Needed: desi deconfliction strategy

Sometimes a handshake is just a handshake. Right? Well, not in the South Asian political tinderbox. For context, at the former Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia's funeral, India's external affairs minister and Pakistan's speaker of the national assembly briefly shook hands. Both countries' press then offered a masterclass in how not to cover such a development.

The thrust of the Indian coverage was to downplay it as an insignificant happenstance. And while covering Pakistan, why not smuggle in a few choicest insults?

The Pakistani media, by contrast, treated it as a significant breakthrough. Could ice be melting between the two South Asian rivals? And, for good measure, we were reminded of the drubbing India received in May.

I am biased in Pakistan's favour and would still choose our coverage over whatever mad cow disease is afflicting the Indian media.

But in both cases, what I dislike is our shared bad habit of hogging all the attention at such emotionally charged events. The late Begum Khaleda Zia was a giant of Bangladeshi and regional politics. The visually stunning images from the funeral, showing the sheer number of participants, were reminder enough. While the politicians did nothing wrong by being polite, the media on both sides could perhaps exhibit better funeral-side manners. How many times have our other SAARC partners complained about our unfortunate tendency to hold multilateral forums hostage to bilateral politics?

After living in the real world and being disappointed by several false starts over the past twelve years, I have given up on magical thinking. My motto is simple: if a significant breakthrough occurs between the two countries, we will all know. Why set yourself up for undue disappointment?

Here, I must centre a very astute observation from a former boss, mentor, and veritable genius of the field: a great deal of homework goes into these seemingly happenstance optics. Bear in mind that the very same EAM refused to shake hands with the then foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, at Goa. Likewise, recall Musharraf's 2002 handshake with Vajpayee. A handshake is rarely just a handshake when it involves such dignitaries. With stakes usually high, there is hardly a moment when background diplomacy is not at work.

We shall cross that bridge when we come to it. But the coverage of this handshake brings two facts into sharp relief. One, the obstacle to understanding each other's perspective, what Arlie Hochschild so pithily calls the empathy wall, could hardly be higher. Two, it is nevertheless permeable enough to allow both countries to lob propaganda grenades at one another.

In ordinary times, this might be tolerable. But these are not ordinary times, and these are not ordinary actors. As the first and fifth most populous countries in the world, they would attract attention even if they lacked the uncanny knack for staying in the news that comes naturally to them. Both are also home to some of the world's youngest populations.

In Pakistan, 65 per cent of the population is under 35, totalling around 150 million people. Some 60 per cent are unskilled, driven by 25 million out-of-school children feeding into weak secondary education outcomes. Unemployment has risen to 7.1 per cent in the 2025 Labour Force Survey, hitting youth hardest at roughly 22 per cent. India mirrors this profile: 66 per cent under 35, or about 950 million people, 40 per cent unskilled, with 30 per cent lacking secondary education. Overall unemployment stands at 6 to 8 per cent, rising to between 17 and 23 per cent among youth. This is the picture even before AI-led technological displacement. Once that begins, there will be a bloodbath. Clearly, both countries have better things to do than invest so heavily in mutual hate.

Then there is the problem of hate boomeranging onto the diaspora. During the war on terror's heyday, the Pakistani diaspora hit rock bottom amid rising Islamophobia. Now it is the Indian diaspora's turn. As I have argued for 25 years, Indians and Pakistanis look and sound the same to Western audiences. To manage the fallout, the Indian diaspora once took pains to distinguish itself from Pakistanis. That strategy worked at the time, but its success also made it vulnerable in today's era of hyper-identity politics and impatience with the cultural other. Since 2014, as cultural emphasis shifted back home, India's premier export, its human resource, has morphed from quiet, assimilated competence into something louder and more abrasive. This has exposed the entire diaspora to whiplash. As flashpoints multiply, our heated exchanges travel outward and condemn our communities abroad.

I want to act in good faith and believe that some of this jingoism serves domestic consumption. In India's case, managing a population of 1.45 billion is no small task. Trouble begins when we collide on each other's timelines and this animus spills into the wider world.

What unfolded on Indian English news channels is a case in point. Hindi channels may do as they please, but when the same dangal-style debates migrate to English platforms, they harden into a permanent indictment of a people. The same applies to films like Dhurandhar and Battle of Galwan. They may be aimed at domestic audiences, but why manufacture additional diplomatic friction when they cannot withstand even basic scrutiny? Such content gives the impression of deliberate psychological operations. That may have limited impact on Pakistan, but provoking China risks what Peter Pan once called an awfully big adventure. Why go there when it can so easily come back to haunt you?

India and Pakistan therefore need an information deconfliction strategy. Whatever is sold to domestic audiences, tighter controls are needed on the export of hate. Films, television, English-language media and other outward-facing outputs can afford to be more restrained, civilised and culturally sensitive. If you think this is unachievable, you are mistaken. This content is curated by design. The speed with which media on both sides can pivot, and particularly in India hyper-fixate on demonstrable trivia, is no accident. If we are serious about lowering the empathy wall and building peace, why not begin now? As such a deconfliction strategy takes root through mutual, or at least deeper, consultation, the movers and shakers can choose the moment to build peace.

None of this requires trust, let alone affection. It only requires restraint, sequencing and a minimal recognition of consequence. Deconfliction is not reconciliation. It is damage control in an age of permanent visibility, where words travel faster than diplomats and grievances outlive governments. Even rivals can agree not to set fires they cannot later contain.