New Delhi: Four Former Indian high commissioners to Pakistan recommended on Wednesday, April 12, that the door for diplomacy with Pakistan should be kept open, and added that it does not require grand gestures but that small steps like the restoration of full diplomatic ties can go a long way.The formal launch of the posthumous memoirs of late diplomat Satinder Lambah saw a large audience turn out. Former Indian envoys reminisced about the quintessential Indian Foreign Services officer and mused on the path ahead in strained India-Pakistan relations.The book, titled In Pursuit of Peace: India-Pakistan Relations Under Six Prime Ministers, narrates Lambah’s journey in steering the backchannel talks between India and Pakistan, which once came tantalisingly close to an agreement. Lambah passed away in June 2022.In his memoir, the diplomat revealed that he was asked by the Modi government to travel as a personal envoy to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in April 2017. However, the plan was thwarted even before Lambah left Delhi by industrialist Sajjan Jindal’s surprise trip.At the function held in a packed ballroom, former national security advisor and Indian envoy to Pakistan (2003-2006) Shiv Shankar Menon said that given the nature of the problem and the fragmented polity on the other side of the border, India should be able to make “multiple peace” with multiple constituencies by disaggregating the problem.While relations between India and Pakistan were formally downgraded in 2019 over the dilution of Kashmir’s constitutional status, ties had largely gone downhill, with cross-border strikes and terror attacks, after a short-lived period of optimism in the initial years of the Modi government.Also read: A Book on the Negotiations That Got Kashmir Closest to a SolutionCalling for India to remain engaged with interlocutors in Pakistan, Menon said that India should also be talking with the Pakistani military.However, Menon also warned that the army “can change its mind”, citing the example of Pervez Kayani denying the existence of the backchannel agreement after taking over as army chief even though he had been part of the process.Menon described the current relations as being a “situation when it suits the domestic needs of both sides to have managed level of hostility”. Underlining the descriptor ‘managed’, he pointed out that the two countries did agree on renewing the ceasefire agreement, which continues to hold.He observed that Lambah had analysed that to get a deal with Pakistan, it was necessary to “temper your expectations and make sure that incentives work on both sides”. “You can’t just get your way and say you are happy with an agreement if the other side has no incentive in implementation… They are going to walk away”.Sharat Sabharwal, who had been the high commissioner for over four years till June 2013, gave two suggestions for future direction in bilateral ties. First, he said, that the Indian government had to rebuild domestic consensus among the political parties which had been the foundation of foreign policy making. “The broad consensus that prevailed for a long time on foreign policy in general, and on Pakistan, has broken down…If it becomes electoral, the space for rational choices is not there,” he said.“Secondly, and this is what he (Satinder Lambah) also said, don’t lose faith in dialogue and diplomacy,” he added.Similarly calling for diplomacy, G. Parthasarathy said that there was still a backchannel discussion afoot, led by India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. He said that the “first thing is to get back our high commissioners”. Trade and other smaller steps can be taken too, but Parthasarathy said that there should not an expectation of reciprocity.According to the former Indian high commissioner from 1999 to 2000, the Indian side must reduce the domestic rhetoric concerning Pakistan as well. “It is most important really is not to get excited and say wild things”.With Pakistan burdened with a failing economy, Parthasarathy proposed that India should adopt a policy of “benign quietness”. “Let’s keep in touch… Let them go and handle their matter without drawing us in… Diplomatically right now, let’s cool our rhetoric, show good sense and keep our door open,” said the 1968 batch IFS officer.Echoing a similar line, T.C.A. Raghavan, who was the Indian high commissioner between 2013 to 2015, said that the start could be with “simple things”, like the restoration of high commissioners, a minimal visa regime and resumption of trade. “There is no silver bullet…You can’t have an equivalent of truth and reconciliation committee between countries…You have to continue with the hard grind of diplomacy”.He said that part of the problem was that sections in India did not realise that the relationship “is tilted in our favour”. “We tend to see Pakistan as an equal adversary when in fact, in so many different ways, we are the stronger part of the equation”.Raghavan said that India has to “get this very clear” that it is a very large country dealing with a smaller nation, just as it does in dealing sensitively with other neighbours.