The Modi Govt’s Preference Is to Maintain a Strategic Freeze on Relations with Pakistan
By Maleeha Lodhi
Pakistan

Prospects for diplomatic engagement between India and Pakistan remain bleak. Any expectation that a multilateral summit that Islamabad will host in October will help to melt the ice between Pakistan and India seems premature in view of the persisting diplomatic stalemate, which neither side has sought to overcome.

As rotational chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Pakistan will  convene  the heads of government summit in around three months’ time. As part of the seven-member regional grouping, India has of course been invited. While it is too early to say whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate, indications so far are that it is highly unlikely. There has been no development to suggest that either side sees this as an opportunity for bilateral re-engagement. Quite the opposite.

Sports is always a useful barometer to assess if a diplomatic thaw is on the anvil as it both reflects a softening in position and paves the way for an easing of tensions. But that front too offers little grounds for optimism. Although cricket diplomacy has played a part in the past to bring the two countries closer, this is no longer the case.

Pakistan is to host the  ICC Champions Trophy  between February and March 2025. The Indian media is already reporting, citing official sources, that due to “strained relations” between the two neighbors, the Indian cricket team will not travel to Pakistan. Instead, the Indian cricket board plans to ask ICC for India’s matches to be played in Dubai or Sri Lanka. For some years now, the Modi government has barred its cricket team from playing in Pakistan. Even though Pakistan’s team played in India in an international tournament in late 2023, the Indian team did not come to Pakistan for the  Asia Cup , hosted by Pakistan last September.

More importantly, exchanges between the two countries after the Indian elections have been anything but encouraging. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s congratulatory message to Modi on his re-election elicited a terse response. The reply was  wrapped in ‘security’ language  expressing Modi’s commitment to “the security and safety” of Indian citizens. Although PML-N president Nawaz Sharif’s message of felicitation to Modi was cast in conciliatory terms, it elicited a similar, terse response with emphasis on security. Moreover, Pakistan was excluded from the list of regional leaders invited to Modi’s oath-taking ceremony. In 2014, Nawaz Sharif had attended Modi’s first inauguration.

But it was Modi’s  accusations against Pakistan  last week that provided the clearest indicator of his stance. In a speech on the anniversary of the Kargil conflict, he said: “Pakistan has not learned anything from its history. It is trying to keep itself relevant with the help of terrorism and proxy war.” He also called Pakistan “masters of terror”. Earlier, Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar used the same old tired rhetoric in his first statement on assuming charge. Spelling out what future engagement with Islamabad would involve, he said: “We would want to find a solution to the issue of years-old cross-border terrorism.”

Prospects are bleak for the resumption of any formal dialogue between Pakistan and India.

A verbal clash between the foreign ministries of the two countries on occupied Kashmir followed in the wake of PM Sharif’s China visit in June. The Pakistan-China joint statement of June 8 had referred to the need to resolve all outstanding disputes in South Asia with the Chinese side reiterating its principled stand that “the Jammu and Kashmir dispute … should be peacefully resolved in accordance with the UN Charter, relevant UN Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements”.

This prompted the Indian external affairs ministry spokesman to criticise the reference claiming it was “unwarranted” and that “the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Union Territory of Ladakh have been, are and will always remain integral and inalienable parts of India”. Islamabad dismissed these remarks and reiterated that Kashmir was an internationally recognized disputed territory and that Indian claims were “unfounded”.

It seems the Modi government’s preference is to maintain a strategic freeze on relations with Pakistan. It has shown no interest in resuming dialogue with Islamabad, apparently concluding that this hurts Pakistan, not India. Pakistan-bashing by BJP leaders during the election campaign reflected their animus towards Pakistan. Modi’s own statements were extremely provocative. At one point, he compared his muscular response to cross-border terrorism with the infirm approach of his predecessors, saying he would continue to “ hit terrorists in their homes ”. His reference was to the Indian airstrikes he ordered on Balakot in February 2019 after a terrorist attack in Pulwama in occupied Kashmir. That had led to a dangerous confrontation between the nuclear neighbors.

In recent weeks, there has been a virtual chorus in the Indian media about “foreign infiltrators” in J&K in the wake of a series of attacks on Indian security forces in Jammu. Several newspapers have referred to so-called “shadow militant outfits” linked to Pakistani militant groups that are carrying out a “proxy war”, with Jammu as the new theatre of operations. The Hindu called it the “ highest recorded militant footprint ” in Jammu since 2005. This seems an orchestrated effort to externalize the problem in order to shield the government from blame for the deteriorating security situation. It is also designed to keep Pakistan under pressure. All this makes any chances of a resumption of talks between India and Pakistan rather remote.

India’s obdurate refusal to discuss the Kashmir dispute poses a major challenge for Pakistan. Even if talks were to resume down the road it would be impossible for Islamabad to have a formal dialogue minus Kashmir. Indeed, a ‘peace’ process that doesn’t include Kashmir will not go anywhere.

This is not a hard-line view but the dictate of law, principle, and reality. As for reviving trade between the two countries this too presents challenges. While a constituency for expanding bilateral trade exists on both sides, Delhi has thus far, shown no interest in reviving economic ties. India imposed 200 percent tariff on Pakistani imports following the Pulwama incident. Trade was formally suspended by Islamabad after India’s illegal annexation of Jammu and Kashmir on Aug 5, 2019. Since then, relations have been in deep freeze. In view of the latest developments, there seems to be little prospect of the ice melting between the two countries.

(The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN)