Ceasefire achieved, way forward to consolidate

While a ceasefire brokered by Washington, DC, has been announced, it is difficult to predict how the fallout of the hostilities between India and Pakistan will evolve. What is certain is that Islamabad will seek to gain advantage in the optics of any such outcome.

A study of past Pakistani behaviour would show that it always wants to end up at least optically one up on India. In 1998, when India conducted five nuclear tests, Pakistan had to do one more. During the previous stand-off in the wake of the Pulwama terror attack of 2019, at the end of the day, Pakistan could demonstrably claim it had shot down an Indian aircraft and taken its pilot prisoner. He was then ceremoniously and “magnanimously” handed back to India across the border. This was one up, even though there were later claims that Pakistan did so under threat of an imminent Indian missile attack. This psychology needs to be understood. This is a political necessity for Pakistan.

One category of off-ramp requires intervention by a powerful intermediary, such as the US, as in the 1965 India-Pakistan war, the then Soviet Union leading to the Tashkent agreement. The same thing happened after the Kargil war of 1999. It was the US, under President Bill Clinton, which persuaded Pakistani Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif to vacate the mountain heights occupied by Pakistani soldiers pretending to be mujahideen. History seems to have repeated itself as news filters in of a US brokered ceasefire. What happens next?

One should still expect Pakistan to try to spin this outcome as a Pakistani victory of sorts. It would be fine to have an outcome ambiguous enough for both sides to claim victory, but that requires deft and subtle diplomacy, which is usually a casualty when tempers are running high and political leaders are reluctant to risk their hardline image. Domestic factors unfortunately muddy the waters for statecraft.

With the conflict behind us, it is easy to believe that neither side would have wished to tread too close to the nuclear threshold. But the temptation for Pakistan to indulge in nuclear brinkmanship is much greater since it is unlikely to sustain a high intensity conventional conflict with India over a longer time span. This risk is inherent in any India-Pakistan conflict. This calls for follow-on measures to the reported ceasefire so that there is no resumption of active hostilities.

For Pakistan, its diminishing geopolitical relevance has been galling. Its dire economic situation has compounded its sense of being a marginal regional and global player. Since its creation as an independent State, it has craved parity with India and a permanent hyphenation. This has progressively become untenable as India has raced ahead economically and gained greater international stature. Worse, India could treat Pakistan as an irrelevant actor and begin to ignore it or treat it as a distraction at best.

How hurtful this must be to Pakistan’s leaders, particularly to its powerful military, was starkly apparent in the unusual speech made by its army chief, General Asim Munir, on April 16, when he harped on the “two-nation” theory, the unique character of Pakistan as a great Islamic country, and in reviving a phrase to describe Kashmir as his country’s “jugular vein”. The Pahalgam terrorist attack follows in a direct line from his words, the message to India being that Pakistan is very much a factor in Kashmir and Indian belief in having succeeded in normalising the situation there without taking Pakistan along was entirely misplaced.

In a perverse way, Pahalgam would also have been a means to once again direct attention to Pakistan’s capacity, negative as it may be, to compel international attention and engagement. The current hostilities were an attempt to re-hyphenate India and Pakistan globally, and, to some extent, Pakistan may have succeeded.

India should seek to ‘neutralise’ Pakistan in some fashion; but ignoring it or not engaging with it is not the answer. There is also a China factor to be borne in mind. It is in India’s interest to reduce the salience of Pakistan’s role as a Chinese proxy and the possibility of a two-front security challenge. This cannot be achieved without engaging with Pakistan — infuriating as this may prove to be and as it has indeed been our experience so far — even if the limited aim is to avoid armed conflict such as the one that has just ended or to keep a finger on the Pakistani pulse.

Wars are the costliest for ordinary people. There is dislocation of life, human suffering, and loss of lives and property, especially in settlements along the Line of Control. Having demonstrated that cross-border terrorism will invite a swift and painful response from India, it is important that the bigger and more inspiring story of India’s rise as a great power remains in focus.

Shyam Saran is a former foreign secretary. The views expressed are personal