Can we get Kulbhushan Jadhav back? If so, how?
We have tried one way. At the debate in parliament, the entire Opposition joined hands with Sushma Swaraj in proclaiming Kulbhushan's innocence, condemning Pakistan's military-run kangaroo court, and demanding Kulbhushan's repatriation. In response, Pakistan's opposition parties combined with their government in proclaiming Jadhav's guilt, upholding Pakistan's Army Act, and demanding that the prescribed legal processes be pursued to uphold the military court's sentence of death. Outcome: the Pakistanis have him; we don't.
So we must find another way. That might be to check out the relevant international conventions, find one that both Pakistan and India have ratified, hire the best international law attorneys available, and seek justice for Kulbhushan through due process. I am no expert in international law and would not, therefore, claim to know how exactly to carry forward this option, but I do know enough of international chicanery to believe that whatever the outcome of international processes, it is politics more than the law that determines international judicial outcomes. We are, of course, much closer to the Western powers than we were in the past. But because we have let Russia drift away from us and the Chinese continue to be estranged, I am not sure whether the relevant clauses of the international convention under which we decide to seek recompense will work out in Kulbhushan's favour. I also note that Great Powers who have been involved in this spy v/s spy business have never resorted, as far as I know, to international tribunals to pluck their nationals from the other side's custody.
A second way is to appeal to the international community. We have already spread the word around the world about how Pakistan is a global terrorism sponsor, how there is a "Deep State" in Pakistan that is unrestrained in the nefarious work it does, that the formal government is complicit in all this underhand activity, that it is not the government but the army and intelligence that determine Pakistan policy, that the whole world is threatened by this "failed state", that a peculiarly barbarous version of Islamization is Pakistan's motivating ideology, and that it is, therefore, incumbent on the international community to isolate Pakistan and, Inshallah, promote such regime change as would make Pakistan a fount of sweet good sense.
The world has politely listened. And gone about its own business. They have other interests that go back to the last phase of the twin movements for Independence and Partition. The British establishment believed their crowning achievement to have been the unification of a congeries of disparities into a single nation; the British defence authorities were, however, much more concerned with the military opportunities that a divided sub-continent would offer British global interests. They argued that British geo-political hegemony in the region stretching from Afghanistan through Iran to the Gulf to Iraq, Jordan, Palestine and Israel crucially depended on granting Pakistan a separate state because that state would be happy to offer the West military facilities that Nehruvian India would doubtless deny them. The Defence view won out and Pakistan was granted. In the last 70 years, Pakistan has thwarted India and cocked its snook at us precisely because its geo-strategic position makes it vital for the West, and now, the Russian Federation, to cultivate our neighbour, while China uses its vice-like grip on Pakistan to outwit India. It is unlikely that any of them will be moved by the brilliant forensic and persuasive diplomatic arguments of our Foreign Office to save Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav (retd).
So, if neither unanimous domestic outrage in India nor the stern reach of international law nor the global outreach of our well-travelled Narendra Damodardas Modi can rescue Kulbhushan, is there no hope for him? Oddly enough, yes. For there are at least three options we have that might yet save the young, 46-year old former naval commander who has been under Pakistani incarceration since April 2016, that is, since about one whole year.
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