On Friday, the UN Security Council (UNSC) issued a strong
statement on the suicide bombing in Pulwama, which identified Jaish-e-Mohammed
as the party claiming responsibility, described the act as unjustified
terrorism and reminded states of their obligations under international law to
combat terrorism and cooperate with India. The statement fell short of naming
Pakistan, reportedly at the insistence of China, a permanent UNSC member. Nonetheless,
it reflects a gradual shift in international opinion, and begins to call into
question the viability of Pakistan’s traditional approach to competition with
India. From 1947 onwards, Pakistan has used a rather consistent game plan.
The first step involves provoking India with
unconventional military action while ensuring a degree of plausible
deniability. Second, Pakistan projects India as the belligerent actor. And,
third, it leverages the results to invite third-party mediation to tip the
scales in its favour. The fact that the power disparity between India and
Pakistan has increased — first after the bifurcation of Pakistan following the
1971 Bangladesh War and subsequently after the economic rise of India after
liberalisation in 1991 — has made Pakistan all the more reliant on this
three-step formula. But with time, the
play-book has started to unwind.
Consider the first step: after each major provocation
Pakistan has pleaded innocence. In 1947, tribal militia were used to invade
Jammu and Kashmir before the Pakistan Army became formally involved. Operation
Gibraltar — the August 1965 infiltration of guerrilla forces into J&K to
stage an uprising — failed before Operation Grand Slam marked the widening of
war. In 1999, Pakistan denied the role of its military in the Kargil incursion
until India released a voice recording of Pakistan Army chief General Pervez
Musharraf demonstrating his full involvement. While Pakistan denied any role in
the 1993 Mumbai bombings, the 2001 Parliament attack, and the 26/11 attacks in
2008, the prime perpetrators — Dawood Ibrahim, Masood Azhar, and Hafiz Saeed —
made Pakistan their home. It is little wonder that Pakistan’s plausible
deniability is becoming increasingly implausible.
The second step is to portray India as the belligerent
actor. But India did not initiate conflict in 1947, 1965, or 1999, nor in the
series of terrorist attacks that resulted in crises in the 1990s and 2000s. The
one partial exception, the 1971 Bangladesh War, was a consequence of Pakistan’s
unwillingness to recognise the election results of 1970, the resulting mass
killings in East Pakistan and a man-made refugee crisis, of which India took
advantage. Moreover, it was Pakistan that pre-emptively widened that conflict
and initiated war with air strikes in the western sector.
The notion of Indian belligerence is questionable for
other reasons. In January 1948, the Indian government released central bank funds
it owed Pakistan as part of Partition, despite the ongoing Kashmir war. In
1960, as part of the Indus Waters Treaty, India paid Pakistan a sizeable sum
for replacement irrigation works, despite objections by several Indian cabinet
ministers. In 1965, India returned the Haji Pir Pass, captured after having
been used by Pakistan for infiltration. In the 1970s, India repatriated 90,000
Pakistani prisoners of war without achieving a resolution to Jammu and Kashmir
at Shimla. In 1996, India recognised Most Favoured Nation status for Pakistan,
despite a lack of reciprocity.
India has continued its attempts at engagement under
successive recent governments. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s bus trip and the Lahore
Declaration of 1999 was met with the Kargil incursion. Manmohan Singh’s resolve
in continuing the Composite Dialogue was tested by regular terrorist attacks
culminating in 26/11. Between 2014 and 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi
hosted his former Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif in New Delhi, resumed National
Security Adviser talks, visited Lahore, and invited a Joint Investigative Team
from Pakistan. Pakistan responded to these initiatives with, respectively,
intensified firing on the Line of Control, scheduling meetings with the
Hurriyat, the Pathankot attack, and the detention and kangaroo court trial of
Kulbhushan Jadhav. Flimsy claims of water wars, Afghan consulates and nuclear
and military aggression have been made to exaggerate Indian assertiveness.
All of this has justifiably increased frustration in
India with Pakistan, but engagement has helped minimise the need for the third
element of Pakistan’s approach: external mediation. Whether the United Nations
in 1947-48, the Soviet Union in 1965, or the United States in the 1990s,
Pakistan has long believed that international diplomatic intervention would
play in its favour.
India, by contrast, has been insistent on resolving
issues bilaterally, as the power disparity would play to its advantage. It is
for this reason that India bristles at talk of mediation, however tentative or
well-intentioned, whether by US diplomats, the Saudi foreign minister, the
Norwegian prime minister, or Russia via the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Furthermore, such offers inadvertently justify Pakistan’s support for
terrorism: if India concedes to mediation by a third party, Pakistan-backed
terrorism will have served its purpose.