A scent of rapprochement

About 3,000 military personnel from China, Russia, India and Pakistan are to be brought together for joint exercises

As the political currents veer towards a reframing of the domestic narrative, there is another, and largely unremarked, thread being added to the Pak-India relationship. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) along with some other regional multilateral entities are sometimes criticised for being little more than expensive decoration pieces that are adept at convening largely irrelevant meetings in exotic locations. It is now being reported that the SCO has crafted an event that is distinctly useful and may have wide-ranging implications.

Terrorism and extremism are problems shared by many members of the SCO and it makes eminently good sense to collectively address them and train the armed forces of member countries in counterterror operations. The terrorists work cross-border and know no boundaries, and if they are to be effectively fought then the countries they operate within need to do the same. Hence the bringing together in Russia about 3,000 military personnel from China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan — and India and Pakistan — all of which are taking part in the joint exercises.

There are growing ties between Pakistan and Russia, with Pakistani officers training in Russia and Russian equipment being inducted in a counterterror role. As for the military-military relationship with India, any cooperation can only be viewed as good news for both countries. The SCO initiative is a small step, and it is the first time that countries other than the Central Asian states have been included in the exercise — a recognition of the transnational challenges presented by global terrorism and extremism. The move has not been welcomed by the Indian Hindutva groups which have roundly condemned the visit of Navjot Singh Sidhu and his embrace of Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, but they now find themselves hoist with their own petards and scrambling for words. The bottom line is that unless Pakistan and India can catch the scent of change and turn the evanescent and ephemeral into something more solid then the rotting albatross of mutual animosity around their necks is going to poison both. Well done SCO. Good call. More of the same, please.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2018.

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