Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise visit to Lahore in December – an impromptu decision to drop in on Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on his birthday – was truly surprising. The spirit of cooperation that seemed to permeate across the Line of Control over the months that followed, despite the Pathankot Attacks, was even more unexpected. On Thursday, everything returned to normal.
Indian and Pakistani diplomats spent the day squabbling via the media, and by evening, suddenly the subcontinent felt like its good old tense self again. The trouble began with prepared remarks by Islamabad's High Commissioner to India, who started his statement with the sort of farcical sentence that is nevertheless frequently spouted by diplomats on either side.
"There shouldn’t be any doubt that Pakistan wants to have a normal and peaceful relationship with India on the basis of sovereign equality and mutual interest," Basit said. "There is national consensus on this in Pakistan."
Carapace of complacency
Even if there was no doubt about Pakistan's intentions regarding India at the start of Basit's statement – and one can plausibly argue that Sharif's conduct over the last few weeks has been pleasantly surprising – by the end of the statement, nothing was left to the imagination.
"It is high time to break the carapace of complacency and dispense with self-serving approaches... The recent arrest of Kulbhushan Yadav in Pakistan irrefutably corroborates what Pakistan has been saying all along."
The envoy followed this up by making an even more pointed remark in reply to a journalist's question:
When asked whether Islamabad would permit the National Investigation Agency to send a team over to Pakistan to investigate the Pathankot Attacks, since India had just permitted Pakistan to send their Joint Investigation Team across, Basit found a way to imply no. "The visit of the Pakistani probe team to Pathankot is not about reciprocity," he said.
Except New Delhi seems to think it was very much about reciprocity. And said as much, in a statement put out late on Thursday.
"The Ministry would like to clarify that on 26 March, 2016, before the visit of the JIT, the Indian High Commission formally conveyed to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry that the Terms of Reference "are broadly agreed to with the proviso that these would be on the basis of reciprocity and followed in accordance with extant legal provisions.” Subsequently, the JIT visited from March 27 to April 1, 2016. "
The statement also addressed Basit's comments about a "suspension" of dialogue, noting that a spokesperson for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry had, earlier in the day, spoken about how "negotiations are the best means to resolve issues" between the two countries.
Sarcasm and stage management
Until the previous day, the story had seemed a more passive than aggressive, with smaller squabbles being played out in the media thanks to an outrageous Pakistan Today report claiming the Pathankot attacks had been stage-managed by India. As of Thursday night, though, the two countries are back to sniping and using sarcasm as weapons against each other.
All of which leaves New Delhi in a difficult spot. Modi's decision to go to Lahore would not have been taken lightly and his peace-making efforts were immediately tested by the sight of an Air Force Base close to the border being attacked by terrorists soon after.
Yet the countries persevered and Sharif and Modi even seemed as if they were on the same page and would work together to counter internal dissent in their respective countries, rather than being at each others' throats. Modi was constantly told that talking to Pakistan wouldn't bear fruit, yet New Delhi continued to make efforts to keep the dialogue going.
Over the last week two things changed. The names of Nawaz Sharif's family turned up in the Panama Papers, putting the prime minsiter under pressure on several domestic fronts. And Pakistan authorities arrested a man who they claimed was an Indian intelligence agent training Baloch separatists.
Illusory Paroxysms
It is unclear whether either of these incidents tipped Islamabad's hand – though the envoy did clearly bring up the arrest of the alleged Indian agent. But either way, that surprising spirit of cooperation seems to have been fully undone by Basit's comments, giving domestic opposition on both sides of the border more weapons with which to attack their leaders.
Where New Delhi and Islamabad go from here is anyone's guess. The Indian Express' Praveen Swami writes that the hopeful signs of cooperation over the last few months were simply "illusory paroxysms". Hawkish wisdom in India, particularly in Modi's party, has always contended that talking to Pakistan is not just useless but detrimental to India.
With his grand effort at peace running aground like this, considering there are also elections currently on in the country, will Modi decide that his kind-faced Pakistan approach no longer works?
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