Will a new govt change Pakistan’s ties with India?

NEWDELHI:WILL a new government is Pakistan, only the second democratic handing over of power in its 70-year history, bring any change to the frosty relationship between India and its western neighbour?

Officials and experts say a lot hinges on the authority the new government will have in deciding its India policy, which has almost always been dictated by the country’s all-powerful army.

The results of a neck-and-neck general election pitting cricket icon and Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan against two entrenched parties, Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), hold immense interest and importance for India.

“Our Pakistan policy has remained consistent, which is terror and talks cannot go together. In fact, India has never shied away from the talks and the talks on terror (between the national security advisors) went on,” said an official who has been tracking India-pakistan ties.

Experts said Imran Khan is an untested entity and the backing he has from the Pakistan Army and his support to the Islamist voices have led to apprehensions he would take a hardline position on engagement with India than the PML-N, which is headed by Nawaz Sharif’s brother, Shehbaz.

For its part, the PML-N had made efforts to mend ties with India while in office, but its approach did not succeed because of the role the army plays in shaping the country’s India policy. Shehbaz will be the frontrunner within the party if it does well in the elections. From a business background, and considered to be closer to the army than his brother, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, he is likely to tread carefully.

The India-pakistan relations had gone from bad to worse on account of cross-border terrorism in Kashmir.

Foreign-secretary level talks were suspended after the January 2016 militant attack on the Pathankot airbase. India blamed the attack, in which seven security personnel were killed, on the Jaish-e-mohammed militant group and sought action from Pakistan to bring the perpetrators to justice.

What had also riled India was that the attack took place a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise stopover in Lahore to greet Pakistan’s then prime minister Nawaz Sharif on his birthday on December 25.

“Nothing happens unless it has happened in India-pakistan relationship. Sometimes things go against the script,” said another person who tracks the ties between the countries.

Will the Modi government have the necessary political capital to expend on ties with Pakistan, which has a clear resonance in India’s domestic policy? “If you look back in history, there are occasions even in the last year in which in-office governments on both sides took fresh initiatives in repairing ties as well as resuming ties,” said TCA Raghavan, former Indian envoy to Pakistan.