There are very many reasons for adversarial relations between India and Pakistan. “Pakistan has made the resolution of the Jammu & Kashmir issue as a core issue for the normalised relationship,” says an Indian Army Veteran.
“It has fought four wars with India and lost. It is still engaged in proxy war in the state of J&K and has adopted terrorism as part of its statecraft,” Maj Gen Ashok Kumar, VSM (Retd) tells Financial Express Online.
In his opening remarks at the Shanghai Organisation Corporation (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) meeting in Goa last week, Indian external affairs minister Dr S Jaishankar had said combating terrorism is one of the original mandates of the group. Stressing there cannot be any justification for terrorism and it needs to be stopped in all its forms and manifestations.
Even as the ministers of the member states were discussing ways to combat the menace of terrorism, five Indian Army soldiers were killed in a blast triggered by Pakistan sponsored terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir.
According to Maj Gen Kumar who is also a Kargil Veteran “Whenever any regional or international meet takes place a lot of hopes are generated when it comes to India-China relationship or India-Pakistan relationship. India-China trend is newer and more prominent after Line of Actual Control (LAC) transgressions in the Eastern Ladakh since Apr-May 2020 but India – Pakistan is a continuing detente post independence of both these countries.”
Of late, Pakistan has also been suffering badly from the terrorism but still lacks the courage to delink from terrorism when it comes to India. Financial Express Online had reported that Defence Minister Khawaja Asif of Pakistan had not attended the SCO Defence Ministers meeting either virtually or physically. It was his deputy who attended virtually.
However, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari travelled to Goa to attend the SCO CFM meeting last week.
Maj Gen Kumar states “Though no bi-lateral meet was planned as there was no meeting ground between both the nations, the Pakistan minister used this occasion to opt for rhetoric on Kashmir raising the question of abrogation of Article 370 from J&K since Aug 5, 2019. Not only this, he offered a veiled threat on the G20 event planned in Srinagar and he was strongly rebutted by the Indian FM in the strongest terms.”
Bilawal went back with Chinese FM in tow
The dialogue between them in Pakistan culminated in unequivocal support for Pakistan on the Kashmir issue, at variance with earlier Chinese stand.
“The SCO meet has made the relationship between India and Pakistan further nosedive as it was also overlapped with multiple terrorism activities in the state of J&K which has resulted in the killing of 10 Indian soldiers in a very short span of time,” he adds.
Adding, “Invariably, the leaders make statements keeping their respective support bases but there were options from both the sides to a much better relationship even if we had major differences.”
What happened during the Foreign Ministers meet?
According to sources both India and Pakistan had made veiled attacks at each other in the room as SCO charter does not allow bilateral issues to be raised at the multilateral forum.