Is 21st century’s maiden regional multilateral alliance, Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) expansion into South Asia that much needed panacea for resolving India-Pakistan stalemate? Though, the Indian subcontinent is yet again caught in a vortex of standard Indo-Pakistan rivalry, some analysts are of the opinion that the SCO, having successfully addressed Central Asia’s complex security issues in the recent past, can pave the way for complete eradication of extremism from South Asia.
In fact, the Indian establishment has always reckoned that fundamentalism emanating from Pakistan is at the root of a bitter rivalry between the two neighbors.
As China’s Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping believe, both India and Pakistan’s simultaneous elevation to full membership of SCO in 2016, will not only boost the fight against terrorism in a volatile region but also stabilize Afghanistan and even have a sobering effect in ironing out the differences and contradictions in India-Pakistan’s difficult relationship amicably.
Indeed, the Tashkent based-Regional Counter Terrorism Structure (RCTS) of SCO, meant for promoting anti-terrorism cooperation among member states, can become the nodal-point of active engagement between Indian and Pakistani security apparatus, both of which have been expectedly conservative and sometime reactionary toward any alteration in the respective country’s policy of demonizing the other.
“Unfortunately, politicians have nurtured elements fuelling nationalist jingoism with a view to create conducive atmosphere for enhancing military purchase.
Shockingly, military veterans have also fallen prey to this old tactics of keeping the pot boiling” laments a security expert, with experience of working beyond India’s frontier incognito. He goes on to add “the unfortunate part is, apart from a selected few sitting at the pyramid apex, nobody in the military really knows what they are actually fighting for.”
And the gentleman thereafter makes a stunning revelation: “Often our own intelligence assets, sneaking in for operational reasons, are eliminated by Indian soldiers guarding the borders, thinking them to be terrorists.” However, he is hopeful that since the RCTS conducts annual anti-terrorism exercise, the day is not far off when Indian and Pakistani security personnel will work shoulder to shoulder for a common cause that of restoring sanity in a region beset with violence for far too long.
And those who may consider such scenario as unfeasible must go through the Indo-Pakistan joint-statement issued after the talks between Indian premier Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif at the sidelines of SCO summit in Ufa. Anybody capable of grasping the complex nuances in diplomatic statements should carefully sift through the sentences to conclude that for the first time ever India has at least accepted Pakistan’s version of terrorism, albeit tangentially. By confessing to Sharif that it is the “collective responsibility” of both Islamabad and New Delhi to end terrorism in the region, Modi has virtually accepted the Pakistani leaderships’ long-held view of India fomenting unrest deep within her neighbor’s territory, whether it is in Sindh or Baluchistan.
Even, Indian foreign secretary Jaishankar had accepted that there were frank discussions on each other’s concerns. Besides, influential government sources do admit that Modi has discreetly acknowledged the necessity of fettering rogue elements within the security establishment, who the Indian premier believes must be made accountable for their activities.
Interestingly, the same Modi had advocated adventurous retributive action against Pakistan, when his predecessor Manmohan Singh refused to escalate tension in 2013 after the beheading of Indian soldiers.
Modi is quite convinced, says a government insider, that elements within India’s security super-structure have often misused their discretionary powers to create tension in the neighboring country and that too without the nod of the political leadership.
This, according to this insider, is the precise reason why Modi, abandoning political-jingoism, made New Delhi budge from its longstanding stance of putting all the blame on Pakistan for any security scare in India or the deadlock in punishing anti-India extremists like Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.
Notwithstanding all the domestic brouhaha over Islamabad’s real intent vis-à-vis terrorism directed toward India, Modi, sources reveal, has “assured the SCO leadership of India’s wholehearted support to Pakistan in confronting its domestic terror Frankenstein, originating in the Cold War period.”
Sources also confirm that both India and Pakistan were desperate to prove that they are capable of coexisting in any security architecture by overcoming their well-entrenched differences.
Many within the SCO were rightly concerned about the realistic possibility of these two warring South Asian neighbors paralyzing the decision-making process of the organization, which works on consensus. And the timing of the India-Pakistan bonhomie is the result of an intense behind-the-scene diplomatic initiative by Moscow and Beijing to help thaw the icy Indo-Pakistan relationship, which was further derailed by the Modi government itself on the flimsy pretext of Pakistan’s envoy to India meeting the disgruntled Kashmiri separatist leadership.
Those who tracked the ongoing developments in the SCO front knew that Indo-Pakistan reconciliation was in the offing especially after SCO Secretary-General Dmitry Mezentsev’s quiet visit to New Delhi early this year.
The Indian government, say sources, was told point blank that the onus lies on New Delhi as well as Islamabad to allay the pessimism existing within the SCO fold especially after bilateral relations nosedived in recent times, which was triggered by frequent clashes along the line of control in Kashmir and a bitter verbal acrimony.
Now that both India and Pakistan are jointly seated in the same security bloc for the first time in history, they must make full use of SCO forum by converting it into a fulcrum for securing development and peace in South Asia.
