The Last Waltz. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (centre, right) being welcomed by his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif (centre, left), at the airport in Lahore, Pakistan, December 25, 2015
In the world of diplomacy, optics do matter, and therefore, the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s caustic remarks about what he hopes to achieve — or fails to achieve — in his forthcoming Islamabad visit didn’t really come as surprise. Pakistan is a toxic issue in India and it matters like hell to the government, for obvious reasons, to be seen as adopting a ‘tough’ posture, especially for the consumption of its core constituency that is weaned on delusional musings over the ‘unfinished business’ of Partition.
It is highly likely that our highly cerebral minister spoke with an eye on the hugely important assembly election in Maharashtra that must happen before November 26. And it pays to be seen hanging ‘tough’ in front of the electorate. This is one thing.
However, the Heads of Government (HoG) meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Islamabad (October 15-16) is not expected to be a watershed event in regional security. BRICS has come to overshadow the SCO, which was a brainwave of the Chinese and the Russians in a bygone era when the world order was in a state of innocence. Even India used to be ecstatic about the ‘rules-based order’ until quite recently. In fact, the last time Jaishankar uttered those archaic words would give us more or less the timeline of the contemporary world in transition from unipolarity to multipolarity.
The paradox is, the great turbulence in Eurasia around the US-Russia confrontation and the prospect of a Russian victory in the Ukraine war, plus the US’ defeat in the Afghan war in 2021, have significantly contributed to a cooling down of security tensions in the SCO territories. The Taliban government’s potential as a factor of regional security and stability is dawning on the regional states who are themselves exploring the footfalls of Russia and China to engage with Kabul. October 4 is a turning point when Russia announced a normalisation process vis-a-vis the Taliban government. (See my article Afghanistan’s isolation is crumbling. India should think up big ideas, Deccan Herald, October 9, 2024)
In sum, SCO has a good opportunity now to reboot its development-versus-security ‘toolbox’ and focus on the really critical issues of trade, investment, connectivity, food security and other issues of poverty and development. If Russia keeps its word (with China’s backing), which is important for the restive regions of the Caucasus, Central Asia including Afghanistan is in the cusp of change. Suffice to say, India too gets a real chance before the train leaves the station to breath life into its episodic ties with the resource-rich Central Asian region.
However, India’s diplomacy under Jaishnkar’s watch is paramountly geopolitical. The peace dividend is of secondary importance to our pundits in the think tank circuit, although SCO has gained importance in the Indian calculus in another way — it provides a platform for engaging with China on a low key to sustain the momentum of the management of border tensions. Jaishankar does not miss such opportunities. It will be interesting to see whether there would be some sort of a India-China ‘bilateral’ on the sidelines of the SCO event in Islamabad — highly unlikely, though.
The Pakistani hosts will also be in some dilemma. The SCO summit is undoubtedly a major event in Pakistan’s diplomatic calendar. Jaishankar has, arguably, let Pakistan off the hook, as apparent from the savvy remark by its foreign ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, when asked about Jaishankar’s visit: “I would like you to refer to the remarks made by the Minister for External Affairs on October 5, in which he maintained that his visit was meant for a multilateral event and not for discussing Pakistan-India relations. These remarks are self-explanatory.”
Did she make Jaishankar look somewhat unpolished in conveying that India won’t raise dust at the SCO summit over terrorism? That is for you to judge. As for Pakistan, it is the net winner if only Jaishankar behaves himself while on Pakistani soil, as he has promised. Who wants a sideshow, after all, that may take over the centre stage? Besides, it is in Pakistan’s interest too that Jaishankar returns home happy with some added positive energy to report to PM.
At the end of the day, the mystique of India-Pakistan diplomacy is such that the word not spoken can also be decisive. Pakistanis are very generous hosts and at their lavish SCO parties, there will be many an occasion for soft whisperings and pull asides — and wisecracking too, of course.
As a former Indian ambassador to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria told the South China Morning Post most thoughtfully, India’s summit participation is an opportunity to improve ties with its neighbour. “What India is doing, by sending a minister, is sending a signal that we want to stabilise the relationship,” Bisaria said. Spot on.
Bisaria read the tea leaves correctly when he estimated, “What both sides are doing is managing the expectation while there could be a courtesy meeting but behind the scenes there can be a meeting where the conversation could take place.” Bisaria added that starting with low-hanging fruit, such as exchanging high commissioners and resuming trade, could pave the way for better relations.
But Bisaria’s concluding remark is the crux of the matter: “Having a Saarc summit is a distant goal, but it should be a goal. I think at some point if the relationship stabilises further and gets better, we could possibly have that [Saarc meet] as well.”
The heart of matter is that the law of diminishing returns is in play here — as each new unit of the increasing (negative) input is added to India-Pakistan discord, the marginal (positive) output gets smaller. India is the loser, the more it behaves like a dog in the manger. Certainly, such petulance to turn its back on regional cooperation neither impresses anybody nor adds to Candidate India’s credentials to be a worthy permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
The government’s real fear seems to be that if Saarc revives the old idea of China’s membership, Delhi may face isolation — and worse still, China may become the elephant in the room. But these are phobias that are not only out of sync with the spirit of the times but also grate against India’s growing self-confidence. A good case is there that the matrix can be turned into India’s advantage as well. If India can get out of the Saarc foxhole going forward, Jaishankar’s visit becomes a success.