Indo-Pak ties continue to be in deep freeze. That is the only inference to be drawn after the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Foreign Ministers meet held in Goa on 4/5 May, 2023.
As is often the case with Indian media, more attention was showered on the Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto than on the Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang. It is worth noting that it is China which has stationed thousands of troops in Ladakh forcing us to do likewise at the border. It is China which, by all accounts, is the main threat facing India today. Yet not one Indian news channel succeeded in interviewing the Chinese Foreign Minister to ask him about Chinese policy regarding disengagement in Ladakh, claims on Arunachal Pradesh or even the Sino-Russian alliance.
This obsession with Pakistan is difficult to fathom. The interview of Bilawal Bhutto to a leading Indian TV channel threw no fresh light on anything and ended up providing a platform for Pakistan to purvey its views and opinions. Most of the media commentary during the SCO meet was focused on the form of greeting used by the two Ministers, whether or not there was a handshake between them and their respective body language. Could it possibly be more frivolous? Not one word about the importance of India’s ties with Central Asia in the context of SCO!
Bilawal Bhutto’s motives for undertaking the trip to India are easy to understand. Pakistan is not part of G20, BRICS, RIC and cannot be expected to be invited to G7 meetings. So, for Pakistan SCO is an important regional game (if not the only one) in town. Its chief patron, China, has influence over SCO. It also provided an opportunity for Pakistan to curry favour with Russia. It is worth noting that last year at the Samarkand SCO Foreign Ministers meeting, the Russians declined to meet with Pakistan. This year was different and the relative warmth between Bhutto and Lavrov was there for all to see. Finally, Pakistan may have also wanted to send a signal to the world at large that it is ready to sit and talk to India, but the latter is reluctant to do so.
The level of mistrust between India and Pakistan is perhaps more severe than previously believed. Bhutto made a provocative statement when he said: let us not get caught up in weaponizing terrorism for diplomatic point scoring. To make this statement on Indian soil was both imprudent and impudent. The Indian External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar, not one to hold back, responded in brutal fashion: Victims of terrorism do not sit with perpetrators of terrorism to discuss terrorism. Bhutto was referred to as a promoter, justifier and a spokesperson of a terrorism industry, the mainstay of Pakistan whose positions were called out by India at the SCO meeting.
Where do we go from here? An official dialogue may be safely ruled out for the foreseeable future. In any case, there is no democratically elected government in Islamabad and there is no valid interlocutor. So, it may be prudent to say that an official dialogue will have to wait until elections are over in Pakistan. Meanwhile, there are reasons to believe back-channel contacts are continuing, if sporadically, and more importantly, the ceasefire is holding. Perhaps, that is the best thing possible under the circumstances.
Some fundamental truths about Indo-Pak ties appear to suggest themselves at present. One, India and Pakistan are condemned to co-exist and it is really about agreeing on the broad terms of such co-existence. If no terms are agreed upon, the relations are likely to suffer from major vicissitudes. Two, the gap between India and Pakistan, when it comes to trade, investment, GDP and forex reserves are widening by the day, to India’s advantage. Status quo thus suits India. This should worry Pakistan. Three, the first move must come from Pakistan which could provide demonstrable proof to India that it is no longer interested in sponsoring terror. It could also take steps in the areas of trade and commerce, which is actually in its own interest. Finally, there is no denying that Indo-Pak ties vitiate the atmosphere in regional fora. It is a long-running pattern which is not set to change. Bilawal Bhutto could have been the statesman here, but clearly that was too much of an ask.
If you were a Micawber, you would argue that the very fact a Foreign Minister from Pakistan came to India after a decade is a positive sign in itself. But we are still a long way from normalization of ties between the two countries.
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 