Political Expediency Will Not Let India-Pakistan Thaw Last
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Analysts linked the reiteration of the observance of the truce along the de facto border to the protracted stand-off between the Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh and New Delhi’s attempts to avoid a two-front conflict with two allied adversaries. Many wondered whether the new Joe Biden administration had nudged the two countries to normalise their ties. The Pulwama attack, the subsequent Balakot strike, and India’s move to change the constitutional status of J&K escalated tensions between the two countries in 2019. The following year, the highest ceasefire violations — about 5,000 —were reported along the de facto border.
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But while the roots of the current thaw can be debated, the only question that matters for the residents in the constant line of fire along the 740-km border is whether the ceasefire will sustain long enough for them to live to fight another day, or whether their lives and livelihood will again be sacrificed at the altar of narrow political ends. The breakthrough means they can tend to their fields, and educate their children without worrying whether they would be able to return home alive.
Cross-border shelling over the years has destroyed livelihoods, left crops unharvested, and forced even well-off people to opt for small-time jobs in faraway towns to sustain their families. Most of the border areas are inaccessible and remote and were even denied mobile phone connectivity for years due to their proximity to Pakistan.
Border residents can now hope to live their lives with dignity without having to often rush to cramped bunkers to save their lives. Cross-border shelling has not just left hundreds dead but has taken an emotional toll on survivors. Many border areas such as Karnah are so remote that people have to stock up supplies for the winter months before snow cuts it off from the outside world. The cross-LoC shelling would even hamper the stocking and evacuation of wounded residents.
In Kashmir’s hillside Churnada village of 1,600 people, which lost two residents in 2020 to cross-border shelling, residents gathered at the shrine of a Muslim saint to celebrate the new agreement. They heaved a sigh of relief that they could now finally till their land, graze their cattle, and send their children to school without fear. As many as 70 civilians and 72 soldiers have died in cross-border firing since 2018. According to Reuters, nearly 300 civilians have been killed since 2014 in ceasefire violations on the Pakistani side. It reported that in the picturesque Neelum valley on the other side, hundreds of hotels and guesthouses came up when the ceasefire held as tourists visited around the year. Reuters said tourism went into a tailspin and guesthouse operators were forced to dig into their savings as skirmishes and firing increased.
The divided border residents on both sides can only hope the ceasefire is not derailed like it was in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The 2003-2008 era of peace brought rich dividends for border communities and led to the start of cross-LoC bus services. This would have been unthinkable a decade earlier, as it was akin to Pakistan’s acknowledgment of the Indian sovereignty over J&K.
The reiteration of the commitment to the truce has raised hopes for a dialogue process effectively stalled since 2008. That top national security officials are believed to have been involved in the back-channel talks ahead of the turnaround should hold out hope. A similar engagement led to the ceasefire agreement first in 2003 that translated into over a half-decade calm in Kashmir and a degree of healing. Build on the current moment.
The piece was first carried in Hindustan Times
Sameer Arshad Khatlani is an author-journalist based in New Delhi. He has been a Senior Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times, India’s second-biggest English newspaper. Khatlani worked in a similar capacity with The Indian Express, India's most influential newspaper known for its investigative journalism, until June 2018. Born and raised in Kashmir, he began his career with the now-defunct Bangalore-based Vijay Times in 2005 as its national-affairs correspondent. He joined Times of India, one of the world's largest selling broadsheets, in 2007. Over the next nine years, he was a part of the paper's national and international newsgathering team as an Assistant Editor.
Khatlani has reported from Iraq and Pakistan and covered elections and national disasters. He received a master’s degree in History from the prestigious Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi. Khatlani is a fellow with Hawaii-based American East-West Center established by the US Congress in 1960 to promote better relations and understanding with Asian, and Pacific countries through cooperative study, research, and dialogue.
Penguin published Khatlani’s first book The Other Side of the Divide: A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan in February 2020. Eminent academic and King’s college professor, Christophe Jaffrelot, has called the book ‘an erudite historical account... [that] offers a comprehensive portrait of Pakistan, including the role of the army and religion—not only Islam’.
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