Recalibrating relations with China, Pakistan

A striking thing about a general election is that each one shifts the paradigm of governance in some way or the other. When a ruling party loses, the shift is marked. But even when a party wins successive elections, there can be a shift, though a concerted effort is on to affirm continuity in policies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s third consecutive term in office.

Two areas that could benefit from policy shifts are in relation to Pakistan and China. In both cases, New Delhi’s recent approaches have been the equivalent of walking on a treadmill — moving, but effectively staying at the same place. In the past four years or so there has been little or no effort by any of the three parties which neighbour each other to take new initiatives. There seems to be a touch of indifference or lethargy. Can the 2024 general elections in India change things?

Recall that the 2019 election revolved around the Pulwama terror attack and India’s Balakot strike. But in 2024, little has been heard about Pakistan, which though enveloped in a polycrisis, continues in smaller ways to stir up trouble in Kashmir. Given some of the anti-Muslim rhetoric that has dogged the elections, it would have been easy enough to target Islamabad, but that has not happened. Perhaps, that no longer resonates with the electorate.

On the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the ceasefire of 2021 holds good. There have been no serious terrorist incidents with Pakistani footprints. But there have been somewhat desultory attacks in the Poonch-Rajouri area, the latest in Reasi hours before Narendra Modi was to be sworn in for the third time. But the reality is since the abrogation of Article 370, India-Pakistan diplomatic ties have been downgraded and bilateral trade remains frozen.

An outright Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) victory would have made it a kind of legacy term. But even as the head of the NDA coalition, Narendra Modi remains a powerful leader who will be conscious of his policies from the point of view of legacy. His past has made it clear that he is not doctrinaire when it comes to hostility with Pakistan or China. He has attempted to make peace with both of them at various points in time. Do we have a combination of circumstances that could help him come up with new initiatives?

Prime Minister (PM) Modi’s most definitive remarks on relations with China came out in an interview with Newsweek magazine in April, when he spoke of the importance and significance of India-China relations and the need to “urgently address the prolonged situation on our borders so that the abnormality in our bilateral interactions can be put behind us”.

India’s stepping on China has been careful. Geopolitics and geoeconomics are taking it close to the United States and the West. It is a member of Quad, but it has ensured that the Quad agenda is about dealing with the climate crisis, disaster management, strategic technologies, supply chain resilience, health security and counter-terrorism. Modi has pointed to India’s participation in BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to note that Delhi is willing to work with like-minded countries on any shared positive agenda.

It can’t be more specific than that. But, of course, it takes two hands to clap and a great deal depends on what Beijing is after. Officially, as President Xi Jinping noted after his meeting with Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg in 2023, China believes that improving relations between the two nations serve their common interests and “contributes to peace, stability and development of the world and the region”. Since 2017, China has embarked on a build-up along the Line of Actual Control from Arunachal Pradesh to Ladakh. India has countered this. However, there has been little progress in their efforts to work out a border settlement through their special representatives (SRs). The last round of SR talks, the 22nd, took place in 2019. And neither have they been able to achieve the status quo ante in Ladakh as of March 2020, when the Chinese blockaded Indian posts in Eastern Ladakh.

The 1993-2020 experience has taught us that setting aside the border issues to develop relations in other areas is no solution. As Modi has indicated, it is important to address the border issue if India and China want stable relations with each other. However, the Chinese insist that the boundary question “is a historical issue” and does not represent the “entirety of China-India relations”. Their spokesmen have insisted that the resolution of the boundary issue was separate from the issue of “peace and tranquillity” in the border areas. Their move to send an ambassador to India after 18 months was another intriguing piece of the way Beijing operates since it happened in May amidst the general elections.

In the Newsweek interview mentioned earlier, Modi had noted that he wished the new Pakistan PM, Shehbaz Sharif, well on his assumption to office, and that Indian policy was always to advance “peace, security and prosperity”, but it can happen only in an atmosphere free of terror and violence. Sharif’s congratulatory message after the swearing-in ceremony of the new Cabinet in Delhi was somewhat mealy-mouthed and ungenerous.

Once again, the issue is of the two hands clapping, and to figure out what Islamabad wants and what its fragile ruling coalition is in a position to deliver. Making peace with the civilian establishment in Islamabad is relatively easy, but how to get the Pakistan army establishment on board? The last time the two were united was when Pervez Musharraf was both the president and army chief, and between 2004-2007, both countries came close to working out an arrangement on Kashmir.

Perhaps the way out is a restoration of the old composite dialogue wherein all outstanding issues can be discussed. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which has been in the doldrums since the Indian boycott of the summit after the 2016 Uri attack, could be revived. The restoration of statehood in J&K could possibly be used to restore trans-LoC links. Back-channel diplomacy could help.

The elements of a new paradigm could emerge on a template where our economy has reached a transformative point and India appears as an island of stability and confidence in an otherwise disturbed world. Having dealt successfully with major security challenges, the country now needs to cement its success with some effective neighbourhood diplomacy.

Manoj Joshi is a distinguished fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal