Through an announcement on Twitter by the official spokesperson of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Vikas Swarup, India has pulled out of the official South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit planned to be held in Islamabad in November 2016. In an open reference to Pakistan, the Indian statement alleged Pakistan’s role in cross-border terrorism, and its supposed “interference in the internal affairs of Member States” as the reason behind its decision.
This latest move on the part of India is a continuation in a series of characteristic knee jerk reactions of India that preclude any possibility of meaningful dialogue to resolve tensions between the two countries. While the option of a military encounter has been forestalled for now given the loss that it would accrue to both sides, India has instead upped the diplomatic offensive against Pakistan. Afraid of being accused of going ‘soft’ on Pakistan, especially given that it used to blame Congress for the same, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government is doing all it could to supposedly ‘punish’ Pakistan. Ranging from threatening to undo the Indus Water Treaty to publicly declaring India’s efforts to ‘isolate’ Pakistan, the belligerence of India is greatly exacerbating the South Asian crisis, and by doing so Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is playing a dangerous game as things can easily spiral out of control.
SAARC is an organisation that has for the large part failed to materialise into a substantial economic cooperative organisation. The Pakistan-India ‘rivalry’ accompanied with it apprehensions and mutual distrust that acted as a major impediment towards the development of SAARC. However, such an organisation, even if it has not yet been able to live up to its objectives of trade and connectivity, can still act as a platform for dialogue that could at the very least break tensions and bring Pakistan and India to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, India, bent on giving off the impression that it would not capitulate to Pakistan even when dialogue is for mutual benefit and not a favour to Pakistan, has wasted the opportunity presented by the SAARC summit by refusing to attend it.
The Uri attack has left in its aftermath a visibly angry India, which has forsaken even the impression of investigating the attack before appropriating blame on Pakistan. While jingoism is present in alarming proportions on both sides of the border, but the official response from Pakistan has been one of restraint, and focused on dialogue. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s calls for dialogue have been repeatedly rebuffed by India, as it has blatantly refused to put Kashmir on the agenda of talks. Locked in a self-defeating security crisis, Pakistan and India have approached their issues with puzzling myopia, and in this new paradigm in which India is not even prepared to initiate dialogue with Pakistan, the hope for achieving lasting peace is increasingly turning into a distant dream. Where there are tremendous gains to be made from trade, cultural exchange, cooperation in filmmaking and inter-connectivity, Pakistan and India instead continue to fight without giving each other any ground on which to resolve their disputes. Dialogue is the only solution for the Pakistan-India ‘rivalry’, and it is imperative for India to realise that silence is not a virtue in this present scenario. http://dailytimes.com.pk/editorial/29-Sep-16/indias-belligerence-and-refusal-to-talk
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