Despite fervid attempts by the usual suspects and impressionable sections of the media, the government and the Prime Minister’s Office have resorted to an appreciable degree of expectations management in terms of today’s lunch between Dr Manmohan Singh and visiting Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. Unlike several previous India-Pakistan encounters — most infamously the Agra summit of 2001 — nobody is seriously talking about breakthrough solutions, dramatic joint statements or defining roadmaps for the Kashmir problem as for the entire gamut of South Asian relations.
This is not to suggest that breakthrough solutions and amity and compromise on the Kashmir front are necessarily undesirable. Nevertheless, given the relative strength and political capital of Dr Singh in India and Mr Zardari in Pakistan, given the variety of stakeholders both countries have to take into account before reaching any sort of arrangement and given the political preoccupations of ruling establishments in both capitals, this is hardly the moment to demand miracles.
India and Pakistan have indeed travelled a long way in the past decade. Unlike the period of, say, the Agra summit, when meetings between the heads of state were few and far between, there is greater engagement. Regular conversations take place at one location or the other — a conference in Seoul, a cricket match in Mohali and so on. Mr Zardari’s pilgrimage to Ajmer gives another opportunity to talk to him and gauge the mind of a man who for all his faults means India less harm than many other power players in Islamabad.
This process of frequent meetings and trans-border visits by trade ministers and the like should not be discounted. It leads to incremental gains and contributes to the atmospherics. However, it is a process and not an end in itself. These are early milestones on a long journey and not the destination.
As we begin another hot summer in the subcontinent, it is pertinent to look back exactly 10 years. At this stage in the summer of 2002, troops were mobilised and ready to go to war, only months after the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001. For a whole host of reasons, India could not actually go to war. The impact on its globalised economy, the lack of clarity on political goals in case of a conflict with Pakistan, the fact that the Afghanistan-Pakistan theatre was now a military zone for governments and nations far beyond South Asia: all of these contributed.
This led to recognition that war with Pakistan was not possible, and would no longer be India’s autonomous decision. That fundamental verity has not changed. Seen alongside the growing prosperity of the Indian middle classes and the reprioritisation of India’s foreign policy goals and positioning, it has made Pakistan less of an obsession for most Indians (outside, as the first paragraph emphasised, the usual suspects in New Delhi’s media and Track-II circuit).
As such the India-Pakistan equation is now defined by an acceptance of permanent non-war. This is very different from permanent and wide-ranging peace, as it is understood in the context of other neighbours such as, for example, Australia and New Zealand.
This framework has been with us for some time now and it has in a sense acquired a near-term permanence of its own. The phase between non-war and peace may be a transitional one but could, frankly, last a few generations. The security guarantee and the security challenge that the American presence in Afghanistan and capacity to launch manned or unmanned attacks inside Pakistani territory offer New Delhi and Islamabad respectively have created a new post-2002 normal. All India-Pakistan engagement now operates within this normal. It will be the third, invisible guest in the room when Mr Zardari eats with Dr Singh today.
That is why remarks by analysts that India-Pakistan relations are now better than US-Pakistan relations are fatuous to the point of being laughable. The American umbrella, unacknowledged or otherwise, has constricted the framework for India-Pakistan relations and limited the options either country can deploy vis-a-vis the other. That this status quo suits India is another matter.
It is equally important to understand that this status quo is not intrinsically to the liking of the Pakistani military establishment and influential elements in its polity and society. They might not be able to
do anything about it, they might themselves
undergo irreversible change in the long run — but the fact is they are clear in their minds that handling the American relationship is always going to be more critical for them than handling the India relationship. Given a choice between a Washington, DC, they can work with on their own terms and a New Delhi they can befriend, there is no question which one the Rawalpindi-Islamabad elite will choose.
This is not to suggest there is no advantage in talking to Pakistan or in making the beginnings of a commercial relationship or moving towards a more liberal visa regime. It is only to point out that to pretend the India-Pakistan dynamic has decoupled itself from the bilateral ties of both of these countries with the United States is delusional.
The “bounty” announced for information leading to the conviction of Hafiz Saeed, godfather of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, is only the latest example of this phenomenon. There is much speculation on the timing of the bounty and whether it was a signal to India. It is more likely this was part of a cat-and-mouse game being played out between the US state department and the generals in Rawalpindi and the threat perception the Americans recognise for themselves and their assets from Lashkar. India is a corollary factor (and on occasion beneficiary) in all this.
This American presence is not going to go away in a hurry. Despite election-year talk of a withdrawal from Af-Pak, significant military capacities will be retained in the region. While this reality completely dis-incentivises unilateral war-like action on India’s part, does it actually incentivise going out of the way to attempt a “peace for all times” settlement? One is not sure, especially when the status quo is so appealing.

The writer can be contacted at malikashok@gmail.com