India had hoped for a breakthrough at the G7 summit in Canada. Indian politicians and diplomats had spent much of the past month lobbying foreign governments to isolate Pakistan after its latest conflict with India, which ended on May 10th, reports Economist.
The report says America was a particular focus: Donald Trump had upset India by praising both sides, unilaterally claiming to have brokered a ceasefire and then offering to mediate in a dispute over Kashmir, despite Indian objections. Indian officials were also seeking a trade deal with America and hoped that a meeting in Calgary between Mr Trump and Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, would help on both fronts.
It did not go according to plan. Not only did Mr Trump leave the summit early, without meeting Mr Modi. Two days later, on June 18, America’s president hosted Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, for lunch at the White House. Mr Trump and Mr Modi spoke by phone the day before, allowing India’s leader to assert that the recent conflict ended at Pakistan’s request and to reaffirm his objections to mediation on Kashmir. But Modi declined Trump’s invitation to “stop by” Washington on the way home. Field Marshal Munir’s preferential treatment is a setback for India. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, recently drew a direct link between what he called the field marshal’s “extreme religious outlook” and a terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22. And Modi has spent much of the past decade forging closer ties with America. The White House said it invited Field Marshal Asim Munir after he called for Mr Trump to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for ending the conflict with India. But they discussed Iran too. Pakistan has often offered Iran diplomatic support and has condemned Israel’s current attacks on it, so American officials could be anxious to gauge potential Pakistani responses should America become more directly involved. Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, denied on June 16 that his country would carry out a nuclear strike on Israel if it attacked Iran with atomic weapons.
Recent Senate hearings suggested further reasons for Field Marshal Asim Munir’s visit. On June 10 the commander of America’s Central Command, General Michael Kurilla, described Pakistan as a “phenomenal” counter-terrorism partner. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Pakistani forces had targeted leaders of ISIS-Khorasan, an offshoot of the group that set up a “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014. On the same day S. Paul Kapur, the nominee to be the State Department’s top South Asia official, told another Senate hearing that his approach to Pakistan would be to “pursue security co-operation” while seeking trade and investment opportunities.
Why have India’s efforts fallen short? They appear to have relied too much on the relationship forged between Modi and Trump during his first term. Trump is now more transactional, unpredictable and dismissive of his own staff’s advice. Despite talk of warming relations, America has not spared India from its trade and immigration offensives. While American officials see India as a counterweight to China, they also want to prevent Pakistan moving deeper into China’s orbit. And Pakistan has sought to cultivate ties with Trump family members, partly by presenting itself as a cryptocurrency hub.
But India has been frustrated elsewhere too, notably in the European Union, which called for restraint from both sides during the conflict and continues to advocate direct talks between them, despite Jaishankar urging it to view Pakistan as “Terroristan”.
One problem is that India has yet to provide sufficient evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in the April 22 attack. Some governments have also been unnerved by India’s vow to respond to any more such attacks with further military strikes on Pakistan. And Western officials are wary of jeopardising counter-terrorism co-operation with Pakistan.
The concern now for India is that it may struggle to win support to penalise Pakistan through international bodies. If so, India may focus more on unilateral actions. That could include an effort to renegotiate a 65-year-old river-sharing treaty. But it may also entail covert operations against militants inside Pakistan. And the next time a terrorist attack on India is linked to Pakistan, there will not be many Indian voices calling for peaceful, diplomatic counter-measures.
