{"id":9444,"date":"2017-04-28T10:20:20","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T04:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kashmir.today\/?p=9444"},"modified":"2017-04-28T10:20:20","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T04:50:20","slug":"modi-sharif-hour-long-secret-meeting-saarc-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=9444","title":{"rendered":"Modi, Sharif had hour-long \u2018secret\u2019 meeting during Saarc 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year ago all that the people saw was a quick handshake but away from TV cameras Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif held an hour-long secret meeting on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in Kathmandu.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A year ago all that the people saw was a quick handshake but away from TV cameras Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif held an hour-long secret meeting on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in Kathmandu.<\/em><\/p>\n

Both the leaders shared their constraints while agreeing they needed more time and greater political space to move forward with public engagements. The meeting was facilitated by Indian steel magnate Sajjan Jindal, who is the brother of former Congress MP Naveen Jindal.<\/em><\/p>\n

These revelations have been made by well-known television journalist Barkha Dutt in her debut book, This Unquiet Land \u2014 Stories from India\u2019s Fault Lines. HT has exclusive access to the book, which is published by Aleph Books Company and will hit the stores on Wednesday.<\/em><\/p>\n

Unknown to the media and certainly the public, both Modi and Sharif had found someone to \u201ckeep them connected even when things got difficult\u201d, Dutt writes, describing Jindal as an informal messenger serving as a \u201ccovert bridge\u201d between the two leaders.<\/em><\/p>\n

Despite repeated attempts, Jindal did not return HT\u2019s calls or messages. Ministry of external affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup, too, did not comment.<\/em><\/p>\n

During their first meeting when Sharif came to Delhi for Modi\u2019s swearing-in \u2014 the two PMs decided to keep the reins of the relationship in their hands.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, they agreed that it could be useful to talk informally through a mutual acquaintance they both felt comfortable with.<\/em><\/p>\n

The acquaintance was Jindal, who hosted a tea party for Sharif after his meeting with Modi in Delhi. When Dutt went to meet the Pakistani leader at the Capital\u2019s Taj Mansingh hotel, she saw Jindal escort Sharif\u2019s son Hussain for lunch.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was no secret that Indian steelmakers, both state and private players, were looking to foster friendly relations with Pakistan; they needed this to happen so they could ferry iron ore from Afghanistan by road across Pakistan from where it could be shipped to ports in western and southern India,\u201d Dutt writes. But, Jindal\u2019s ties with Sharif, she says, appeared to have gone beyond that of a businessman with the head of a government \u2013 and the two had become \u201cconfidantes\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

The proximity was at play in Kathmandu, where the Saarc summit was held on November 26 and 27. Modi called up Jindal from Nepal and asked him to take the earliest flight to the Nepali capital. \u201cJindal was asked to discreetly reach out to his \u2018friend\u2019 across the border,\u201d writes Dutt. The two leaders then met quietly \u201cin the privacy of Jindal\u2019s hotel room\u201d, where they spent an hour together.<\/em><\/p>\n

Modi \u2013 hinting at the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir elections \u2013 indicated while he was keen, \u201ccircumstances\u201d did not permit him to reopen formal channels. Sharif spoke about \u201cconstrictions\u201d imposed on him by the security establishment and how his \u201cnegotiating power with the army had been gradually whittled away\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis under-the radar encounter paved the way for Modi to openly reach out to Sharif two months later through a phone call that was positioned as an innocuous good-luck call for the World Cup,\u201d Dutt writes.<\/em><\/p>\n

Her account reinforces a well-known fact — domestic politics often determines the course of the fragile bilateral relationship.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dutt\u2019s own assessment of Jindal\u2019s role is that it did not involve negotiating \u201ctricky matters of geo-politics\u201d. \u201cHe was more like a covert bridge that connected them if either wanted to reach out to the other side sans protocol or publicity.\u201d And, because Jindal\u2019s role was off the record, it came with plausible deniability.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dutt\u2019s book is a personalised account that paints a broad canvas drawing from her journalistic experience. The place of women in India, Kargil war, Mumbai terror attack, Kashmir, national politics and its lead players and a society in flux \u2013 it covers it all.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year ago all that the people saw was a quick handshake but away from TV cameras Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif held an hour-long secret meeting on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in Kathmandu. A year ago all that the people saw was a quick handshake but away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}