hence the extraordinary precautions vis-à-vis what the two women wore and carried into the meeting. Logically perhaps such extraordinary measures relate to the mutual paranoia that grips both countries when dealing with each other, given that the meeting took place through a glass partition, thereby avoiding any physical contact. Such an arrangement is not unusual for high profile prisoners, especially someone like Jadhav who is under sentence of death from a military court as a spy. Perhaps if the Pakistani authorities had spelt out to the other side the details of the arrangements, this last minute unpleasantness that spoilt a goodwill moment could have been avoided. The role of the media in both countries cannot be allowed to pass without comment. If we have complaints about our media trumpeting all too often the officially certified truth, the Indian media is arguably worse; Republic World and Times Now seem to be doing anything except journalism. The latter seems motivated by and large by extreme nationalism, which has reached fever pitch since Narendra Modi's ascent to power in 2014. Be that as it may, it nevertheless behoves us to restrain ourselves from the temptation to answer in the same vein, since rational discourse and the desire to proceed towards dialogue and normalisation of relations are badly affected by loud diatribes from either side against the other. The fraught nature of relations is underlined by reports of fresh clashes and casualties on the Line of Control, whose tenuous 2003 ceasefire is by now in tatters. And in case anyone is wondering, it is not only the media that is the culprit but also the national narrative in both countries that is unhelpful. Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, no mean protagonist herself in this regard, was discomfited in the Indian parliament by the strident grilling at the hands of MPs baying for blood. Sadly, it appears Pakistan and India cannot even handle humanitarian issues and considerations in a cool, calm, rational, mature manner in the presence of the mutual hatreds that have sullied the air even more in recent years.