Pakistan’s India policy

Two well-recognised journalists from the mainstream Pakistani media chose recently to disclose how the then army chief, General Bajwa, had discussed the need to revise policy towards India with a batch of them around 2021 or thereabouts. This is from two years back and both had attended the informal discussion with the chief along with many others.

There are those who were present but have denied such crass deviance ascribed to Bajwa by the two. Others have questioned the motive of delayed disclosure with a time-lapse of two years. Bajwa retired in November 2022, and regardless of the veracity of what is being alleged, Pakistan’s India policy neither changed nor was he able to change it with longer than a year still available to him even if he so intended.

That’s the crux. On Pakistani military’s capacity and capability to defend the country against any aggression from any quarter there can never be a doubt and no service chief, worth his salt, can ever think of suggesting that his forces aren’t war-ready. That will be failing his primary mission. Hence, any inference to this effect by the journalists is misplaced or completely misunderstood and lacks the requisite nuance when alleging such attribution. In all probability Bajwa is being misquoted. At best misunderstood.

Other participants of the same meeting clearly deny any such statement by the chief. This discussion comes in anticipation of a likely visit by the Foreign Minister, Bilawal Bhutto, to India to attend the SCO meeting next week. The disclosure thus has a certain background and a context. What is intended in this signaling is obvious: the duo or whoever triggered such a debate wish to caution young Bhutto from getting too adventurous as he visits India in his capacity for the first time and not be charmed out of reason to break out of the straitjacket which has governed Pakistan’s India policy for the last over seven decades. It literally ties him down to a script, or else as the program on Bajwa imputed, he and his party could be similarly blighted for selling Kashmir et al.

There isn’t a bigger stigma in the Pakistani mindset than this – that too at irrecoverable political cost. And then we blame Modi for invoking Pakistan as a political ploy. Both are insidious sells. The Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif, has played even safer and chosen to join his part of the meeting virtually. Rather than be sucked in at a political cost he has passed it on to young Bhutto, a political opponent, to carry the cross.

Bilawal, already given to hyperbole and a future to build on a hawkish, even if rhetorical, legacy – ZAB ended up signing the Shimla Agreement which reduced Kashmir from a multilateral to a bilateral issue which informs why the world is uninterested – may end up being far more aggressive while in India to improve his stock domestically and reinforce his credentials. Can there be greater bankruptcy than bartering collective good for political fortune? It will only perpetuate status quo. It is a sense of insecurity and untold fear which keeps one from seeking newer frontiers. Pakistan and India will remain estranged beating the odds on rational coexistence, tied to a policy founded on legacy and anachronism.

We are told that when Bajwa and Co formally proposed to the Foreign Office to do some fresh thinking on Pakistan’s India policy as a study, the foreign minister had invited six former foreign secretaries to assist with the challenge. They rejected the idea outright – when you get dinosaurs to plan the future, they invariably take you back to the jungle. (Still water turns odious quicker). And our journos got a story to relish. Then there is all-round sensitivity of turf – there is little tolerance for trespassing another’s precinct, even in thought. It should be reassuring to those circumspect of the official line of thinking or a rethink resulting in a policy shift, away from the rhetoric which has informed opinion for decades. India remains our most opportune bogey to recertify nationalist credentials.

For seventy years the military has been maligned for a unifocal obsession with India, and that the army keeps the bogey of India alive to justify its eminence and resource that goes into maintaining it. Not to forget that Pakistani military has fought four wars with India and an LOC which has remained a hot border with frequent near-war violations (Siachen, Kargil, Pulwama). Kashmir, the focus of this animosity and the centerpiece of the acrimony in the relationship, has however remained unresolved. No effort, military-kinetic, regularirregular, diplomatic-political, has been able to break the impasse and bring peace in the region, among the belligerents, or to the hapless and helpless Kashmiris. Kashmiri blood continues to flow unstemmed.

With economy in a tailspin and a world that is dismissive of the irritating banter on an issue that the two have reduced to a bilateral domain – in a strategic environment gone stale – Kashmir and India-Pakistan are now reduced to a boring footnote. Meanwhile India has galloped to newer frontiers, economically and politically, while knocking for a seat among the world’s elite. Kashmiris though keep paying the price for something they still hold aloft at a huge cost. That too is under threat of ‘ideological fatigue’ when little accrues in significant gain, even political. With Indo-Pakistan relations alienated and suspended, India enjoys all the freedom to reshape J&K, politically and demographically, to its liking and advantage. But Pakistan driven by base irrationality and assumed morality continues to grant India the ‘freedom of action’ by staying disconnected with India at all levels. Morally, we should first and foremost stop the flow of Kashmiri blood. They have suffered enough and don’t deserve it anymore.

This will need talks, parleys at bilateral and international level to win the Kashmiri people their right to life. Next are the Pakistanis who are going through the worst economic nightmare since inception. They need relief and sustenance which is affordable. With a vibrant economy next door and commodities at the doorstep in India, Pakistan would do well to repackage and compartmentalise relations with India on sectoral basis. Trade should activate separate from Kashmir and the LOC. Territory comes later and a solution acceptable to all will need to be incrementally reached. This too will need contact and dialogue.

These could stay as parallel streams and may progress differently. But what is easier, and probable, should take precedence. Today, Pakistan needs India more than India does Pakistan. Strategically, this is a bad construct, but we have sleepwalked into it. It is better to stem this slide in strategic correlation when it is still feasible, before it turns worse. Talking to the enemy is the first step before turning one into a mutually beneficial cohort.