After Jadhav’s conviction, hope for talks dims

Analysts believe tensions between the two countries will increase

ISLAMABAD: Last month, India allowed its parliamentary delegation comprising members from both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition Congress to attend a conference in Pakistan. A few days later, Indian officials travelled to Islamabad for the annual meeting of the Indus water commissioners.

Given the tensions between Pakistan and India, those small but significant steps had rekindled hopes that the two estranged neighbours might revive their moribund peace process.

But all those hopes apparently vanished after Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav was sentenced to death for espionage and subversive activities by the Field General Court Martial under the Pakistan Army Act. The unprecedented move has triggered a fresh diplomatic row between the two countries.



India’s reaction was swift as it inevitably rejected the death sentence handed to Jadhav. On Tuesday, both houses of Indian parliament passed resolutions condemning the conviction of RAW agent.

External Affairs Minister Shushma Sawraj said the Indian government would ‘go out of its way’ to save ‘the son of the soil’ cautioned Pakistan to “consider the consequences for our bilateral relationship if they proceed on this matter”.

Jadhav is not the first Indian spy caught in Pakistan, as the two countries have a history of detaining each other’s citizens over charges of spying in the past.

Prominent among dozens of Indian agents caught in Pakistan earlier were Ravindra Kaushik, Sarabjit Singh, Kashmir Singh, Ramraj, Gurbaksh Ram, Vinod Sawhney, Jaswant Singh, Veena, wife of Devut, Seema and the list goes on, according to the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI).



Why so much outcry over Jadhav’s conviction?

One of the reasons that India is reacting angrily is the fact that Jadhav was the first serving military official to have been caught and then convicted in Pakistan.

Second, Jadhav’s case helped Pakistan build a narrative that the Indian state agencies are involved in sponsoring terrorism at a time when Islamabad is itself facing the similar charge from New Delhi.

Although Jadhav was sentenced to death, he is unlikely to be executed in the foreseeable future given the fact that he still has the option to file an appeal as well as a mercy petition before the army chief and president of Pakistan.

Current circumstances do entail a question whether Jadhav will actually be hanged, asked Tooba Khurshid, Research Fellow at the ISSI. “In the light of facts, not a single agent found guilty had been convicted in Pakistan except Sheikh Shamim in 1999,” she added.



Observers believe the immediate impact of Jadhav's conviction will be an increase in tensions between the two countries.

Defence analyst Lt Gen (retd) Talat Masood was of the view that the situation would get worse if Pakistan choose to implement the decision. However, he added, “I doubt he [Jadhav] will be hanged anytime soon.”

The diplomatic row over the Jadhav controversy came at time when relations between the two countries are at the lowest primarily because of the ongoing unrest in Indian Occupied Kashmir.

Talat said Pakistan should focus more on the Kashmir unrest as India had been struggling to deal with the popular uprising.



Kashmir has been in the grip of violence since July last year when prominent Kashmiri leader Bhurhan Wani was killed in a police encounter. The situation got worse over the last few days when Indian security forces killed scores of Kashmiri youth protesting the Indian rule and sham by-elections.

The worsening situation has prompted the former chief minister of Indian occupied Kashmir Farooq Abdullah to say that India was fast losing Kashmir. He said Pakistan was a party to the dispute and urged the Indian government to start dialogue on the longstanding dispute.

“Pakistan must capitalise on that instead of getting embroiled in a war of words with India over Kulbhsuan Jadhav’s case” Talat stressed.