Welcome to Pakistan Mr Jaishankar! Let's start talking

The India-Pakistan ties have been at their lowest ebb now for a decade. With no strides in leadership from either side, the respective populaces keep their fingers crossed, as there is no headway either in the realms of socio-cultural interaction or geo-economics. Less said the better on outstanding irritants such as Kashmir and terrorism, and now the more pestering existential issues such as water sharing and climate change. For reasons of egoism, they are not on agenda even for an informal chat. Likewise, both the High Commissions are without their heads, and are functioning for the sake of formality, per se. That has led to retaining the status quo of mistrust.

In such a demoralised scenario, the decision from India to send in External Affair Minister Dr S Jaishankar to Islamabad, to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation moot, has rekindled hopes of a thaw. The doves started reading deep between the lines, and were hoping for a rapprochement of sorts in the making. But that euphoria was short-lived as politics of regression was quick to set in, and there was an instant denial from New Delhi, saying the top diplomat will not be touch-basing bilateralism, and the sojourn is purely meant for multilateral participation. Period!

Pakistan, of late, had always endeavoured to fix the fence with India. It wants resolution of disputes in an amicable manner, and is eager to share the dividends of geo-economics with its eastern neighbour for the greater cause of regional peace and development. The spanner in the works came as Delhi jumped the gun and scraped the legitimate constitutional rights of Kashmiris on August 5, 2019, by abrogating the special status under Article 370 and 35-A. Since then there has been no recourse to dialogue, and tensions have swirled all along.

Let's recall two inevitable missed opportunities in our checkered bilateralism that came from the pinnacles of power. One, President General Pervez Musharraf advocated reconciliation by striking a mid-term deal over Kashmir, and flew into Delhi in July 2001, in a white half-sleeve shirt in all statesmanship. That piece of signaling went wayward and was scuttled by hawks for point-scoring. Two, former Army Chief Gen Qamar Bajwa is on record stating at the Islamabad Security Dialogue 2021 that resolution of Kashmir can wait, and India should work with Pakistan [meanwhile] to address other outstanding irritants. That gesture too was not read in proper decorum across the divide.

Yet, there is a lot of diplomatic goodwill that can be cashed from our bilateral annexures. The 1972 Simla Agreement forms the cornerstone of mutual trust to this day, which went on to convert the ceasefire line of 1971 into the Line of Control (LOC), and henceforth it was agreed that "neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations".

Fast forward, the 1999 landmark visit of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Lahore, on the inaugural run of the Delhi-Lahore bus service, is still in need of being replicated in the larger interest of serenity. Last but not least, there are instances when mellowing clouds of warfare were whisked away through a calibrated tête-à-tête in 1987 between President General Zia-ul-Haq and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by blinking away from a game of cricket in Jaipur.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi too has his share in this roulette as he air-dashed to Lahore in December 2015, on his way back from Kabul, to greet the then PM Nawaz Sharif who proudly donned the guest's gifted turban on his birthday. Though it raised eyebrows on its unannounced itinerary, it made the right vibes as far as leadership is concerned in all civility. That evolving phenomenon sooner than later hit the straddles of Hindutva in India and a similar fear-phobia from Pakistan, alike. That is where politics of exigency went into play, and since then both the states have played to the gallery.

A year down the line, India hesitated from attending the 19th SAARC Summit in November 2016 in Islamabad, derailing to this day the charade of seven-nation regionalism. Moving on, from Pulwama to Abhinandan Varthaman's misadventure, it has been a nail-biting situation, to say the least.

Yet there are some positive synergies that are holding the ground, primarily the ceasefire brokered under the UAE auspices in February 2021. Other mentionable leaps are: October 2005 pre-notification of flight testing of ballistic missiles; February 2007 deal on reducing the risk from accidents relating to nuclear weapons; September 2011 MoU on trade; and the 2012 MoU on cultural cooperation.

This timeline of crests and troughs illustrates that there are enough dividends for both the countries if they decide to shun prejudice. The way forward could be to further cooperation in cultural, sports and people-to-people contact spheres, and then graduate it into serious confidence building measures by invoking contested issues in bilateralism from the colonial baggage.

It is understandable that there is a trust deficit, and no currency for initiatives of talking peace. Rather, hate and otherness are sellable commodities, and serve well to uphold the status quo on either side for people obsessed with animosity.

But there is a peace constituency too, and they have enough talking points to make the difference felt. They subscribe to pacifism and positive-sum game. They simply push the envelope of hope, and eulogise the bigger picture of connecting the dots in all sincerity. They too admit that there are pending disputes to address but can't be done by putting the cart before the horse.

Mr Jaishankar, as you rub shoulders with the who's who in Islamabad, you can always whisper for kick-starting a dialogue. A seasoned and versatile diplomat, as you are, it's time to seize the moment, and start talking. India, as a big neighbour and a rising power in the region, should gesture for peace. Let your SCO Yatra to Islamabad be remembered for burying the hatchet.