End hostilities
The year 2020 has seen India-Pakistan relations turn bitter. Both the nations have not only closed all their channels for any reconciliation but both seem to be at logger heads as no such indication is coming from the two nations that their strained relations may witness a thaw in future.
Even today Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that there is no possibility of a diplomatic dialogue with India in the prevailing situation.
Ties between India and Pakistan nosedived after a terror attack on the Pathankot Air Force base in 2016 by terror groups based in the neighbouring country. Subsequent attacks, including one on Indian Army camp in Uri, further deteriorated the relationship.
The relationship further dipped after India’s war planes pounded a Jaish-e-Mohammed training camp deep inside Pakistan on February 26 last year in response to the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed.
Withdrawal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special powers and bifurcating the state into two union territories in August last year also evoked a strong reaction from Pakistan, which has been unsuccessfully trying to rally international support against India on the Kashmir issue.
India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping of Article 370 was its internal matter. It also advised Pakistan to accept the reality and stop all anti-India propaganda.
Interestingly, the two nations are the main players in South Asian politics, as the two constitute 86% of its population and control over 80% of the land area. When these two are at peace with each other the whole region by and large maintains calm and when their relations witness a troubled phase, the entire region remains on tenterhooks.
Peace has been elusive to the region because of hostilities between India and Pakistan over the past three decades now. Though India blames Pakistan for all its ills but the ground situation reflects a different situation altogether. The two neighbours have much in common in terms of history, culture, language and religions.
Both the countries were parts of a single political entity until mid August 1947. Despite these close affinities psychologically both the countries have always been living two poles apart.
Since their inception both the countries have grown ever further apart and their policies both domestic and international have evolved increasingly in divergent directions. During the seven decades of their existence, the two countries fought three full fledged conventional wars and a war like situations emerges almost every second day on the border.
The dominant issue that has led to the heightened tensions is proving to be Kashmir issue which has been on the forefront of the troubled chapter of India-Pakistan history. Kashmir has been an outstanding security pre-occupation as much to Pakistan as to India and a potential destabilizer of the entire geo- strategic balance of the whole sub- continent.
For both the countries Kashmir issue has proved to be a attention diverter towards the key issues that the governments of both the countries are faced with.
Given the fears and the current suspicions among the leadership in both the countries it seems highly unlikely that the relations may witness some improvement in the days to come. Both the nations have shaped their relationship on mere rhetoric and any long time friendly relationship between the two countries seems unlikely.
KV Network
