In his first address to the nation after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire on May 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi signaled a complete reset of the terms of engagement with Pakistan.
Doubling down on the advantages accruing from aerial superiority displayed by the Indian military last week, he laid down conditions for bilateral engagement. As long as using terror is part of Pakistan’s strategic toolkit, bilateral relations will not exist.
He ruled out talks and trade when Pakistan’s terror infrastructure remains intact. He unambiguously signaled that Indus Waters Treaty’s abeyance will not be a short-term measure. The treaty will no longer be segregated from the state of overall relations. It will be subsumed into the overall bilateral relationship, which marks an important departure from earlier policy.
The Pahalgam killings and the subsequent events mark a consequential inflection point. While India had already begun the process of using conventional retaliation for terror strikes emanating from Pakistan, the nature and scale of strikes last week point to a reset.
Another aspect that has seen a reset is in India’s understanding of Pakistan’s nuclear brinkmanship. Modi in speech said that India won’t put up with nuclear blackmail. Evidence of the same was visible in the conflict between May 7 and May 10.
Building on this theme, he said that India will talk to Pakistan only on the issue of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, an indication of a hardening of India’s stand.
Given the policy approach Modi outlined, bilateral ties appear to be set for a long period of dormancy. There’s little likelihood of Pakistan suddenly reversing a course of action it has followed for over three decades. It has chosen to follow that course of action even though it has undermined its own stability The birth of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan in 2007 with the avowed aim of overthrowing the Pakistani state to establish an emirate has led to numerous attacks on Pakistan’s armed forces. This, in turn, can be traced to the policy choices made by Pakistan in nurturing religious fundamentalists as tools to realize strategic goals.
Pakistan is unlikely to change its approach any time soon. And now that Modi has outlined a “new normal” for the full spectrum of the relationship, ties will be at a low ebb. A lull in cross-border terrorist activity should not be a reason to believe that Pakistan has changed its outlook. India may have hit an inflection point in responding to Pakistan’s use of terror, but there’s no reason yet to believe that Pakistan has simultaneously reached an inflection point in its choice of strategic tools.
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