India-Pakistan relations and the mirror of 2019

An official delegation from Pakistan was in New Delhi on Monday to interact with their Indian counterparts Under the auspices of the Indus Water Treaty. In March, Indians had gone to Islamabad to attend the last meeting. Since February, India, through the World Food Programme, has been sending wheat consignments through Pakistan to Taliban-run Afghanistan.

Clearly, the channels of communication between the two governments are working and open hostility has reduced, if not completely disappeared. In his speeches, Prime Minister Narendra Modi no longer targets Pakistan as an enemy country or calls for it to target politicians of opposition parties, which was a regular feature till a few years ago. It is not because of a sudden change of heart or because of excessive love for Pakistan. The change is inspired by realistic ideas that emerged during the Ladakh border crisis on the Line of Actual Control with China in the summer of 2020.

China forced a hand

The border crisis in Ladakh has raised fears of a military threat of collusion between China and Pakistan. As various military leaders have pointed out, such a challenge cannot be effectively tackled by the military alone and all means of state – diplomatic, economic, informational and military – will need to act together. To prevent such a situation, India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval initiated backchannel talks with Pakistan, using the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a negotiator.

This was confirmed by the UAE Ambassador to the United States, as the armies of India and Pakistan agreed to repeat the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir in February 2021.

After the dilution of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, it was a U-turn for the Modi government, and the number of ceasefire violations along the Line of Control reached a record high in 2020. Consistent with Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement in Parliament that every other politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party was threatening Pakistan by vowing to take back Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir – and Aksai Chin from China – in Parliament. Till then the Indian Army was flaunting its firepower on the LoC.

Thus it came as a surprise that Mr. Doval had agreed to take some action in Kashmir as part of a mutually agreed road map in his backchannel talks with the Pakistan Army. Reports received from Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa made it clear that two actions by India were a precondition for any further steps by Pakistan: restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir; And the declaration of no demographic change in the Kashmir Valley.

As the backchannel talks progressed, the Indian side expressed its political inability to initiate these actions. Imran Khan (now former prime minister) refused to proceed, this led to a standoff. By then, there had been limited disengagement with the Chinese forces in Ladakh, thus stabilizing the situation along the LAC somewhat. India assured Pakistan when the danger of escalating tensions with China became too high following the Indian Army’s capture of certain heights in the Kailash range in Ladakh in late 2020. Pakistan then showed no inclination to mobilize its forces on the LoC, which would have been a nightmare for the Indian security establishment. Even though there was no further progress in bilateral relations, Indians were happy with this new status quo with Pakistan, while the border crisis with China was alive. This gave him time to further consolidate the changes made in Kashmir in August 2019.

Kashmir Victims

The delimitation of assembly constituencies in Kashmir has been completed. Making a fresh electoral map hurts Kashmiris, and fresh assembly elections seem like a matter of time. It will bring closer to the BJP’s dream of installing a Hindu chief minister in India’s only Muslim-majority region, an earlier attempt after Mehbooba Mufti was sacked as chief minister. If these efforts are successful, then statehood may also be restored to Jammu and Kashmir.

However, despite the administration’s strict security-focused approach, violence has escalated in the region over the past year or so. All the resources of the Indian state have now been dedicated to the successful conduct of the Amarnath Yatra, with record participation this year, even as the same administration bans Friday prayers at the iconic Jamia Masjid in Srinagar. Mass prayers at the historic mosque were banned last Friday after Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik was sentenced. His sentence also earned a strong statement of condemnation from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which was rejected by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. Things have changed drastically since February 2019, when the then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was invited as a “guest of honour” by the OIC.

Islamabad’s rhetoric helps the Modi government to assert its domestic side that the Kashmir crisis is entirely Pakistan’s. While the use of violence by sending weapons and terrorists by Pakistan has been a major factor, exploiting it to ignore the political grievances of Kashmiris thwarts a lasting solution. The idea that Kashmiris have no agency of their own and are weapons in the hands of the Pakistani military defies both history and common sense.

no atmosphere in pakistan

The recent change of government in Pakistan, including the removal of Imran Khan, is being seen as a positive in New Delhi. The official Indian establishment has had close ties with both the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan People’s Party which are now part of the government. There are Indian businessmen who have acted as interlocutors with the Sharif brothers on behalf of the Modi government. Mr Modi himself had made an abrupt stay in the Sharif family to attend a family wedding in December 2015, and later allowed Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officials to visit the Pathankot airbase to investigate the terror attack. .

Officials on both sides argue that there are some low-hanging fruits that can be plucked if given political permission. These include an agreement on the Sir Creek dispute, an agreement for the revival of bilateral trade, the return of high commissioners to missions in Delhi and Islamabad, and the creation of diplomatic missions in full force. Demilitarization of the Siachen Glacier is still seen as off the table as the Indian proposal is seen as unacceptable to the Pakistan Army.

However, the atmosphere in Pakistan is not conducive for any such move. Imran Khan is gathering a huge crowd in his support and has put pressure on the Shahbaz Sharif government and the Pakistani army. With the economy in slowdown, there is little room for maneuvers with the new government. Even announcing talks with India, without New Delhi acknowledging anything on Kashmir, would provide Imran Khan with more ammunition. The present moment, where New Delhi and Islamabad are set to move forward but are constrained by Pakistan’s domestic politics, in part reflects the lawyers’ protest against General Musharraf in 2008, which put the Manmohan-Musharraf talks on a road map. After almost agreeing was derailed.

new environment

A window of opportunity will open up in Pakistan after the next elections to be held next year but possibly earlier. By then, the Pakistan Army will have a new army chief, as General Bajwa’s three-year extension ends in November. Gen Bajwa’s successor may see things differently. By then, if J&K had a new state government after the elections and the border crisis with Beijing was resolved, the ground in India would have changed completely. As Mr Modi heads for another re-election in 2024 with little to show on the economy front, an entirely different dynamic will be at play in India over Pakistan.

Following Balakot Air Strike (2019)In 2019, Pakistan was at the forefront of Mr. Modi’s election campaign. In a recent book chapter, Mr. Doval wrote that Balakot “busted the myth of Pakistan’s nuclear blackmail”. For the next attack on Pakistan, “domain and level will not be the limiting factor”, he wrote.

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Mr. Doval doesn’t mention it, but last time, India lost a fighter plane, shot down its pilot in Pakistani captivity, shot down its own helicopter, killing seven people, another in Rajasthan There was a near-miss friendly fire accident, and the two nuclear-armed countries threatened to fire missiles at each other. That was in 2019. In the future, a careless act can have even more dire consequences. Unless India so desires, the Modi government must divert its course from the already demonstrated and beneficial belligerent in favor of proper diplomatic and political engagement with Pakistan.

Sushant Singh is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Policy Research