After the strikes, what’s left of India-Pakistan relations?

A few months ago, I got an invitation to attend a Track 2 dialogue on India-Pakistan ties. I politely declined and said there was not much scope for a relationship at the moment. If anything, the events of the last few weeks have dug the final nail in the coffin that is the India-Pakistan relationship.

The recent terror attack in Pahalgam in which 26 people were killed, was the worst attack on civilians since the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai in 2008. It has only deepened the mistrust and divide between the two countries. India’s air strikes on camps inside Pakistan this week mark a significant turning point. From the surgical strikes in Uri in 2016 to Balakot in 2019 and now this, India has made its red lines clear. And with these strikes, India has not just done a symbolic exercise, but has shown that it is willing to risk an escalation as it has done with the latest retaliation.

Having covered ties between both countries for 25 years, I have seen the familiar pattern of a breakdown, rapprochement and breakdown again. But under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the rules of engagement with Pakistan have totally changed. That is not to say Modi did not even try. When he was first sworn in as Prime Minister in 2014, he invited then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to his swearing in. Later, he dropped in to Sharif’s Lahore home in an unexpected visit. These two gestures were not taken kindly within the Pakistani deep state which went on to launch further attacks against India. That is when the mood in Delhi shifted.

The collateral damage has been the people-to-people relationship. Post Pahalgam, the Indian government has taken the unprecedented step of throwing out Pakistanis living in India, even those who married here and have been staying here for decades on valid visas. There have been heartbreaking images of families being torn apart.

The Indian government has also banned the social media accounts of well-known Pakistani actors, prohibited Indian TV channels from inviting Pakistani panellists and blocked popular YouTube platforms that featured content like Pakistani dramas, which are generally well-liked. It is tragic that it has come to this, but the anger within India after Pahalgam runs deeper than ever before. The brutal manner in which the terrorists shot and killed innocent civilians will haunt us forever. The government needed to be seen taking different steps in response, both diplomatically and militarily.

What does this mean for the future of India-Pakistan relations? In the short term, one hopes that saner heads prevail and the situation on the border does not escalate. The keyboard warriors on social media notwithstanding, neither India nor Pakistan can afford to engage in a full-fledged war. Both sides have nuclear weapons and the costs to ordinary people living in border states will be too much to bear. A war would further erode the economy with severe consequences and hardships for the people.

As I see it, the only dialogue possible between India and Pakistan is a back channel one - away from the glare of the media and other observers. It is this back channel that helped keep the ceasefire on the Line of Control largely intact all these years, even after a big terror attack like the one in Pulwama in 2019. There is an urgent need to keep back channels alive, if it is not being done already. In the long term, the only realistic resolution appears to be settling the Line of Control into the de jure border.

Until then, I hope calm heads call the shots. A war is not an action film. It has real consequences for real people.