Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar (Pic: Courtesy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan)
Less than a week after she was formally sworn in as Pakistan’s first woman and youngest ever foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar is in New Delhi, face to face with arguably the most challenging aspect of her assignment—talking to India.
For the 34-year-old Khar having to deal with her 79-year-old Indian vis-à-vis S M Krishna may feel like entering a time warp. It is tempting to feel particularly optimistic on account of Khar’s youth and believe that she may bring an approach to India-Pakistan bilateral relations that is unencumbered by historic animosities. But when one is also deeply mindful of the fact that no Pakistani foreign minister comes to India without the shadow of the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment following right behind.
It would also be useful to remember that Khar is a product of her country’s deeply entrenched feudalism and notwithstanding her postgraduate degree in hospitality and management from the University of Massachusetts she is bound to have been tutored in the ways of the Pakistani elite. As Manish Chand of the IANS reports, “Khar comes from a wealthy feudal family in southern Punjab and owns Lahore's posh Polo Lounge, a haunt of the rich and the powerful. Her father is a large landowner from Muzaffargarh. Her uncle Ghulam Mustafa Kar was the subject of "My Feudal Lord", a biting account of patriarchal society in Pakistan penned by his fifth wife Tehmina Durrani.”
Khar is most certainly not someone who has had to defy the harrowing social, cultural and economic odds that any ordinary Pakistani, particularly a woman, faces. Her background is as much an asset as it is a liability when it comes to dealing with India. Even if she has a mind all her own, it is debatable whether in the current climate of palpable bilateral suspicion she can chart a truly independent course.
When it comes to India-Pakistan relations, there is no alternative but to view them through the prism of unfounded optimism. Once you do that, Hina Rabbani Khar looks greatly promising.
Separately, one looks at Khar and one thinks next Benazir Bhutto. All the trimmings and trappings of a successful political career seem to be in place. She is on the right trajectory to eventually become her country’s top leader if she plays her cards well.
