Relations between Pakistan and India hit a new low with the recent incidents of diplomats being harassed. Video footage showed Indian intelligence agents surrounding vehicles of Pakistani officials and their families, subjecting them to abuse and public torment.
It prompted Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry to recall the high commissioner in New Delhi to Islamabad for consultations. He has since returned to his post but the episode has soured relations and vitiated the atmosphere, thus making it almost impossible to perform even the most basic of diplomatic tasks.
Even faint signs of efforts to improve relations are difficult to discern when diplomats are treated like this, and any positive communication between the countries’ foreign ministries is rendered impossible. For peaceniks, the prospect of restoring a semblance of normalcy by prioritizing non-controversial matters, such as the exchange of prisoners and a focus on humanitarian issues, was totally subsumed in the rhetoric generated by the harassment of diplomats.
The situation on the line of control (LoC) in Kashmir is extremely worrying. Since December 2017, a relentless exchange of heavy-weapon fire has caused casualties on both sides. The targeting of innocent civilians is deplorable. Some observers have described it as a low-grade war.
It is indeed worrying that two nuclear states can allow a hot front to exist in perpetuity. The ceasefire on the LoC collapsed in 2013 after 10 years of tranquility and tensions have been stoked, especially since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power in New Delhi. The muscular approach demonstrated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in dealing with India’s neighbors has been counterproductive, causing resentment and setting back efforts at building a cooperative environment in South Asia.
The harassment of Pakistani diplomats by Indian intelligence agents has caused relations between the countries to further deteriorate, as the rift continues to hold back the whole of South Asia.
Salman Bashir
India has also brought to a halt the activity of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Lately, Indian diplomacy has actively tried to bypass SAARC and replace it with the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, a group that does not include Pakistan. These small-minded maneuvers have fractured the prospects of productive regional cooperation for development in South Asia.
New Delhi continues to oppose the holding of the SAARC summit in Islamabad, which is indeed shortsighted. The gathering could actually help to unlock the Pakistan-India stalemate and contribute to a resumption of efforts for building connectivity and trade, which would benefit more than a billion poor people in the region.
This begs the question of why would India, the largest and most populated country in South Asia, be so dismissive of its own region. Neighborhood first is not the mantra for Indian strategists that dream of India as a great power. Greatness is not conferred, however, but acquired. India cannot allow its South Asian identity to be obliterated by pursuing militarization and practicing hegemony.
The fact remains that for Pakistan and India, the strategic equation holds balance and India cannot escape South Asia’s gravitational pull. Pakistan cannot be dismissed lightly and is capable of circumscribing India’s strategic space in Eurasia and the Indian Ocean region. Indian efforts to introduce extra regional powers to offset the South Asian strategic balance are indicative of a sense of desperation. This is being done by citing China but an unpassable Himalayan mountain range separates it from India. The China threat preposition is false and India’s keenness to serve as a proxy in global power politics is self serving, and certainly comes at the cost of peace, stability and the development of South Asia.
India’s domestic political compulsions are cited as reasons for the intensification of troubles in South Asia. The country’s democracy in present times is powered by hypernationalism, which is defined by Hindutva, or “Hinduness.”
Can the world afford to wait and allow relations between Pakistan and India to slide further? Pakistan for its part is prepared to engage meaningfully with India to stabilize and normalize relations. But this cannot be done unilaterally. The United States, China and Russia need to take cognizance of the situation in South Asia. Indifference could prove costly for global peace.
— Salman Bashir is a Pakistani diplomat who served as the Foreign Secretary of Pakistan and as the High Commissioner of Pakistan to India.
Twitter: @SalmanB_Isb
