How Nawaz Sharif played a key role in India-Pak peace efforts

"Please ask him to visit Delhi," former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri suggested when he came to know I was meeting former Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, the next day.

- Ashis Ray

LAHORE: Kasuri, who is the chairman of the Lahore-based Institute of Peace and Connectivity (IPAC), felt "He [Sharif] can break the ice."

I did convey Kasuri's request to Sharif. He listened carefully, before responding with a benign, non-committal smile. In the past, as the head of government, he would connect with India, much to the chagrin of the omnipotent Pakistan Army; and paid a price for it. Now that his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, who is reputed to have a better equation with the army, is in the saddle, Sharif will only take an initiative if Shahbaz and the army are in conformity with it.

An hour south of Lahore, a mere 50 kilometers as the crow flies from Amritsar, lies the leafy, rural setting of Raiwind. Here in one of several quite expansive farmhouses lives Sharif, 74, the only Pakistani with the distinction of being elected his country's PM thrice. He didn't complete his full term in any tenure—such has been Pakistan's turbulent history.

Winding through sprawling farmland and orchards, my car approached Sharif's residence. Walking towards it from the opposite side with a retinue of people in tow was the man himself in his customary Pathan-style shalwar kameez, and wearing a facemask. It could well have been a scene out of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather; except that the central figure wasn't a don of a Sicilian clan, but a president of a political party, where one of his siblings is PM and his daughter, Maryam Nawaz, is the chief minister of Pakistan's most powerful province—Punjab.

"What a pity there are no direct flights between Pakistan and India," Sharif remarked after we settled down in a drawing room. His disappointment was genuine. He has, to be fair, been a consistent proponent of better relations with India, even including it in his party's election manifestos.