After threatening to review the Indus Water Treaty, India has formally withdrawn from the SAARC summit in Pakistan along with Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan. The summit scheduled for November 9 and 10 is now likely to be postponed. New Delhi is also mulling withdrawal of the Most Favoured Nation status to Pakistan. More diplomatic measures are being contemplated to isolate Pakistan on international stage in response to Islamabad’s alleged sponsorship of terrorism and more recently its alleged facilitation of the Uri attack that killed 19 soldiers. New Delhi expects that a sustained diplomatic pressure on Pakistan would get it to crackdown on the militant groups which fight in Kashmir and sometimes target other parts of the mainland India. The measures have been met with applause by the sections of the national media and public opinion which see these as “a fitting response” to Pakistan after Uri attack.
But while New Delhi’s diplomatic moves may have gone some way to address the widespread anger in India, they are unlikely to achieve their desired end. The conflict between India and Pakistan is rooted in history and is too complex to be approached in simplistic terms. Instead, New Delhi’s exclusive reliance on the coercive and security-centric measures, both in Kashmir and in relation to Pakistan, has further complicated the political scenario. For one, it has hardened the ongoing resistance in Kashmir, making it more and more unresponsive to centre’s overtures for dialogue. And second, it has ended any foreseeable chances of an engagement with Pakistan, a fraught situation which can only lead the region towards more conflict and possibly war, as the surgical strike inside Pakistan have underlined.. In the absence of a bilateral contact, the two countries are left with no crisis tools to handle an extraordinary situation. Now New Delhi is further adding to this vacuum by taking apart the regional institutional infrastructure in the form of SAARC. A tough, macho approach in foreign policy might sell well with the people and win votes too, but it buys no piece. On the contrary, it complicates the already messy conflicts and makes it all the more difficult to tackle them.
The inherent problem with New Delhi’s political outreaches to Pakistan has been its persistent refusal to pursue the resolution of the long-festering issues. The country has generally sought to limit the dialogue to the efforts for an end to cross-border terrorism and establishing a trading relationship with Pakistan. This kind of approach has yielded nothing. The sources of conflict have remained intact and frequently risen to the surface to undo the cosmetic gains. The current regime in New Delhi has taken this approach to another extreme. It has refused to even acknowledge that the political issues exist, let alone agree to a discussion on them. This has bred a dead-end scenario which has created a fertile ground for the violence and conflict to thrive. As the surgical strikes across the LoC underline yet again, such a policy will only end up into more conflict and war.
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