On the eve of the 23rd Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit held on October 15-16, 2024 in Islamabad, Pakistan, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif gave an interview to an Indian journalist about the future of Pakistan and India. Ta. relationship. Sharif does not hold any official position in the federal government, which is headed by his brother Shahbaz Sharif. His daughter, Maryam Nawaz, is the chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, which shares a long land border with India.
For some reason, the interview venue was not Sharif’s Jati Umra residence, but his daughter’s premier’s residence in Lahore. In an interview with Indian journalist Barkha Dutt, Sharif said: “I have always supported good relations with India. I hope there is an opportunity to revive our relations. It would have been good if Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi had also attended the SCO summit. He I hope we have a chance to sit together in the future.”
This is not the first time Mr Sharif has spoken of his vision for normalizing relations with India. Relations deteriorated after India annexed the Indian-occupied state of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Modi government abrogated Article 370 of the normalization of ties between the two countries. The Indian constitution gave special status to Kashmir.
In response, the Pakistani government led by Imran Khan took the position that it would not resume bilateral dialogue with India until the annexation of Kashmir was lifted, but this was an unrealistic wish on the part of Pakistan. This is because they were unable to prevent the change in status. It occupied Indian Kashmir both diplomatically and through a show of military force.
In response, India launched a diplomatic salvo against Pakistan, accusing it of supporting terrorism in Kashmir and elsewhere. It has secretly continued to destabilize Pakistan through the Balochistan Liberation Army and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorist organizations. These organizations have a egregious criminal history of attacking military and police convoys and killing innocent civilians in terrorist operations against Pakistan. But Indian propaganda took on more weight as it drew the attention of India’s international partners, drawing parallels with its close friend Israel, which also calls Islamist Iran and the Middle East terrorist axis of resistance.
Sharif’s peace efforts
In May 2024, Sharif said that what happened after the February 1999 Lahore Declaration was a betrayal of the trust of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who visited Pakistan at Sharif’s invitation. Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore was annulled by the then Pakistani military high command, which launched the Kargil war in July 1999 without seeking Sharif’s approval. Then, in October 1999, General Pervaiz Musharraf overthrew Sharif in a bloodless military coup. Sharif said last year: “India has reached the moon, but Pakistan has reached the opposite realm. Pakistan is responsible for its own crisis.”
Sharif has had a consistent vision for India-Pakistan relations for the past four decades. In a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, he expressed similar views on the fringes of the 1997 Commonwealth Summit in Edinburgh. After the Kargil War, the ruling class punished Sharif by removing him from office in a military coup because of his views on India.
In 2017, Sharif said that democratically elected leaders in Pakistan do not have the freedom to make political decisions. The infamous “dawn leaks” not only led to his disqualification as prime minister by the judiciary, but also led to his political party, Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), being disqualified by the establishment’s decision to choose a successor to the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N). It deprived the Muslim League-Next Party (PML-N) of victory in the 2018 general elections. A racehorse that didn’t even win the Derby.
In the 2024 general election, Sharif’s party could have formed a centrist coalition government with support from other parties, but he was unable to gather enough support to become prime minister for a fourth time. It was settled that his younger brother would become prime minister. .
Is it possible to reset the relationship?
Whether the Pakistani establishment has finally come to accept Sharif’s views on India and whether his statement was timed to coincide with the arrival of the Indian foreign minister in Islamabad to attend the South African summit. is difficult to judge. Let’s say it was allowed by the establishment and was an attempt to gauge India’s response. In that case, it can be said that it took 25 years for Pakistan to realize what was possible and doable for it within the scope of resetting its bilateral relations with India.
It also remains to be seen whether India will take this statement as a signal from Islamabad to move forward and reciprocate the gesture beyond the media interest. Sharif has previously been punished by the regime for saying he “loves India” in 1999 and 2017 when he was prime minister. There is no guarantee that the establishment will accept Sharif’s views now that he does not hold a prominent position. They will establish themselves in the government and do it on their own. Restoring trust in international relations will take decades. On the other hand, as happened in 1999, betrayal of trust involves small errors in judgment, much less war.
But the time for normalization has never been better. In Pakistan, the civilian-led government fully supports the military. Agreements negotiated with the current government are like negotiations with the establishment and do not require further approval from other power centers.
Similarly, the timing is apt for India, which needs to rediscover its place in South Asia. India lost goodwill in Bangladesh following the failure of the January 2024 elections and the resulting people’s revolution in August 2024, forcing former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee to India. . During her dictatorship, she made Bangladesh a vassal state of India through her “India First” policy. India also lost influence in the Maldives and Afghanistan. The India-Iran gas pipeline has also been suspended due to US sanctions against Iran. The Modi government recognizes that building friendly relations with the US, UK and EU while remaining isolated in its own region is not enough.
Improving relations with Pakistan could revive South Asian cooperation, revitalize the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), and bring regional investment and tourism opportunities to India. This is a bilateral opportunity with little risk and mutual benefit for both countries.
Advantages for Pakistan
Having a belligerent India as a neighbor has served no purpose other than creating a competitive spirit in a few key areas such as nuclear deterrence, conventional defense, art, literature, sports, but also manufacturing. Comparable results were not achieved in areas such as industry, technology, agriculture, health, and sports. education. The extraordinarily long war on terror in Afghanistan was not Pakistan’s war to begin with, but it dragged Pakistan into it unwillingly, wasting two decades to focus on economic development.
India’s annexation of Indian-occupied Kashmir in August 2019 would not have happened if the normalization of bilateral relations had proceeded smoothly. Pakistan’s sane and outrage-only response to India’s annexation in 2019 meant that Pakistan could neither fight a winnable war with India to force India to resolve the Kashmir dispute nor criticize India for annexing and transforming the disputed territory of the Indian Union. It also proved impossible to muster international support for the project. Understand its demographics through settlements and elections.
The war in Gaza showed that if a war were to break out between India and Pakistan, they would be the only two countries in the world to fight and sustain a war alone. Unless there is a strong alliance, such as the one that exists between the evangelical Bible Belt in the United States and the right-wing Zionist radicals in Israel, no one will come to support you in a war. No one wins a war. After the explosion stops in the wasteland, only the dead can be counted.
So what happens when Sharif’s view becomes Pakistan’s official position? It points to an agreement between the two countries that justifies the status quo. That is, India holds what is in occupied Kashmir, Pakistan holds what is in Azad Kashmir, and it also holds Gilgit-Baltistan, which India calls a disputed territory dating back to the reign of Maharaja Hari Singh. , then the two countries will proceed to build good relations. Neighborhood relations and long-standing territorial disputes were peacefully resolved and moved out of the way.
If Kashmiris feel betrayed by Pakistan for going over their heads and making peace with India, they say they have never been clear about admitting Pakistan as part of the federation. We should recognize that. Their freedom movement has always revolved around a sovereign and independent Kashmir and they have never denied it. The name of their largest party, Hurriyat, is evidence of their ambition. So if you want independence from India like the Sikhs and Assamese, let them continue their independence without involving Pakistan.
If Pakistan is stable and strong, it will have a magnetic pull for other countries to come and strengthen its foundations, but if Pakistan is divided and disintegrating, everyone will pack up their bags. He will try to leave. There is so much water under the bridge of this bilateral vision that Sharif’s points carry weight and substance. Until a similar counterargument emerges, this can be tabled as the best option for now for both countries to accept and implement, before the wet green olive branches wither and the sun sets in again. It will be.
