An unyielding Delhi

Relations with India seem to be getting more and more tense, and more and more complicated by the day. Much of the aggression seems to be coming from New Delhi’s end. But the result of course is that both nations and the people who live in them will be badly affected.

In the latest incident, Indian troops opened fire across the working boundary at Sialkot, killing two civilians, including a woman, and injuring six others. A similar incident had taken place about a week ago. Pakistan had protested that incident, but clearly this has had no impact. We should keep in mind that repeated cross-border firing had created heightened tensions between both nations last year as well, adding to the difficulties in putting bilateral talks back on track and building the kind of trust we badly need to move forward.

Right now, the hopes of setting up this trust is more distant than ever before. The cancellation of foreign secretary level talks a few days ago is a factor in this. The cross-border firing only makes things worse. It also puts citizens who live close to the boundary defining the disputed territory of Kashmir at peril, and reminds us of the risks involved in continuing with a dispute that has not been sorted out now for the past 67 years. It should be possible to make progress in this direction as a means to sorting out the unfinished business of the partition. But when no respect is shown for the working boundary and there is firing across it, this becomes harder and harder to achieve. India, it appears, is clearly not interested in a solution. Its lack of willingness to talk or act reflects this. Foreign policy vis-à-vis our neighbour to the east will need to be though out very carefully by the Nawaz Sharif government. The prime minister had made it quite clear he wished to establish closer relations with India. This task now seems to be becoming somewhat of a distant dream. Once again, the hawks prevail and the soft sound of the wings of doves can barely be heard at all amidst the sound of bullets.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2014.

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