A new beginning: SCO meeting can help improve Indo-Pak relations

An aspect of Indian foreign policy can puzzle observers. That is how it is remarkably willing to join almost any plurilateral grouping. Take the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, for example. It includes both the People’s Republic of China and Pakistan; it seems to run at a tangent to other efforts that India is making in Asia and the Indo-Pacific, including the Quad. But this week showed the importance of such groupings. Bilateral meetings with Pakistan have not been possible for a while; but the fact that the SCO summit was being held in Islamabad allowed a perfect pretext for External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to cross the border and to inject some new momentum into ties between the two neighbours.

This was the first visit by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan in more than eight years, since the period of “wedding diplomacy” between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his then counterpart, Nawaz Sharif. Mr Jaishankar was reportedly able to speak twice to his Pakistani counterpart, Muhammad Ishaq Dar. He was able to deliver a strong message about cross-border activities that highlighted India’s long-held concerns on the subject, while also attempting to find a new path towards normalising relations in South Asia. Both sides need to be congratulated on avoiding the temptation to grab the headlines with any provocative statements. Hopefully a mature path forward can be found in the coming months.

India’s approach to Pakistan in recent years has been to focus on isolating the country as far as possible. It has been assisted in this effort by internal turmoil in Pakistan, its political divisions, and the fact that its economy is in a particularly perilous position. The old arguments that were made about cross-border trade helping integrate the two economies and stabilise their relations no longer have great credence in New Delhi. That said, it should be acknowledged that there is indeed a peace dividend in South Asia that could and should be sought. Mr Sharif, who still holds great political power in Pakistan as the current Prime Minister’s brother, has certainly spoken of this possibility often during his various terms in office. India, for its part, will have noted that Pakistan’s response to the change in status of Kashmir in 2019 remained in the diplomatic sphere.

There are two possible takeaways from this: First, that Pakistan no longer has the capability to disrupt Indian actions, even those that matter to the “core issue” of Kashmir. The other is that it is a sign that the establishment there is willing to overlook such actions in the name of normalising relations. Either way, the question of normalisation is one that should now be explored. This does not have to come at the expense of the genuine concerns that India has and they should be addressed by Pakistan. The benefits might not be as expansive as they were considered to be more than two decades ago, when Mr Sharif and Atal Bihari Vajpayee attempted to reset relations through the Lahore Declaration. But the comparative imbalance between the two countries is greater as well. A new path towards stability in South Asia beckons.