The stiff-necked Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar's short trip to Islamabad did not raise any expectations about the resumption of the Pakistan-India dialogue process. In fact, all the factors which have provided the basis for sustaining the dialogue process in the past were missing when the Indian foreign minister set foot on Pakistani territory after a lapse of nine years. There was no international guarantor of talks as Washington seemed to have withdrawn from its traditional role as mediator between the two countries. There is no domestic constituency in either New Delhi or Islamabad that could provide sustained support to the dialogue process. Powerful institutions in both countries, which seemed opposed to a sustained dialogue process or any possibility of conceding any ground in talks, seem to be opposed to giving any leeway to elected representatives to launch any new initiative. Hence, both in Pakistan and India, the political leaders appear docile on the question of initiating any peace move towards the other country.
There was no bilateral engagement between Pakistan and India on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Islamabad, which the Indian Foreign Minister attended in the most fleeting of trips. Temperatures have been on the rise in the region. Both Islamabad and New Delhi accuse each other of sponsoring terrorism in each other's country. The last 20 years have seen Pakistani and Indian intelligence services and foreign policy establishment furiously compete in Afghanistan for strategic influence. Washington, though, has changed sides—during the initial years of the War Against Terror, it used to pat the back of Islamabad as its strategic ally. Now, India is closer to Washington. This has added another dangerous dimension to the strategic equation. On the military front, Indians are engaged in amassing conventional weaponry on a massive scale, although very serious-minded Pakistani military observers point out that Indian military buildup is shallow and would prove unreliable for Indian decision-makers in times of crisis. Yet, all this creates an imbalance in conventional military weaponry between the two countries, at least on paper. All these developments are not good omens for the normalisation of Pakistan-India relations.
Is there a positive aspect? The fact that both New Delhi and Islamabad are active and willing members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)—a China-led organisation which has on its agenda issues like economic cooperation and counter-terrorism—is itself a great silver lining in Pakistan-India relations. While the South Asian Association of Regional Countries (SAARC) might have fallen victim to the India-Pakistan rivalry, the SCO is a much more powerful and relevant organisation regionally for all its members. Pakistan and India became full members of the SCO in 2017, and since then, the governments in both countries have shown great interest in participating in SCO's organisational work and diplomacy. India chaired it for 2022-23 and Pakistan is the incumbent chair. The fact that energy-rich Central Asian states and Russia are also part of the organisation adds considerable weight to the SCO structure, especially when energy-starved countries like Pakistan and India are also members.
Pakistan's ruling elite, however, does not seem to be ready to completely shift its position from being a West-reliant country to a country which can pursue an independent foreign policy in the context of economically integrated regions encompassing South Asia, Central Asia and Southwest Asia
Pakistan's ruling elites, however, are emitting clear signals that they are ready to turn their territory into a link between rising economic powerhouses such as China and India with its other neighbours. Two successive military chiefs—General Qamar Javed Bajwa and General Syed Asim Munir—have talked about making Pakistan a regional connectivity hub, and interestingly, neither excluded India from this equation. Not long ago, Indian Prime Minister Narender Modi showed interest in this connectivity by having breakfast in Kabul, lunch in Lahore and dinner in New Delhi. This was the time when Modi had been invited by the then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to his private residence in Lahore in 2015.
In Islamabad, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is seen as an alternative to the US-dominated international system. Pakistan's foreign policy and strategic thinkers view this organisation as a forum where there exists a space for Pakistani foreign policy to operate in an atmosphere free from Western political, economic and military dominance. Pakistan's ruling elite, however, does not seem to be ready to completely shift its position from being a West-reliant country to a country which can pursue an independent foreign policy in the context of economically integrated regions encompassing South Asia, Central Asia and Southwest Asia. Of course, these regions include China's economic might and Russia. But there is a growing body of opinion in Pakistan that sees organisations like SCO as a forum where it can pursue an independent foreign policy away from the dreads of the West's political, economic and military dominance.
More than diplomatic success, the SCO summit provides an opportunity for Pakistan to present and project itself on the international stage as a responsible country in control of its territory and foreign policy
There is a growing realisation within the Pakistani ruling elite that Pakistan needs economic growth, expansion of manufacturing capacity, and growth of its exports more than political relevance at the international level—which the alliance with the West afforded it. In this connection, the economics-based agenda of SCO appears extremely attractive to Pakistan's foreign policy elites in the present circumstances. Secondly, the SCO's focus on counter-terrorism is something that jells well with Pakistan's internal security situation and will help Pakistan continue to pursue counter-terrorism goals overall. Pakistan faces a highly uncertain political and security situation on the domestic front. In the two weeks leading up to the SCO summit in Islamabad, there was first a political protest led by the main opposition party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and second, there was a terror attack in Karachi that killed two Chinese nationals. More than diplomatic success, the SCO summit provides an opportunity for Pakistan to present and project itself on the international stage as a responsible country in control of its territory and foreign policy. Since 9/11, Pakistan has been in the news for all the wrong reasons: Its internal sovereignty was challenged by terrorist groups, and externally, its foreign policy was in the grip of American political and military dominance of regional politics. The SCO summit is a point where Pakistan can wriggle out of the Western shadow.
Pakistan has been dependent on Western financial largesse for quite some time. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), financial, economic, and military assistance from Washington and other Western-led programmes have proved to be a lifeline for Pakistan's continued economic viability. However, despite all this, Pakistan's ruling elites have shown remarkable resilience in the face of Western political pressure on key issues, which ruling elite members consider vital for the country's national security interests. Firstly, since 1994, the Pakistani government has been under tremendous Western pressure to normalise relations with India— a pet Western project that would have paved the way for India's rise as a regional hegemon. Pakistani ruling elites, however, did not relent on this point. Of late, Washington has been pressuring Pakistan to reconsider its dependence on China in connection with the implementation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) related projects. Once again, the Pakistanis did not relent. More precisely, Pakistan did not relent on the key question of the development of the nuclear weapons programme. Internally, Pakistan's ruling classes believe that Pakistan must do something quickly to dispel the impression about the financial non-viability of the Pakistani national budget. I think if they see SCO as a forum which can help them in any way to make Pakistan financially viable again, they would be able to resist Western pressure.
Unlike other military men of Pakistan, Gen (retd) Bajwa didn't try to exclude India from his plans for regional connectivity. He told the audience at the Islamabad conference that he was all for landlocked Afghanistan exporting its goods to India through land transit facilities offered by Pakistan
Pakistan has suffered badly because of America's global War Against Terrorism, the focus of which remained Afghanistan — a country to the immediate West of Pakistan, and a country with which Pakistan shares economic, social and political affinity and interests. Pakistan lost its international stature, its economic and financial viability became suspect, and domestically, it has been facing two insurgencies, one in the Northwest and the other in the Southwest. Its fast-growing population is vulnerable to extremely hard economic and financial conditions. Social and political unrest is fast becoming a norm. All this requires a grand strategy to put Pakistan back on track. CPEC is such a project that can put Pakistan back on track. This is a project which has come to define the strategic vision of successive Pakistani military and political leaders. For instance, the incumbent Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Syed Asim Munir, and his predecessor, General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa, have repeatedly talked about making Pakistan a regional connectivity hub in their public assertions.
On March 18, 2021, General (retd) Bajwa forcefully advocated and projected Pakistan as a regional connectivity hub at a security conference in Islamabad. His long speech specifically focused on the idea of Pakistan acting as a hub for regional economic, trade, and commercial integration and connectivity. And unlike other military men of Pakistan, he didn't try to exclude India from his plans for regional connectivity. He told the audience at the Islamabad conference that he was all for landlocked Afghanistan exporting its goods to India through land transit facilities offered by Pakistan. General Asim Munir repeated this theme in his public speeches. The fact that military leaders clearly realise Pakistan's role as a land connecting not only energy-rich Central Asia with the energy-hungry South Asia, but they also see Pakistani territory as a link between two emerging markets of China and India. The then-Pakistani Ambassador to Washington, Ali Jehangir Siddique, clearly stated Pakistan's role as a link between these emerging markets in a paper he authored for an American think tank. CPEC is a project which can make Pakistan's military and political leaders realise this dream of making Pakistan a regional connectivity hub.
The idea of Pakistan becoming a link between emerging markets and powerhouses of China and India is an immensely powerful idea—an idea that will readily find powerful political backers like China and Russia
I think the ingredients for developing closer cooperation between Pakistan and India are present in both New Delhi and Islamabad and the regional strategic environment. The region is inching closer towards economic and commercial integration. Indian elites clearly see an economic benefit to come to them in a situation where Pakistan can link their industries in South Asia with energy-rich Central Asian states. Pakistani elites, too, have been on the move worldwide selling this idea of a regional connectivity hub. The idea of Pakistan becoming a link between emerging markets and powerhouses of China and India is an immensely powerful idea—an idea that will readily find powerful political backers like China and Russia.
What exactly is stopping Islamabad and New Delhi from embarking on such a huge project? Internal politics of India? Where Hindu extremist constituency forces a Hindu extremist ruling party to browbeat Pakistan? Or Pakistan's powerful military, which is said to have an inbuilt tendency towards anti-India policy? Or is it Washington's tendency to object to anything that will help China extend its influence in the region? The trouble spots in the region certainly pose a problem in implementing this grand plan. Afghanistan, for example, will have to be pacified before we can link Central Asia with South Asia through land. Pakistan itself is facing an uphill task of dealing with two simultaneous insurgencies in the Northwest and the Southern province of Balochistan. An unstable Pakistan can potentially devastate the whole region.