• In the past, India-Pakistan relations are characterized by intense engagement, high-value terror attacks, Indian responses, a breakdown of talks, and eventual resumption of talks.
• Today, India-Pakistan relations have entered an age of minimalism as there is very little bilateral contact, and there is no political will for any grand relationship.
• However, there is a certain cold peace on the Line of Control, inside Kashmir, and in the verbal exchanges between the two sides.

Past Events between India and Pakistan

• In 2014, the government began engaging with Pakistan.
• There was the invitation extended to the then Pakistan Prime Minister for PM’s inaugural function in India, which the Pakistani PM attended.
• Then in 2015, Indian prime Minister’s visited Lahore surprisly, and there were discreet meetings between the two National Security Advisers (NSA).
• In  2016, even when the Pathankot airbase was attacked by a Pakistan-based terrorist organization, India hoped that things would get better.
• The September 2016 terror attack in Uri, which led to the ‘Surgical Strikes’ by India, practically froze the relationship.
• February 2019 terror attack in Pulwama and the government’s decisions made in August 2019 on Kashmir put the relationship in a deep freeze.
• Such historical learning about the futility of pursuing a normal relationship with Pakistan has led to this current phase of minimalism.
• As a result, India-Pakistan relations today have been reduced to a backchannel conversation between the Indian NSA and the Pakistan Army establishment.

Reasons for the current position between the two countries

• The relationship is a history of missed opportunities, failed attempts at conflict resolution, political inability to resolve conflicts due to the dual power center in Pakistan, and the lack of political will on either side.
• These disappointments have led to a recognition in India, that making comprehensive peace with Pakistan is a fool’s errand.
• There is a recognition on both sides bilateral conflict resolution may get harder due to rising populism fuelled by online hate.
• India also realizes that the traditional logic in India is that it should first settle its conflicts with Pakistan and then move on to addressing the bigger challenges.
• It may take India nowhere for none of the key bilateral conflicts between them has been resolved since the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960.
• There is also a certain confidence in India today that it does not need to talk to Pakistan to ensure peace inside Kashmir.
• Both sides today are preoccupied with other geopolitical challenges — Pakistan with the Taliban-led Afghanistan, and India with an aggressive China on its borders — thereby keeping them busy elsewhere than with each other.

Age of minimalism in India-Pakistan relations

It is characterized by several noticeable features.

• The interlocutors on either side have adopted a clinical approach to dealing with the other side: discuss and deal with only those issues that need urgent attention.
• The unmissable focus is on conflict management, with little focus on conflict resolution.
• Kashmir, for instance, is discussed in the context of the modalities for sustaining the ceasefire agreement, and not the historical political conflict over Kashmir.
• But given that the current engagement is decidedly for tactical purposes, larger political issues are kept outside of its purview.
• It has so far served as a useful platform for clarifying red lines, expectation management, and achieving limited but clear outcomes.
• The 2021 February ceasefire agreement is one such outcome, and the relative reduction in violence in Kashmir is another.
• India has traditionally been of the view that it would only engage with the political establishment in Islamabad (or whoever runs the show in Islamabad).
• This had a structural issue — attempts at conflict resolution by India with Pakistan did not always have the blessings of Rawalpindi, which occasionally torpedoed such attempts.

The current arrangement, wherein there is little contact between India and Islamabad but between Rawalpindi and India, has not only corrected the structural problem in India-Pakistan relations, it also appears that the Pakistan Army takes this direct approach more seriously. To that extent, this is a win-win strategy.