India and Pakistan must engage

India and Pakistan have remained locked in perpetual hostility ever since independence. Kashmir has been the raison d’être of contention with India. It has been unrelenting and in 2019 PM Modi unilaterally imposed a one-sided solution on Kashmir by integrating it with India. This was contrary to UNSC resolutions and international obligations that required the future of Kashmir be decided with the consent of both Pakistan and India, the parties to the dispute. There have been brief periods when there was hope of peace and conflict resolution but mostly it has been a friction ridden, hostile relationship. It has consumed the energy of both nations and more so of Pakistan being relatively smaller in size and resources.

The position of the two countries on the issue is well known and fully documented. PM Modi has taken a hard position and refuses to engage with Pakistan on the pretext that it supports militant groups in Kashmir. Pakistan considers the accusation baseless and a cover-up for imposing its one-sided solution on Kashmir. Hostility is not merely confined to Kashmir but affects practically every area of relationship. The troubling aspect is that the people of Kashmir are being ruthlessly suppressed. Hundreds of people have been arrested, killed and scores have been injured from landmines and cross-border firings. Thankfully, since the DGMO agreement between the two countries the ceasefire is holding which otherwise had taken the lives of hundreds of innocent citizens including women and children on both sides of the border.

Since PM Modi has been in office India has lost even the façade of having a secular character. Literally it has become a Hindu nationalist state with minorities and Muslims in particular subjected to acute discrimination and injustice. Recently there have been reports that India and Pakistan are likely to engage in secret talks. This is not the first time that the two countries have engaged in backdoor diplomacy but have failed to make any headway.

More importantly, relationship between the two neighborus goes beyond the Kashmir dispute. Influenced by regional and global factors the rivalry has acquired a complex dimension. The US-China rivalry has brought India closer to the US, and Pakistan draws strength from its strategic alliance with China, further sharpening the divide. India expects that the countries of South Asia side with it in its political confrontation with Pakistan and most of them oblige.

Proxy wars between them have been going on by supporting dissident groups of the other country. The Baloch Liberation Front and its associates are patronised by Indian security forces and Nagaland and rebellious groups have attracted the sympathy of Pakistan. The entire Jihadi infrastructure that was created to wage the war of resistance against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan also had a Kashmir angle to it as it was expected to soften US attitude and policies toward Pakistan. None of that however happened but the legacy of the Afghan war brought millions of refugees to Pakistan and introduced the jihadi culture in several Pakistani madrassas and institutions.

There are other ramifications of India-Pakistan hostility. Pakistan’s meagre resources have to be spent on defence and security due to India’s blatant aggressive designs. Its democratic evolution has suffered due to frequent military takeovers and an enhanced role of the military in affairs of the state. So, resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan is the only route for finding an honourable solution to the conflict because war or forced occupation would further aggravate the situation. But for talks to make progress it is essential that the Indian government take concrete measures to create an enabling environment by easing the repression and respecting human rights. Political prisoners should be released and the reign of fear and repression should end. Whether Modi’s government would be willing to take these necessary measures is to be seen. But without creating an enabling environment and specific changes on the ground it will not be feasible to make any headway.

It is important to emphasise that whereas engagement and talks are necessary for finding an amicable solution, past history reminds us that India has been using it only to consolidate its hold on the beleaguered Kashmiris.

There is also a school of thought that trade, tourism and economic activity would help in easing tensions and should be promoted. Trade lobbies over a period of time become agents for change and find solutions to intractable problems. However, Pakistan has been skeptical and insists that this should follow not precede resolution of disputes. Case of France and Germany in the European Union is sighted as an example but there are few buyers of this analogy and maintain that these cases are dissimilar. The ASEAN and other models of economic cooperation as in South America are also there to study. Objective conditions in these countries are different but still there are many similarities. These are random ideas on which both nations need to ponder even if they reject them outright but status quo is going to lead us nowhere except to allow time to India to tighten its brutal hold on the hapless Kashmiris and keep India and Pakistan in a state of neither war nor peace. History bears witness those neighbouring countries have suffered enormously and lacked progress when they were victims of prolonged belligerent relations. We should also bear in mind that it has not prevented smugglers from trading between India and Pakistan and the informal trade perhaps exceeds the formal one. China and India are strategic and political rivals but their trade is flourishing. As a start and a small measure, India and Pakistan could finalise and sign agreement on Siachen and Sir Creek. This could set the trend and create an enabling environment for a broader and deeper engagement.

India’s obstinacy withstanding, the two countries have to engage sooner than later to find a political solution and restore sanity and human dignity in their approach toward Kashmiris and toward each other.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th, 2022.

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