So long as the Americans were on Pakistan’s western border, Islamabad sought to make gestures of peace with India in a move of single-minded expediency
It is not incorrect to think that the latest political skirmish between India and Pakistan on the question of the role of the United Nations on Kashmir is a direct consequence of the brutality recently displayed by Pakistani soldiers on the Line of Control, the demarcation between the two in J&K.
It has been understood for decades that the
UN has no role whatsoever on the Kashmir issue. And yet Pakistan provocatively chooses to bring up the question of the UN’s role from time to time.
The UN resolutions on Kashmir of the late 1940s became a dead letter with Pakistan refusing to remove its troops from Occupied Kashmir, as envisaged by the UN, in order to facilitate the holding of a plebiscite. As a consequence, the idea of plebiscite itself has become infructuous. This is acknowledged by India and Pakistan through the Simla Agreement of 1972 and the post-Kargil Lahore Declaration.
These signpost documents underline the primacy of bilateralism in India-Pakistan affairs, especially on the question of Kashmir. As such, it was a bit rich, negativistic, and more than just a little antagonistic, on Islamabad’s part to first suggest that the LoC incident be probed by the UN Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan, which at no time had attained a position higher than that of a post office.
It is evident that Islamabad’s repeated references these days to the UNMOGIP is of a piece with its blatant denial that it crossed the LoC in the first place, leave alone the issue of the beheading of an Indian soldier. These acts calculatedly placed at risk the upswing in India-Pakistan ties — leading to a trade accord and one on liberalising visa regimes — that fructified through negotiations over more than a year. We need to understand the reasons for such flagrant adventurism.
The changes in regional dynamics are of relevance here. With the United States downgrading its military role in Afghanistan with a view to the withdrawal of its armed forces there before not too long, the Pakistani military can sense the lifting of a constraint on its relations of fostering discord with India. So long as the Americans were on Pakistan’s western border, Islamabad sought to make gestures of peace with this country in a move of single-minded expediency. With the US pullout imminent, the Pakistani security establishment is clearly reverting to its old ways.
In such a situation, India needs to exert all options it can. Politically this can be done by putting pressure on Pakistan by upgrading its engagement in Afghanistan to give solace to those in that country who believe Pakistan and the Taliban seek to drag Afghanistan back to the pre-1994 era.
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