Indo-Pakistan relations: A reset on the horizon?

1 April 2021

Since India and Pakistan formally agreed on 25 February to reinstate the 2003 ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control (LoC) separating the Indian and Pakistani-administered areas of Kashmir, there has been an unusual number of positive ‘signals’ — diplomatic and others — coming out of Islamabad and New Delhi. Is this the beginning of the much-awaited reset? Possibly. But, if so, one shouldn’t expect too much, too fast given the deep-seated and long-standing animosity and outstanding issues between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours.

Examining signals and assessing their meaning

The 25 February agreement was signed on the eve of the second anniversary of the Indian airstrike on Balakot, the Pakistani base of a terrorist group blamed for an attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir in February 2019. It included a statement in which both countries agreed to “address each other’s core issues and concerns which have a propensity to disturb peace and lead to violence”. This breakthrough involved significant backchannel diplomacy, principally on the part of the United Arab Emirates. There are credible suggestions that the Biden Administration may have also been involved in bringing the two parties to the table. The renewal of the 2003 ceasefire agreement — one that had been increasingly violated since the 2008 Mumbai attack by Pakistan-based terrorists — is an important tactical military development. Both sides were frequently using heavy-calibre artillery guns, causing an ever-growing number of innocent civilian fatalities and damage to infrastructure.

Militarily, this is an agreement that India needed more than Pakistan, especially following last year’s military confrontation with the Chinese in Ladakh (which is part of the greater Kashmir area). Caught on the backfoot, Delhi could not afford, in military and budgetary terms, to have two active fronts to worry about on its northwest border, particularly given that Pakistan and China are strategic allies. Notwithstanding the fact that India and China agreed to a troop withdrawal in February, India had to reduce the military pressure on the Pakistan front, or at least try to reduce the threat emanating from there.

Recently, I put forward an ambitious four-step grand plan whose key feature involves conducting a UN-supervised referendum in Pakistan and India-administered Kashmir providing three choices: join Pakistan, join India or independence.

The second important recent signal was a speech delivered by General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, at the inaugural launch of the Islamabad Security Dialogue on 18 March. Pakistan’s top general—and the man who ultimately calls the shots — made some bold statements, such as the time had come for the two countries “to bury the past and move forward” and that “stable Indo-Pak relation is a key to unlock the untapped potential of South and Central Asia”. The speech was all about geo-economics and regional connectivity. However, he also stressed that this potential had “forever remained hostage to disputes and issues between two nuclear neighbours”, with Kashmir at the head of this problem. He pressed the point that continental rapprochement would not happen “without the resolution of Kashmir dispute through peaceful means”. Significantly, Bajwa did not mention the 70-year-old UN Security Council resolutions or demand that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi restore Kashmir’s autonomous status which was revoked in August 2019 and was the catalyst for the present deep freeze in bilateral relations. However, he did press the point that India would have “to create a conducive environment, particularly in Indian Occupied Kashmir”. I suspect that while on the whole the Indians would not have been impressed with the general’s speech, assessing it to be a mere repackaging of the usual stance, they would have nevertheless appreciated the overall conciliatory tone of the address.

Five days later, Modi sent a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan congratulating him on Pakistan Day commemorating a resolution passed on 23 March 1940 calling for the establishment of the country. The letter, in which Modi stated that he wanted cordial relations with Pakistan, is an important symbolic gesture indicating a possible Indian interest in moving the bilateral relations forward. Khan replied a few days later, stating that Pakistan wanted peaceful, cooperative relations with all neighbours including India. But it also called for a resolution of “the dispute over the Kashmir region” and all other outstanding issues between the two countries.

Signs of a thaw

In addition to the above ‘signals’, there have been four other minor events which indicate a general thaw in relations or at least a desire to go in that direction. India and Pakistan held their first meeting in three years of the Permanent Indus Commission of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in New Delhi on 23 March. Interestingly, the IWT has been a real success story between the two countries, because, despite three wars and many unresolved issues, neither party has ever pushed for its termination.

On 24 March, India indicated that it was ready to resume trade with Pakistan, which Islamabad had stopped following Modi’s decision to unilaterally revoke Kashmir’s autonomy in August 2019. Pakistan is also serious about resuming trade with India, with reports that the import ban on Indian cotton will be lifted in June to bridge the country’s raw material shortfall in the textile sector. Similarly, Pakistan’s Finance Minister Hammad Azhar said that Islamabad would allow the import of 500,000 tonnes of white sugar from India to combat spiking domestic prices. However, even before bilateral trade was stopped the two-way volume was a paltry $2 billion. According to one report, this volume could go up to $37 billion if both countries removed tariff and non-tariff barriers and granted each other ‘Most Favoured Nation’ status.

Earlier this month a Pakistani equestrian team participated in the World Cup Qualifiers of Equestrian Tent Pegging Championship 2021. But most importantly for the millions of cricket fans in South Asia, there is now a distinct possibility that the two countries might get involved in a bilateral cricket series later in the year. The last bilateral series between India and Pakistan was held in 2012-13. If such a cricket event did take place, it would undoubtedly be the clearest sign that bilateral relations are indeed getting on a better footing.

Hope for a substantive change in the bilateral relationship?

Several symbolically important but relatively easy steps could be taken in the short-term, such as reinstating each other’s High Commissioners (ambassadors) who have been withdrawn since August 2019, progressively re-opening trade and lowering tariffs, holding a bilateral cricket series, and relaxing travel restrictions between the two countries. These small steps would be critical for maintaining the goodwill momentum kick-started with the restoration of the 2003 ceasefire agreement. However, long-term prospects will remain bleak as long as Kashmir — the kernel of the festering bilateral relationship — is not resolved permanently to the satisfaction of all three parties: Pakistan, India and the Kashmiris. And given the irreconcilable positions of all parties, the outlook is not promising. The issue of Kashmir is not going to go away by itself, and as long as this is not resolved there will not be permanent peace in the region. Given the long-standing and deep-seated differences between the two countries, bringing in a third-party mediator such as the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group to facilitate talks would be helpful.

However, such talks could — and should — only be attempted if there is the political will from all sides to peacefully and permanently resolve Kashmir. Recently, I put forward an ambitious four-step grand plan whose key feature involves conducting a UN-supervised referendum in Pakistan and India-administered Kashmir providing three choices: join Pakistan, join India or independence. While this is a bold plan that would require much compromise from all parties, this may well be the perfect time to attempt such an approach. But let’s not wait too long because the thaw in relations between India and Pakistan could very quickly go back into a deep freeze slamming shut this window of opportunity.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Dr Claude Rakisits is an Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University and an Affiliate at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He has been following South Asian issues for almost 40 years. He tweets at @ClaudeRakisits. Image credit: Flickr/Mumu Matryoshka.