Multiple fronts

As tensions between India and Pakistan continue to climb higher, multiple fronts have been opened up. Since October 27, there have been several cross-border firing incidents, with claims and counter-claims pouring in. India’s assertion that it killed 15 Rangers personnel in firing on Thursday         after its BSF forces came under attack from across the border has been firmly denied by the ISPR. Pakistan says six civilians, including two women have been killed in the Shakargarh and Nikial sector as a result of unprovoked firing by Indian troops and that the BSF has been consistently adopting hostile tactics on this constantly volatile line. As a result, there have been over 20 injuries to civilians and villages in the line of fire on both sides of the border are suffering as persons most at risk move away. These people who live close to the border are always the innocent casualties of hostility between the two neighbours. For the first time in many months, there has also been another manifestation of this. On October 27, India accused a staffer at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi of involvement in spying and asked him to leave the country. On the same day, Pakistan expelled an Indian diplomat on the same charges. Such expulsions were especially common in the 1990s. The fact that they have begun again simply demonstrates the new low to which Indo-Pak relations have sunk.

At the present moment, there seems to be little constructive effort to lift them to a more even plane. India has rejected negotiations offered by Pakistan over Kashmir and the tone of the Modi government remains particularly hostile and particularly bitter. Modi’s failure to win support for his stance on Kashmir at several international meetings over the past month may be contributing to this. Certainly, the Indian media is playing its part, regularly accusing Pakistan of false accusations and of deliberately stirring up trouble as well as of intervention in Kashmir. The unfolding scenario shows just how unstable the relationship between the two countries is and the extent to which it keeps the region unsafe. As a consequence, people living along the long border that separates the subcontinental neighbours are suffering once more and it does not appear any reduction in aggression hangs around the corner.