Why Tensions are Rising Fast Between India and Pakistan (And Why the World Should Care)

Abdul Basit

Security, Asia

Saner elements on both sides should try to de-escalate the current atmosphere of war hysteria and earnest efforts must be made to restart the stalled peace process.

The relative stabilization of India–Pakistan relations following the US intervention in Afghanistan was an exception rather than the norm. Recent developments in the region indicate a return to old patterns of rivalry.

When the United States drew down troops from Afghanistan in December 2014, there was much debate about the implications of this development for the South Asian security landscape, especially the India–Pakistan rivalry. For its part, the US used its diplomatic clout and other means to make sure that regional animosity between the two South Asian arch-foes did not undermine its mission in Afghanistan. The period following the US intervention in Afghanistan witnessed the relative stabilization of political disputes, territorial conflicts, and border hostilities between India and Pakistan.

One school of thought argues that the US presence fundamentally altered the geopolitical realities of the region. During this period, the US role as a mediator between India and Pakistan made conventional war between the two neighbors costly and unlikely. Examples include the introduction of several confidence building measures, the 2003 border cease fire agreement, Pakistani assurances to clampdown on anti-India militant groups and stop cross-border infiltration in Indian Kashmir, and the expansion and improvement of nuclear programmes between the two countries.

According to this school, this was the beginning of a new era of peace-making and conflict resolution in South Asia. This opinion largely comes from the pacifist South Asian lobby comprising former diplomats, scholars, journalists and peace activists who remain actively engaged in several Track II initiatives between India and Pakistan. They believe that an increasing level of people-to-people contact, interaction between the two countries’ civil societies and youth on social media are creating a new constituency for peace capable of altering the adversarial history of the subcontinent.