Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. So there’s bound to be some truth to news reports of back-channel negotiations with India, even though the government-to-government relationship is still about as cold as it’s been in quite a while. Both sides know that Track-II has worked in the past when relations were strained in the Pervez Musharraf-Manmohan Singh era, and both sides came “within a signature of resolving the Sir Creek dispute,” according to former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri. It turns out that behind-the-scenes talks were so successful that Manmohan Singh was due to come to Islamabad in 2007, and a formal thaw was supposed to start with Sir Creek; before moving on to more contentious issues. But then the lawyer movement broke out and bulldozed the plan.
The problem this time, if reports are indeed correct, is that Islamabad wants Delhi to show good faith by reversing its actions of August 5, 2019, and restoring Kashmir’s special status to move things forward. However, the other side is reluctant to offer concessions that would make it look weak at home. The wise thing to do would be to find some sort of middle ground, count that as a success, and then work from there. That’s precisely what seemed to be happening in March 2021, when the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet green-lighted sugar and cotton imports from India. But the initiative was shot down by the federal cabinet itself the very next day, and we’ve been stuck at square one since then.
Everybody knows that normal, even normal-ish, Pak-India ties are crucial for both countries as well as the rest of Asia. There is no sense at all in letting a dispute from a bygone era hold back progress now, especially when both countries have immense youth bulges that don’t even understand some of the core disputes. This army of young people flooding the job market every year will need Pakistan and India to work and trade together to develop the kind of environment where both countries can progress.
We’ve disagreed, even fought, for seven-and-a-half decades. And look where that has got us. It’s time for both countries to display the level of maturity that circumstances demand of them. And if back-channel talks can really get the ball moving in the right direction, then perhaps this is the right way to proceed; for now. *