Rethinking crisis mediation in the nuclearised subcontinent

While there has been relative calm between India and Pakistan for a couple of years, this calm is shaky at best. It would not take much for the protracted rivals to clash again, especially against the backdrop of intensifying great power competition within South Asia.

The latest American intelligence assessment also recognises the situation in South Asia as being quite dangerous. Alongside the possibility of another military escalation between India and China, American experts caution against the risk of a forceful Indian retaliation against Pakistan which could be triggered not only by a terror attack anywhere across India, but also if the restive situation in Kashmir worsens.

The US intelligence report itself, of course, does not recognise how India has become emboldened due to the absence of international push-back to its more assertive posture towards Pakistan. The US used to be the main crisis manager within the Subcontinent, but its position as a neutral arbitrator has been undermined recently, given its increasing tilt towards India, in an effort to counterbalance China.

Many security experts noted the dangerous regional escalatory cycle triggered by the Pulwama/Balakot crisis in 2019. Yet, the US role in defusing the Pulwama crisis was considered not only less helpful, but also less neutral than its mediatory role during the Kargil conflict in 1999. America did not condemn India’s drastic response to a targeted suicide attack on a convoy of Indian security personnel in Pulwama district of Indian-held Kashmir. Instead, Secretary Pompeo publicly defended ‘retaliatory’ Indian airstrike inside Pakistan as a counterterrorism operation, and he claimed that Pakistan “probably enabled” the attack in Pulwama. This evidently lopsided reaction undermined Pakistani confidence in the ability of unbiased American arbitration.

Both India and Pakistan had demonstrated a disturbing tolerance for escalatory risk as their fighter jets entered each other’s airspace during this Pulwama crisis, despite the possibility of nuclear configuration. Luckily, no casualties occurred on either side, and Pakistan demonstrated a degree of restraint by returning an Indian pilot shot down within its territory, enabling the crisis to deescalate.

However, the underlying sources of hostility between India and Pakistan remain unaddressed. The US itself is not inclined to pressure India to reconsider its controversial revocation of the special status of Indian-held Kashmir. Pakistan at least remains under pressure from FATF to avoid supporting cross-border militancy, and it continues being admonished by the US State Department for its religious intolerance. However, the State Department has been ignoring recommendations of its own government mandated commission on religious freedom to also recognise India was a country of ‘particular concern’ due to the ongoing plight of its religious minorities.

It is unlikely that the US will lessen its support for India, but it can certainly do more to pressure India to improve its treatment of Indian Muslims, and to address the human rights situation in Kashmir.

Given that PM Modi got a major boost during the 2019 elections due to his aggressive stance during the Pulwama crisis, he is unlikely to adopt a softer stance towards Pakistan as his party begins preparing for the next general elections in 2024. Meanwhile, the security situation in Pakistan is again deteriorating. The possibility of any militant group, including the IS, attacking India in a bid to spark more conflict in the region cannot be discounted.

Both India and Pakistan continue blaming each other for supporting militancy, even though much of the trouble within their respective borders is homegrown. The possibility of another crisis in the Subcontinent nonetheless remains high. Regional experts have called for some sort of independent legal mechanism to address mutual allegations of cross-border terrorism. Countries like the US, or even the UN system, are well poised to support creation of such a terrorism cooperation mechanism which could prove invaluable in deescalating a future crisis between these nuclear armed neighbours, which seem fated to remain locked in an acrimonious relationship for the foreseeable future.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2023.

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