Truce violation

Reports emerging from the Foreign Office about India violating the recent ceasefire along the Working Boundary are both disappointing and unsurprising. The incident in Charwa Sector on Monday ended over two months of relative calm along the border that had followed the February 25 ceasefire. This time, however, the Foreign Office downplayed the incident, signalling the government’s hopes of keeping the broader ceasefire intact and not threatening the ongoing backchannel talks. It obviously helped that Monday’s violation did not cause any casualties.

The backchannel talks are being seen as the best chance in recent years to reach mutual agreements on several bilateral and multilateral issues, primarily related to security. Given the economic problems and Covid-19 outbreaks in both countries, the talks are also necessary to restore some sense of normalcy in the lives of Indians and Pakistanis.

Unfortunately, if past practice is to be used as a reference point, India may well have committed the violation in an attempt to shift the news cycle away from a domestic issue — in this case, its Covid crisis, which is now the worst in the world. There are also some reports that Kashmir is being de-emphasised in the talks in favour of reaching deals on other issues where both sides are more likely to find common group. This is a good thing. Despite the significance of the Kashmir issue, compartmentalising it allows for agreements to be reached on several fronts, which may eventually lead to de-escalations of tensions that allow for it to be discussed with more willingness to negotiate from either side.

But at the same time, we must consider the recent warnings by a group of retired diplomats. Speaking at a seminar, they said normalisation while “compromising our fundamental position on Kashmir” will not last or be acceptable to citizens, and that resuming ‘front channel’ talks without India reversing its decisions of August 5, 2019, would be seen as granting legitimacy to the illegal moves taken on that black day. This will indeed be a problem down the line. Even if agreements are reached on important issues in backchannel talks, they would have to be formalised in official meetings. How that gearshift will be managed is still up in the air.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2021.

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