Pakistan, India should talk before it is too late

Express Tribune

2 days ago

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A dove by obsession, I had been campaigning for peace inside-out. Hoping to see serenity in the region has led me to be part of the yesteryears rubbing of shoulders of Who's Who from the civil society under the Track2.5 informal intellectual meddling, between Pakistan and India. I just tried to push the envelope through my intangible journalistic input. Those days are now mere footnotes in history, and the evolving relationship between the two countries is one of hate and otherness. Unfortunately, it has little or no room for any accommodation. Perhaps, Napoleon Bonaparte was unheard of in this part of the world who believed that one has to live with geography, and ignoring the ground realities of neighbourhood is tantamount to disaster.
It's now years that Pakistan and India are in an uneasy peace, and are not talking. Their diplomatic interactions are at the lowest ebb, rather infructuous. Missions on either side of the divide are without High Commissioners for years, and are being run on an ad hoc basis with no care and concern for those who might be in need of instant consular assistance. That's a callous approach towards their respective citizens. Issuance of visas to divided families and genuine travelers in exigency is a cumbersome task.
State-centrism has been in perpetual confrontation since the Pahalgam calamity. The subsequent four-day war in May has hardened their positions, and pundits of doom predict another showdown in weeks to come. India is not interested in a dialogue, despite Pakistan's overtures, even on issues of existential crisis. Efforts on the part of the world community to make them talk have hit snags. One such initiative was of President Donald Trump who, on the euphoria of his peace-making, offered to mediate between the two sides after he had brokered a ceasefire in their May duel. The offer has fallen on deaf ears in Delhi, irrespective of the fact that Islamabad was hoping to see light at the end of the tunnel.
India's premise of hiding behind bilateralism when it comes to multilateralism is a ploy, and has hampered any headway in normalising relations to this day. To count a few irritants, Pakistan is facing a water embargo as Delhi unilaterally abrogated the 1960 Indus Water Treaty. The flow of water to the lower riparian state is now politicised, in contravention of International Law, and could be a prelude to another military brawl as it is a matter of life and death for 240 million subjects. Last but not least is the pestering mistrust wherein each side is blaming the other for cross-border terrorism footprints.
The revoking, likewise, of Articles 370 and 35A on August 5, 2019, which granted special rights to the people of Jammu & Kashmir, has jeopardised ties, and nothing seems to be plausible until the same is rescinded by India. Pakistan's stance is that it violates not only bilateral conventions but also UN resolutions on the disputed state. Things have boiled down to such a misery that even Pakistan is now talking of pulling out of Simla Agreement, a landmark piece of bilateral understanding signed in 1972, as a disheartened rejoinder to India's suspension of IWT.
Is there a way forward? For how long will this stalemate come to haunt not only regional peace and stability but also geo-economics that is going down the drain? Trans-regional multibillion dollar projects such as BRI, CPEC, CASA-1000 and TAPI are in doldrums. That is so because India and Pakistan are not at peace, and refuse to see from the same prism of commonality. SAARC and SCO too are victims of this bilateral bullfight. Less to talk of the India-Pakistan-Iran (IPI) pipeline that faced abortion owing to realpolitik. This disconnect at the state level has brought prospects of trade and connectivity to a naught, providing oxygen to hardliners who are out to capitalise on animosity.
India as a responsible emerging power should be empathetic to its neighbours, especially Pakistan. It's high time for the brainy South Bloc in New Delhi to realise that making permanent peace with Pakistan is a sine qua non for its own rise and stability. The xenophobic attitude of India towards Pakistan is costing it dearly in a strategic sense, and the political currency that is being derived from it is immaterial for a billion-plus egalitarian Indians in the long run.
India's enthusiasm to escort the United States as part of QUAD and contain China is rapidly backfiring. As a politically reshaped South Asia is emerging, it is putting India in a tight corner. Delhi has suffered a military setback with China in recent years, and saw its clout decimate at the hands of Pakistan too in its May 2025 expedition. Thus, the status quo that abhors each other has kept both countries in a state of confrontation for decades at the altar of its citizens.
This is where a proactive role of civil society, intelligentsia and political parties is desired to come up with a narrative that is pluralistic and logical and one that leads from the front in normalising relations. That is what diplomacy is all about. Pakistan's civil-military leadership in 2022 had come up with a chronicle, wherein it was stated officially that Islamabad was willing to talk on all irritants, and the issue of Kashmir could wait for its turn. Likewise, the enthusiasm that was expressed by both the countries in realising Musharraf's Four-Point Plan – proposing softening of LoC; self-governance/autonomy but not total independence of Kashmir; demilitarisation of borders; and joint management and supervision by both the states – can be an ideal start even today.
For that to happen, the populace of India must shun the creeping in of Hindutva in its state edifice and, likewise, Pakistan's political voices must assert themselves for realising their manifesto in foreign policy. As the BJP nurses a jaundiced attitude, other political entities of India especially the Congress, the Leftist, the Communists, the regional parties and the Dalits must rise for a cause of secure regionalism. These two course corrections are indispensable if peace has to take roots. It's time to talk it out unconditionally, and without any delay in all statesmanship. Otherwise, a few more decades will be consumed in abomination.