India-Pakistan relations in virtual freeze

In a 1973 book, the late Kuldip Nayar, a well-known journalist who sought to promote friendship between the peoples of India and Pakistan, characterised the two countries as “distant neighbours”. In the half-century that has passed since then, the two countries have moved farther apart.

When the Bharatiya Janata Party seized power in the 2014 parliamentary elections, there were sound historical reasons to expect a deterioration in India’s relations with Pakistan. That did not happen.

Narendra Modi’s assumption of office as the Prime Minister took place in the presence of the heads of governments of all member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), including Pakistan.

The idea of inviting all SAARC leaders to the swearing-in ceremony was reportedly mooted by Ajit Doval, whom Modi had picked for the sensitive post of National Security Adviser.

In 2015, while returning home from a visit to Afghanistan, in a personal gesture of goodwill, Modi stopped briefly at Lahore to greet his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, on his birthday.

These gestures may be said to have set the stage for a successful visit to Pakistan by Modi in 2016 when that country was to host the SAARC Summit. But, suddenly, things started coming unstuck. Even as preparations for the summit meet were on in Islamabad, 19 soldiers were killed and many more injured in a terror attack on an Indian military convoy near Uri in Kashmir.

India immediately decided not to attend the SAARC summit.

Soon five other SAARC members, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka also announced they would not attend the summit.

With six of the eight members deciding to stay away, there were only Nepal, which had hosted the previous meet, and Pakistan, which was to take over the presidentship from it, were left to attend the summit.

There has been no SAARC summit since then.

Indian officials said the Uri terror attack was the work of Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistan-based militant outfit.

It is a non-state actor, and its purpose may well have been to destroy the good atmosphere being created by Modi’s gestures.

SAARC was founded in 1985 with the objectives of promoting the welfare of the peoples of South Asia, improving their quality of life and accelerating economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region.

Looping back, it appears the Indian government should have come up with a nuanced response to the terror attack and not allowed it to adversely affect the SAARC’s working.

All SAARC governments which rallied to India’s side following the terror attack must now consider seriously how best they can help to put SAARC back on the rails so that it can continue its mission of promoting the welfare of all South Asians.

An organisation established to promote the common interests of the peoples of the region must not be allowed to become a hostage in the hands of militants.

Mercifully, abandonment of the annual summit did not kill the SAARC spirit.

Throughout the last six years, the SAARC secretariat in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, organised informal meetings of the group’s Foreign Ministers periodically. The last one was a virtual meet on the margins of the UN General Assembly session in September 2020.

During the Covid-19 crisis, rising to the occasion, SAARC designed and implemented a regional emergency fund of about US $ 22 million to foster cooperation among its members.

The worst consequence of the Modi regime’s quick response to the Uri terror attack was the freezing of India-Pakistan relations.

There was no snapping of ties but there has been little interaction between the two countries, the largest of the region, on any front in the past six years.

There was a change of government in Pakistan during this period with Shehbaz Sharif, brother of Nawaz Sharif, replacing Imran Khan as the Prime Minister.

Keeping ties with Pakistan in a low key while pushing through constitutional changes in Jammu and Kashmir, including abolition of its special status, may have been a good stratagem, but it cannot be allowed to become the new normal.

The government actually went way beyond the mandate it claimed for itself when it reduced Jammu and Kashmir to a Union Territory without a legislative assembly. It has a constitutional duty to restore the democratic process in that part of the country at the earliest. The sooner this is done the better.

India and Pakistan, recently completed 75 years as free nations. There is no getting away from the fact that they are next-door neighbours. They must, therefore, strive to promote good relations both at the level of governments and at the level of peoples. Personal gestures by leaders can have a role in the process but the crucial part is the creation of an atmosphere conducive to peaceful development of the two countries.