Pakistan has become a major election issue in the ongoing Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir with Kashmir-origin parties seeking engagement with it for a resolution of the Kashmir issue and the BJP rebuffing any prospect for it. The home minister Amit Shah has time and again made it clear that India won’t talk to Pakistan but to the youth of Kashmir. And this has more or less been a policy of New Delhi towards Islamabad since 2014 when the BJP government took power. Although there have been efforts to kickstart an engagement between the two nations, they have been swiftly aborted after a violent incident either in Kashmir or in other parts of the country which the central government blamed on India. Last such attack which put a complete break on dialogue was on the Pathankot air force base which killed seven soldiers. After that, New Delhi never pursued a dialogue with Pakistan with any seriousness, giving up hope that it could be sustained as the major attacks in India traced to Pakistan keep happening.
The differences between the two countries are now too entrenched and irreconcilable to immediately lead to any engagement. More so, since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, which have sunk the relations between the two neighbours to their lowest. Ever since, Pakistan has sought reversal of the move which India has rejected. India, on the other hand, has asked Pakistan to end support to terrorism in Kashmir, which the latter has denied it has any role in.
The mutual stance ensures that nothing changes on the ground. This position comes across invariably in the statements of the senior BJP leaders, including that of the prime minister Narendra Modi. During his campaign in the Valley, the PM has said that Pakistan is happy about the NC-Congress alliance, as, according to him, the alliance sought restoration of Article 370. The NC and the PDP, on the other hand, have sought dialogue with Pakistan. But the BJP would have none of it. In one of his interviews during the parliamentary election campaign, the PM Modi made it clear that India “shouldn’t bother much about Pakistan and whether it changes its approach or not.” He added that for the past 10 years he had put a lock on Pakistan being a factor in running India. “Let Pakistan manage two square meals. We don’t need to waste our time,” he remarked, hinting at Pakistan’s dismal state of affairs.
But the defence minister Rajnath Singh, in his election speeches, seems to have kept a door open for engagement with Pakistan. Addressing poll rallies at Kotranka and Sunderbani in support of BJP candidate Choudhary Zulfikar Ali on Sunday, Singh said India was ready to embrace Pakistan and start a process of dialogue with it, provided the neighbouring country gives a guarantee that it will stop promoting terrorism on Indian soil. It may not amount to much as the defence minister has only repeated New Delhi’s line on engagement with Pakistan but its framing is more conciliatory. In diplomacy and in geopolitics, the framing isn’t accidental but deliberate.
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