Photograph caption: Given the atrocity, a critical escalation is barely to be anticipated however its goals must be clear
A serious terrorist assault, an enormous human tragedy, nationwide anger and misery, and an India-Pakistan disaster…That is hardly an unfamiliar state of affairs. Such choreography has been a part of the playbook a number of occasions via this century, and its antecedents could be traced again to the Nineteen Eighties and the Nineties.
What lies forward is a terrain that can be not unfamiliar. Within the aftermath of the Dec 2001 terrorist assault on our Parliament, the then overseas minister, the late Jaswant Singh, had written in regards to the challenges he confronted. Alongside sending a message to Pakistan, containing it diplomatically, and defeating terrorism on the bottom, there was an inner and an exterior problem. The inner problem, he mentioned, “was to hold the nation’s temper, to include its belligerence, its need for revenge and retaliation, however to offer it a way of feat.” The exterior problem was “to hold conviction with and thus carry the opinion of the worldwide group”.
Variants of the 2001 state of affairs have been encountered a number of occasions thereafter. The bundle of responses designed could have different on every event however remained at its core, a mixture of measures addressed in direction of Pakistan, the worldwide group and home public opinion. It’s true that after the Pulwama terrorist assault, the army part within the total response ratcheted up a number of notches. However even earlier, the coercive ingredient was by no means completely absent.
The bundle of measures introduced by the Indian govt and the countermeasures introduced by Pakistan replicate the general state of India-Pakistan relations. The connection has been progressively hollowed out since 2016 following main terrorist assaults corresponding to at Uri (2016) and Pulwama (2019) and on account of measures introduced by the government of Pakistan after the legislative modifications regarding J&Ok in August 2019. In 2025, this was evidently a close to zero relationship — no excessive commissioners in place; a complete absence of high-level contacts; diplomatic relations downgraded and respective excessive commissions downsized; a ban on commerce; a freeze on civil society, cultural and sporting contacts; a shutdown of all typical modes of journey corresponding to bus, practice and so forth.
But oddly sufficient over the previous 4 years, this near-zero relationship had additionally acquired some options of stability. This was evidenced by the ceasefire on the LoC in Feb 2021; the surprisingly mature dealing with of a doubtlessly very critical state of affairs such because the mistaken launch of a missile in March 2022; and the reopening post-Covid of the Kartarpur Sahib visa-free hall in Nov 2021. This was little doubt a minimal stability at a really low plateau, but it surely was stability, nonetheless.
Over the previous 60 years, durations of such stability have normally led to some efforts to revive relations. In some ways, this contributed to the up-down seesaw nature of the connection which has additionally been its most irritating function. This time round, nevertheless, considerably unusually over the previous 4 years, the connection remained nearly fixed, frozen in a way, at its low plateau with bilateral diplomacy suspended. The Pahalgam outrage has now pushed it from this low plateau right into a deep abyss.
Put up the Pahalgam outrage, a few of the diplomatic measures introduced by India, and thereafter echoed and reiterated by Pakistan, are symbolic. The announcement by India that the Indus Waters Treaty shall be stored in abeyance is definitely new and a much more critical step. Its instant affect is restricted however what this implies is that the common conferences of the Indus Fee won’t happen and the routine info sharing that passed off through the flood seasons won’t occur. But the step is of very nice significance for Pakistan because it straight touches its sensitivities as a decrease riparian and factors to the deep anxieties which have been current since 1947 itself. The Pakistani hyperbolic response which equates the interruption of water to an act of conflict underlines these hyper-sensitivities as does the announcement that it shall train the appropriate to carry all previous treaties with India in abeyance.
However, in sum, all these measures put collectively don’t do a lot besides carry a near-zero relationship even nearer to zero. What’s related is that they replicate a excessive state of rigidity and the realisation that that is solely the start line of a doubtlessly very critical escalation. Given the size of the atrocity that has been visited upon us, this was to be anticipated. In adversarial relationships corresponding to these current between India and Pakistan, coercive measures in such conditions are sometimes unavoidable. Nonetheless, what’s vital is that they’re embedded in a clinically designed coverage with clear goals of what’s possible and what’s not.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the writer’s personal.
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