Managing Pakistan and India relations

Unfortunately for us, India is a difficult neighbour, this is a predicament we share with all its smaller neighbours.

The eruption of another crisis on the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir needs to be seen in the broader perspective of our bilateral relations with India. Historically, the relationship is dotted by one crisis or the other. The last was the Mumbai terrorist incident in November 2008. It was followed by a long phase of estrangement. Subsequently, in June 2009, President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met in Russia and agreed to resume bilateral interaction. This was followed by a meeting between then prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh in Sharm el-Shaikh in Egypt the same year. However, a forward movement did not occur till March 2011, when Singh invited Gilani to witness the India-Pakistan World Cup cricket match in India, and discussed reviving the peace process. This meeting led to a new round of bilateral talks in May and, in July, the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers met in New Delhi and declared the onset of a ‘new era’ in bilateral relations. In November 2011, Pakistan announced its decision to grant the much-delayed most-favoured nation (MFN) status to India. Gilani and Singh again met in the Maldives the same month and jointly promised ‘a new chapter’ in bilateral ties. In April 2012, President Zardari met Singh in New Delhi and the momentum of bilateral interaction was further reinforced. The Indian foreign minister came to Pakistan in September 2012 and announced New Delhi’s willingness to institute a new visa regime for Pakistani nationals. Travel across the LoC was eased and Pakistan moved ahead to get cabinet approval for the grant of MFN. This is where the process stood when the news of firing and shelling exchanged between the two sides at the LoC suddenly came to the fore.

While minor violations across the LoC are, more often than not, the norm, it is also true that the ceasefire has remained operative for more than a decade now. During 2012 alone, there have been around 80 instances of minor technical violations by both sides. On no occasion has any such incident caused Pakistan-India tension to flare up. Therefore, the question that begs itself is, why has this happened now? The point to be taken note of is that tension along the LoC has the potential of aborting and disrupting the nascent peace process that has been developing between our two countries. In the present instance, it has already caused this damage, with Singh saying that there cannot be business as usual with Pakistan.

At this juncture, the point to ponder is: how do we ‘manage’ our relations with India to avoid such pitfalls? The knee-jerk reaction is to indulge in tit-for-tat behaviour, i.e., behave as badly as the other side. Many years ago, a diplomatic colleague of another country observed thus: “Both Indians and Pakistanis are nice people towards others, but it is incredible how nasty they can be to each other!”However, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar’s statement in the National Assembly on January 21 struck the right note, by reiterating Pakistan’s resolve to maintain the policy of non-escalation with India, despite the LoC flare-up. In this context, the minister also repeated Pakistan’s proposal for an impartial investigation of the recent violations by the designated UN observers’ group in the area, UNMOGIP. She said that “we will not fall prey” to any provocation from the other side. So it is, as they say, so far, so good.

Unfortunately for us, India is a difficult neighbour and this is a predicament that we share with all its other smaller neighbours, be it Bangladesh, Nepal or Sri Lanka. Faced with a larger and a contentious country next door, we would be ill-advised to take up cudgels all the time. Secondly, our historical experience teaches us that it does not produce results. Hence, a non-contentious and dignified response is a better option. In the fullness of time, the Indians will come round to resuming bilateral interaction and get back on the peace process track, as happened after the hiatus following Mumbai.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2013.