It’s business as usual between Pakistan and India

Marvi Sirmed

Will both countries be able to shun acrimony and focus on Covid-19 this year?

As spread of coronavirus becomes a pandemic, many countries seem to have started moving away from multilateralism and the globalization framework.

This is happening despite the obvious need in times like these for concerted efforts to save human lives.

In the South Asian region, Pakistan and India, long-standing rivals, are still behaving in a business-as-usual manner.

Since the beginning of the current year, which corresponds closely with the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a continuation of the hyper-nationalist rhetoric from the last year that started with the Pulwama attack, followed by a violation of Pakistan’s airspace by Indian Air Force jets.

The Pakistan Air Force had retaliated within 24 hours, leading to a dogfight that resulted in the downing of an Indian fighter jet and the capture of its pilot.

The jingoism that followed intensified after India unilaterally altered the constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir, which had been a special territory since 1947.

Even the inauguration of Kartarpur Corridor– to allow access to a place of great religious significance to Sikh community – could not stop the war of words waged mainly by Indian media.

This was mainly due to the impression that the Kartarpur Corridor was a strategic move by Pakistan and not a confidence-building measure towards conflict resolution.

In February this year, New Delhi saw its worst communal riots that largely targeted its Muslim community.

This became one more reason for toxic exchanges between media people, jingoist right-wing politicians and government representatives from both countries.

In March, when the pandemic truly started hurting South Asian nations, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed a videoconference among SAARC countries to ponder over common solutions to the shared problem posed by the pandemic. India proposed an e-platform of health officials to exchange information and expertise to tackle Covid-19. Pakistan agreed and two such meetings were held in March.

Despite India’s call for cooperation and Pakistan’s participation in the proceedings, the crucial human rights aspect is missing from the entire discourse. For example, a large number of Pakistanis and Indians are still languishing in the other country’s jails.

Most of these prisoners are fishermen or farmers who mistakenly crossed the border or strayed into territorial waters of the hostile neighbour. Now that governments in both countries are devising parameters to release some of the prisoners in the wake of the pandemic, it is imperative that they heed the civil society’s request for releasing each other’s prisoners too.

For the states to be able to work together to contain the virus, they must show readiness to review actions based solely on mutual hostility.

Many of these prisoners have already spent years, if not decades, in these prisons. It is high time they returned to their home countries and their families.
 Pakistan’s repeated offers for bilateral dialogue, and the sentiment inherent in India’s offer for cooperation in March had rekindled hopes for an improvement in the tense relations between the two countries.

However, proving true to their tradition, the security establishments of both the countries have once again dashed the hopes. Amid the pandemic breakout, the violations of ceasefire along the Line of Control peaked in the first trimester of 2020.

Till April 15, there have been 700 such violations. This is more than double the number of violations over a similar period in 2019.

Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar, the spokesman for Pakistan’s military, has accused India of committing 708 ceasefire violations since the beginning of the year. He has revealed that two civilians have died and 42 others have been injured due to the Indian shelling.

For his part, the Indian military spokesman has accused Pakistan of 1,100 ceasefire violations in 2020. As both militaries engage each other in this gory contest, the ultimate casualty of the brutal game is peaceful civilians on both sides of the LoC.

In the wake of these skirmishes, several hundred people have been displaced from their homes amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

As of April 22, the Covid-19 death toll in India stood at 681 out of a total of 21,403 confirmed cases.

In Pakistan, there have so far been 212 deaths out of 10,076 patients.

With a combined population of 1.6 billion, the densely-populated archrivals are face-to-face with a far bigger challenge than they might realize.

The Indian media went into a frenzy in March following reports that their government was buying over 16,000 light machine guns worth $116 million.

Within two weeks, however, the Indian defence minister had to ask the defence industry vendors to start manufacturing medical equipment.

In Pakistan, the defence services secured the biggest supplementary grant of more than Rs 36 billion during the outgoing fiscal year before seeking about 4.7 percent higher allocations for 2020-21.

On April 10 this year, a week before Prime Minister Imran Khan appealed to the international community for help, he approved a technical supplementary grant of Rs 11.483 billion for Special Security Division for CPEC, and Rs 468.2 million for Special Communications Organisation (SCO) run by the military.

Looking at these decisions, it seems that both the countries are moving ahead with prioritizing military power over people’s lives.

No wonder the pro-peace civil society is discredited and accused of being traitors in both countries. The media – barring exceptions – is being used to foment xenophobia among the masses.

It is clear that security establishments in both countries understand the horrors of war and the devastation a war could bring to their lands.

Many offers of peace talks from Pakistani side bear witness to the fact that an all-out conventional war might also be out of question.

The obvious question then is: why do they keep nurturing the hostility?

The most plausible answer is that everyone, except the ordinary people, is benefiting from the status quo.

The hatred of one’s neighbours is needed on both sides to ensure that the defence industry prospers. Corona or no corona, it seems there won’t be a war in South Asia and there won’t be a peace either.

Even as the pandemic spreads, ceasefire violations along the Line of Control have peaked again. There have been 700 violations this year, 100 per cent more than over a similar period in 2019.