India’s soft underbelly
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The Indo-Pak relationship has been plagued by multiple political issues from the time of independence. The two countries were born into conflict, and Kashmir became the primary dispute between them that not only influenced their foreign policies and internal politics but also shaped their national identities. While leaders from both sides have sat together on multiple occasions to resolve the problem through dialogue and negotiations, a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir issue remains elusive.
The last meaningful attempt by both nations to move forward on this issue was made during the last years of General Pervez Musharraf’s reign in Pakistan. Both sides managed to carve out a mutually acceptable solution through Track II dialogue but, as political winds in Pakistan started blowing against him, this secret understanding between the political and military elites on both sides also melted away.
Since the arrival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in power, the bilateral engagement between the two sides has further deteriorated. India’s stance on Kashmir has witnessed a notable shift both inside the valley and on the foreign policy front vis-à-vis Pakistan. As the valley was engulfed with violence after the death of Burhan Wani in 2016, New Delhi started approaching Kashmir from a security-centric frame of reference and ended any attempt to politically engage with the populace. The governor rule in Kashmir has been a testament to the new strategy.
On the foreign policy front, India has made it clear that it will not talk to Pakistan about Kashmir anymore and, if both sides are to sit together and talk, then the topic under deliberation will be the alleged acts of terrorism in Indian-administered Kashmir that are usually blamed on Pakistan. This Indian stance has not only put paid to the possibility of bilateral engagements between the two sides but has also precluded the chances of any backchannel parleys over the disputed territory.
The revocation of Kashmir’s special status by India further limits the raison d'etre of any Indo-Pak engagement, particularly on the internationally recognized dispute, since it has changed India’s fundamental stance on Kashmir by ending its special status and making it formally a union territory. These developments pose serious challenges for Pakistan’s Kashmir strategy and also for its relationship with India.
Any engagement with India that doesn’t entail talks on Kashmir would be construed as a de facto acceptance by Pakistan of the new ground realities engineered by India through the might of its security apparatus.
Umar Karim
As the latest crisis in Kashmir started developing on the 5th of August 2019, Pakistan’s governmental response employed multiple pathways. The first and foremost strategy was to raise the Kashmir issue internationally and increase its visibility in the global media discourse. Thanks to India’s profile as an emerging power and Kashmir’s unique demography of being the only Muslim majority state within that country, the situation in the valley immediately came under spotlight and the virtual security lock down imposed by Indian authorities in the region grabbed headlines in mainstream media outlets.
On the political side, Pakistan’s government has tried to make the United Nations Security Council an arena of debate on Kashmir and has also attempted to discuss the latest situation in the valley with global super powers like the United States. Still it seems that these steps have only generated rhetorical waves within the international political sphere and have not resulted in anything substantive that can undermine India politically.
Pakistan also needs to determine how to engage India under the current circumstances. Any engagement with India that doesn’t entail talks on Kashmir would be construed as a de facto acceptance by Pakistan of the new ground realities engineered by India through the might of its security apparatus. Such a course of action by any Pakistani government would be a political suicide and should be considered out of question.
Furthermore, Pakistan cannot adopt military measures on the Kashmir front since it would bring the international attention to Pakistan as an irresponsible regional actor destabilizing the already fraught security environment of the region. Such an action may also give Indian measures in Kashmir a degree of legitimacy at a time when New Delhi remains deeply vulnerable in the soft power arena.
Even after six months, India’s new solution for Kashmir remains unable to project a discourse of normalcy within the global media-scape. Instead it has generated the most scathing criticisms ever seen of the Indian republic. A visibly irritated Indian external affairs minister was left with no other option but to criticize the English liberal media for its alleged bias against his country. This suggests that thanks to the actions of the administration in New Delhi, Pakistan has managed to find India’s soft underbelly where the latter is unable to defend itself. Pushing further on this soft power front would give Pakistan the best returns and should be the preferred course of action for Pakistan in its engagement with India.
– Umar Karim is a doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on the evolution of Saudi Arabia’s strategic outlook, the Saudi-Iran tussle, conflict in Syria, and the geopolitics of Turkey, Iran and Pakistan.
Twitter: @UmarKarim89
