Islamabad, Pakistan When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in for the third time as the country’s leader on June 9, seven prime ministers from neighboring countries celebrated the moment with a select audience.
The atmosphere at the ceremony, on a summer evening with an orange twilight sky and attended by a hand-picked group of leaders from the region, was reminiscent of Modi’s first swearing-in as India’s prime minister in 2014 and a repeat ceremony held in 2019.
But there was one big difference from 2014: Pakistan’s prime minister was not among the visiting leaders.
A decade ago, a photo of then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif shaking Modi’s hand during his visit to Pakistan for the inauguration brought new hope to the long-suffering relationship between India and Pakistan, a hope that the subsequent deterioration has all but disappeared. Now, as Modi begins his third term, his powers have been significantly curtailed, forcing him to rely on coalition allies to stay in power. Analysts predict that the Indian leader will have little incentive to take a hard line against Pakistan and seek detente between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
“PM Modi will reach out to neighbouring countries that were invited to the inauguration, but not to Pakistan,” said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the UN, the US and the UK. “The Modi government is likely to continue its hardline stance towards Pakistan, with which the prime minister has shown no willingness to engage over the past five years. This situation is unlikely to change.”
And early signs seem to support Roddy’s assessment.
Messages and attacks
On the very day that Prime Minister Modi was sworn in, a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims was targeted by militants and fell into a ravine in Reasi district of Indian-held Kashmir, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 30.
This was followed within a week by three more incidents in different parts of Indian-held Kashmir, when security forces engaged attackers, leaving three people dead and seven security personnel injured.
Indian security agencies have accused Pakistan of involvement. Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch denied the allegations on Thursday, saying Indian authorities were “in the habit of making such irresponsible statements.”
“Nobody is taking these allegations seriously,” Baloch said.
Yet the day after the Reasi attack, Pakistan’s former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, sought to revive past friendship with Modi.
“My heartfelt congratulations to @narendramodi on your third term in office. Your party’s victory in the recent elections reflects the people’s confidence in your leadership. Let’s seize the opportunity to transform hatred into hope and shape the destiny of 2 billion people in South Asia,” the three-time prime minister and now member of Pakistan’s parliament wrote on June 10.
The Prime Minister of India also reacted in a similar manner, acknowledging the former Prime Minister’s message.
“Thank you @NawazSharifMNS for your message. The people of India have always stood for peace, security and progressive ideas. Promoting the well-being and safety of our people will always remain our priority,” he wrote to X.
I appreciate your message Nawaz Sharif MNSThe people of India have always stood for peace, security and progressive ideals. Improving the well-being and security of our people will always remain our top priority. https://t.co/PKK47YKAog
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 10, 2024
In contrast, congratulations from Pakistan’s current prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, Nawaz’s brother, were much more subdued.
“Congratulations to @narendramodi on becoming the Prime Minister of India,” Sharif posted on his account.
Security concerns
After the June 9 attack in Reasi, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah – widely seen as Modi’s deputy – vowed there would be no mercy for those behind the attack.
India has long viewed Pakistan primarily as a security concern, accusing neighboring Pakistan of stoking unrest in Indian-administered Kashmir and masterminding numerous violent attacks on Indian territory, charges Islamabad denies.
Ajay Darshan Behera, an international studies scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, said India’s policy towards Pakistan hinges on the issue of “terrorism”.
“The previous Modi government was aiming to make Pakistan pay a price for supporting terrorism. Barring a major terrorist attack in Kashmir, the current Modi government will likely maintain a policy of indifference towards Pakistan. I doubt whether PM Modi will unilaterally initiate renegotiations with Pakistan,” he told Al Jazeera.
This approach is shaped by the spectre of violence that has always threatened relations as both sides attempt peace talks.
![Nawaz Sharif was Pakistan's prime minister when he visited India in 2014 to attend Modi's first inauguration. [Harish Tyagi/EPA]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/harish-tyagi-2014-1718029198.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C494)
In late 2015, Modi made a surprise day-long visit to Pakistan to attend the wedding of then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s granddaughter near Lahore.
The visit raised hopes that the two countries might pave the way for reconciliation, but just a week later, a group of attackers entered an Indian air force base, killing at least eight Indians, including a security guard. India held Pakistan responsible for the attack and demanded that those responsible be arrested.
Lodhi, the former ambassador, said India’s tougher stance on Pakistan since then has delivered “rich electoral benefits” to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), particularly in India’s 2019 general election.
“Their Pakistan-bashing has made the chances of improving relations between India and Pakistan very slim,” she added.
Salman Bashir, another senior diplomat and former Pakistan High Commissioner to India, said India’s current position on Pakistan – effectively refusing to engage in dialogue until security concerns are resolved – was a relatively low-cost option for Prime Minister Modi, but added that it may be too early to speculate about the Indian prime minister’s next move.
“There is no obligation for Prime Minister Modi to try to mend relations with Pakistan. India will benefit from continuing its hostile policy towards Pakistan,” Bashir told Al Jazeera.
The turning point of 2019
When Modi won a second term in the 2019 election, tensions between the neighbouring countries had soared to the brink of war, and the campaign was coloured by anti-Pakistan chauvinism.
A few months before the election, an attack in Indian-held Kashmir killed more than 40 Indian soldiers. The Indian government accused Pakistan of orchestrating the attack, which it said was aimed at militant training camps inside Pakistani territory.
Pakistan retaliated the next day by sending fighter jets into Indian airspace, and in the ensuing pursuit an Indian Air Force fighter jet was shot down and the pilot captured. The tense standoff only subsided after Pakistan returned the pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, two days after his arrest.
Riding on an anti-Pakistan wave and his own popularity, Modi’s BJP returned to power, winning more than 300 seats.
Five years on, things seem to have changed, at least for Prime Minister Modi domestically.
Throughout the long seven-phase election campaign, Pakistan was barely mentioned as an election topic, and the country only came up in discussion later in the election.
Exit polls had predicted a landslide majority for the BJP and its allies, but Modi’s party fell short of the halfway mark (272 seats) in parliament, winning only 242. This is the first time in his 25 years, first in Gujarat and, since 2014, as the chief executive of India, that Modi has had to rely on alliances to stay in power.
Irfan Nooruddin, a professor of Indian politics at Georgetown University in Washington, said the Bharatiya Janata Party’s “relatively poor performance” in the 2024 general election may lead the Indian government to focus “inward” for the time being. “The party is learning from its defeat and trying not to repeat the same mistakes in state elections,” he said. Several key states, including Maharashtra, India’s second-most populous, are due to hold assembly elections in the coming months.
“There will be no major foreign policy announcements other than those that allow Prime Minister Modi to demonstrate his personal closeness to Western leaders,” Nooruddin told Al Jazeera.
“Foreign policy tends not to be an election issue and the coalition partners on which Modi’s government relies do not have strong preferences on foreign policy,” Nooruddin added.
Diplomatic impasse
Meanwhile, Sharat Sabharwal, a former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, said he did not expect any major changes in the new Modi government’s foreign policy compared to the previous administration.
“I think India will be open to improving ties with Pakistan if it sees a constructive and pragmatic approach from the Pakistani side,” he told Al Jazeera.
The former diplomat added that better relations would naturally benefit both countries, but adopting an adversarial stance would put additional strain on Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s hostile stance towards India, an economy 10 times larger than itss, has put a huge strain on the Pakistani economy. The suspension of trade with India has hit the Pakistani economy harder than the Indian economy,” he added.
India has a population of over 1.4 billion and is the world’s fifth largest economy.
China has become an increasingly vocal player in the international community, hosting the G20 summit and participating in various multilateral forums such as the Quad. Prime Minister Modi’s first overseas trip after assuming office was to attend the G7 summit in Italy.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, a country of 241 million people, is applying for its 24th loan from the International Monetary Fund since 1958 to shore up its struggling economy amid a volatile political and security environment.
“Both the economies of India and Pakistan would benefit from a more rational relationship, and one could argue that India would gain more given India’s relative economic strength vis-à-vis Pakistan,” Nooruddin said. “So I think it is in India’s long-term interest to have a less adversarial stance towards Pakistan.”
Behera, from Jamila Millia University, said improved bilateral ties could benefit traders and farmers on both sides who have lost business opportunities due to the stalemate.
“But neither country can take the initiative to improve relations as each has its own conditions. India wants Pakistan to promise to stop supporting terrorist groups, while Pakistan wants Article 370 of the Indian Constitution restored,” he added. He referred to India’s 2019 decision to revoke the special status that gave Indian-administered Kashmir some autonomy.
Nooruddin said the two countries needed to do more to bring relations back to a semblance of normalcy, but the Indian government needed to shoulder more responsibility.
“I would argue that this is a shared responsibility. But India, which wants to be seen as a global player and regional hegemon, should act first to ensure it can achieve its global ambitions,” he said.
