SALMAN BASHIR ON INDIA-PAK TIES

For 10 years, the truce on the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir held. It was concomitant with a robust bilateral engagement between Pakistan and India. Backchannel conversations corresponded with government-to-government engagement led by the respective foreign ministries.

The LoC flared up in January 2013. The ‘beheadings’ and mutual recrimination were a clear sign of things going south. Political dialogue was suspended and domestic political preoccupation in India restricted space for healthy engagement with Pakistan.

Then foreign minister Hina Khar sent a message to her Indian counterpart (Salman Khurshid) that she was prepared to visit New Delhi to discuss the LoC situation. Her sincere efforts were not reciprocated. The vitiated atmosphere in India did not permit a visit by the Pakistani foreign minister.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was committed and sincere in working out good relations with Pakistan. The Congress heavyweights, however, weighed electoral considerations over the importance and urgency of mending relations with Pakistan.

A BJP administration in 2014 had raised hopes in Pakistan of another Vajpayee era. These were soon to be dashed as India got obsessed with notions of muscular diplomacy—a Narendra Modi hallmark! As seen from Islamabad, the Indian prime minister was carried away by ‘great power’ diplomacy considerations. India’s neighbourhood did not matter, it was as if South Asia was an Indian domain. Pakistan was treated as a domestic rather than a foreign policy issue.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ’s pro-normalisation stance—which has considerable resonance in Pakistan—was also taken as given in India. But normalisation cannot be construed as unilateral submission. The peace of ‘equals’ is a prerequisite for a normal, cooperative and happy South Asia.

The BJP government’s reluctance to engage with Pakistan and resume foreign secretary-level talks affirms what Pakistan sees as its quasi-arrogant, dismissive approach. The Indian government has also not given the political and diplomatic attention the renewed surge of the people’s peaceful revolt in occupied Jammu and Kashmir warrants.

In short, the underlying assumption seems to be: India can manage its rise to global pre-eminence without fixing its immediate environs. But hard facts and everyday realities cannot be wished away. The Kashmiri uprising has entered a new age and phase. South Asia looks more fractured. SAARC has been brought to a standstill.

India’s declared policy is to ‘isolate’ Pakistan. It has sought to not only oppose but also subvert the CPEC. Ghosts of a new hot/ cold war are being invited to play their games. Bloc politics obsesses Indian strategists. Local and regional issues are being globalised beyond recognition or useful purpose.

The reality of a nuclearised region, susceptible to military ignition at the slightest provocation, seems to have escaped the cognition of policymakers in New Delhi. Militaristic policies shorn of the need and utility of diplomacy have created a dangerous situation. The LoC is on fire. The intensity of violations and the use of heavy weapons are indicative of the rapid deterioration in Pakistan-India relations. Inflammatory rhetoric has further vitiated the atmosphere. Indian television studios have become war rooms. The communication signals between the foreign ministries are at the lowest decibel. The established hotlines and mechanisms for crisis management are not being optimally used. If no one takes cognisance of the slide in relations, Pakistan and India may slip unwittingly into war.

The leadership needs to step in and enable the foreign ministries to initiate steps to de-escalate conflict on the LoC. Maturity and reason, not raw emotion, are the need of the hour or else the world will have to intervene.

The reality of a nuclearised region, susceptible to military ignition at the slightest provocation, seems to have escaped the policymakers in New Delhi