Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to have realised the power of Urdu poetry after he recited couplets to take on Sushma Swaraj in Parliament. Perhaps that is why that even when he met his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani, he couldn?t resist a poetic flourish. At a dinner meeting held amid cricket bonhomie, Prime Minister Singh was told by MQM leader Mohammad Sattar that the time the two prime ministers had spent together was barely enough, to which the Singh replied, ?Tareeq ki aankhon ne woh bhi daur dekhein hain, lamhon ne khataa ki hai, sadiyon ne sazaa payi hai (Time has been witness to eras where it took minutes to err and centuries to do penance),? pointing out that talks for any length of time was better than silence.
Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani, who understood the gist of Singh?s poetic flourish, said that it was because the two political establishments were not talking that militants were the only ones being heard.
The two Prime Ministers also exchanged notes on the judiciary and its role in their respective countries.
?Prime Minister Gilani asked Prime Minister Singh whether the higher judiciary was as assertive in India as in Pakistan, to which Dr Singh replied in the affirmative,? said a source. Quite clearly, the wounds of the 2G probe and strictures as well as quashing of the appointment of PJ Thomas as CVC were still smarting. Gilani then asked the Prime Minister as to how he managed to handle states where the opposition was in power. Singh replied that there were rules of engagement in the Indian Constitution. Punjab governor Shivraj Patil then chipped in, explaining in detail to the Pakistani delegation about the various lists in the Constitution, dividing the spheres of Centre and states.
The delegations from both sides foused less on the foreign ministry establishment and more on the political leadership present. Gilani, who has invited UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to visit Pakistan, also told her during the course of the dinner that in his country, members of the National Assembly who hailed from rural areas were less conservative and more resistant to militant ideology than those from urban areas.
Gandhi reportedly replied that this was not so in India, and that militant ideology had no place at all in the Indian Parliament. ? The entire tone of the meetings was friendly, with few diplomatic mandarins and more political faces. The point of the meeting was to break the ice and that was done,? said a source in the Prime Minister’s Office. And of course, it helped that India won the match.