New Delhi: India and Pakistan issued a joint statement Thursday agreeing to observe a ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. In episode 691 of ThePrint’s ‘Cut the Clutter’, Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta explains what led the two sides to make this move, why it’s significant and what lies ahead.
This ceasefire agreement goes back to the 2003 truce that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had settled on. Since then, the ceasefire has broken down every now and then. In 2008, it had seemed like former PM Manmohan Singh and the Pakistani government were about to reach some broad understanding. However, through that tense process, terror attacks in India picked up and peaked during the 26/11 attack in Mumbai.
Gupta explained that since then the process has been restored a few times but has been breached more often. It became worse over the years, particularly in 2019 after the status of Kashmir was changed.
He said that this new agreement is a ‘big deal’. In just 2020, there were 5,133 ceasefire violations and 46 soldiers, mostly on the India side, were killed. This year, until now, 300 violations have taken place and there has been one fatality already.
In 2018, there were 1,629 ceasefire violations. The next year, in 2019, they doubled to about 3,200 violations. “As you can see, in 2020, it had further increased by 50 per cent,” Gupta said.
He asked, “So now, what do we look at? We look at how (the agreement came about) … and what next?”
The Director General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two sides issued this joint statement. One can be certain that this is an agreement since there is a joint statement, Gupta asserted, adding that it is certain this didn’t happen ‘dramatically’.
“It is now quite evident that the two sides have been talking for at least the past three months at the NSA level,” he said. India’s National Security Advisor (NSA) is Ajit Doval. In Pakistan, there is no designated NSA, “but there is this gentleman called Moeed Yusuf, who is Special Assistant on National Security Division and Strategic Policy Planning to Pakistan PM Imran Khan,” Gupta said.
He also said that Yusuf was a ‘bridge’ between Imran Khan and the General Headquarters in Pakistan. He added that Doval and Yusuf had been ‘talking’ although Yusuf has denied this.
I have seen claims by Indian media that attribute today's ceasefire announcement between Pakistani and Indian DGMOs to back-channel diplomacy between me and the Indian NSA. This is baseless. No such talks have taken place between me and Mr. Doval. 1/4
— Moeed W. Yusuf (@YusufMoeed) February 25, 2021
Last October, in an interview, Yusuf had claimed that India approached Pakistan for talks.
The first indication
Gupta then looked at what could have been the first indication that something “interesting was in the offing”. He was reminded of a video of Army Chief General Naravane speaking at the Vivekanand Foundation.
In his speech, Naravane said that the Army has to be prepared not just for a two-front war, but a two-and-a-half front war that is Pakistan, China and the internal security situation. He also added that unsettled borders are in nobody’s interest. These unsettled borders mean tensions on the border.
He also said that until one can settle the border, they have to find arrangements to keep the peace at the border. “So, those were wide indications that something was being worked upon. And also that was the government’s larger thought process at strategic levels,” Gupta said.
Even Naravane’s Pakistani counterparts Qamar Bajwa, said “Pakistan and India must resolve the long standing issue of Jammu and Kashmir in a dignified and peaceful manner.”
For Gupta, an “interesting” takeaway from Naravane’s speech was that he said a categorical ‘no’ when he was asked whether the India forces saw collusive action between Pakistan and China during the stand-off in eastern Ladakh.
“This reassurance also reflected the mindset on the Indian side, strategically, that it is not necessary to have a two-front threat all the time, because it doesn’t work for anybody,” Gupta said.
Gupta also argued that between India, Pakistan and China, no country could achieve “any objective, political or strategic objective through military action, through combat or through a war.”
All three nations have this realisation, so they use ‘coercive diplomacy’ instead.
Also read: Pakistan could remain on FATF grey list as France, EU nations want it to do more against terror
Picture from Pakistan’s side
Gupta said that Pakistan had been watching the tensions between India and China. If the situation worsened, then Pakistan would have seen less of an incentive now to let India off the hook. “They would then want to keep India fully engaged on their frontiers,” Gupta said.
Pakistan is also a “big economic mess”, he said. They have been forced to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) again and again. Furthermore, IMF puts tough conditions on its borrowings.
“It’s possible that Pakistan now sees it should leverage its geography because it is located between Central Asia, Afghanistan, India, China and the Arabian Sea,” he explained.
Pakistan also has a very ‘unsettled’ Afghanistan at one end. Additionally, the disparity between India and Pakistan is much greater than the disparity between India and China. The country also has to tackle a big challenge in Baluchistan.
“So maybe, Pakistanis are searching for some peace in the long run? … But for now, yes, you can see that they have plenty of reasons to calm down,” Gupta said.
Shift in America
The new administration in America affects both Pakistan and India. As long as former President Donald Trump was around, he caused the “greatest strategic disruption in the history of the world since second World War”. Gupta revealed that neither Trump’s allies nor his adversaries could trust him.
With President Joe Biden, there is some ‘consistency’ in US policies.
“This administration will have lesser patience with anybody who tries to use military methods or quasi-military methods … to achieve its political objectives,” Gupta said.
India de-triangulating
Gupta refers to his earlier ‘National Interest‘ column where he made his case for why India has to break out of the ‘strategic triangle’ with China and Pakistan. He had argued, “In my view, it is always less difficult to make peace with the side that is weaker than you because you have the leverage and you can be generous or seem to be generous.”
He asserted that no country can fight and win a two-front war. Gupta hoped that this would be the beginning of a new process for India, where it is strategically de-triangulating itself from China and Pakistan.
Watch the full CTC episode here:
Also read: Coercion, not accommodation — India and China need a new compact for 3,488-km border
Too much of spin by Shekhar Gupta, not convincing.
China now wants to make nice with the Indians (for the time being), and as their vassal Pak, is owned lock, stock and barrel, they will have no choice but to do their mandarin masters’ bidding .Yes, it would be great if it actually becomes a reality but history is replete with such ‘cessation of hostilities’ and, Pak, being who they are by nature, will more than likely, return to their old form in no time.
“In my view, it is always less difficult to make peace with the side that is weaker than you …”
Not in this situation. If Pakistan decides to be a vassal state of China then it will do China’s bidding.
“He asserted that no country can fight and win a two-front war.”
Why not if the country is militarily stronger than both the other nations combined? This is not likely to be the case with India in the immediate future.
It’s tactical, not strategic. No need for bombastic hog wash such as “detriangulating” etc. trying to sound very erudite. Pakistanis have had enough of a clobbering for now, and we’d much rather focus on China, so it suits both. But it will be back to firing as usual soon enough. That’s all there is to it.
In my view, cease fire violations by Pakistan had two purposes: One, to create scare amongst the Indian villages situated along the LoC or IB; two, to create diversion to enable terrorist bandicoots to slip into India. Does this cease fire mean that both the purposes are abandoned, at least for the time being, by Pakistan? Difficult to repose any confidence in the future conduct of Pakistan. Even after 2003 Operation parakram and resultant detante, Pakistan committed Mumba train blasts of 2006 and 26/11 terrorist acts which are seared into our memory. So the rule is “Trust, but verify”.