Goodwill and reciprocity

The Christmas day meeting between Kulbushan Jadhav and his wife and mother at the Foreign Office gave an opportunity not only for the Indian spy’s family to know that he is safe and unharmed but also showed the international community that Pakistan is treating its prisoner well. The brief meeting, which took months of negotiations with India to arrange, was a rare goodwill gesture at a time when ties between the two countries are essentially non-existent. Apart from being the right thing to do, allowing Jadhav to meet his family should ideally have led to a softening from India. Instead, the response in the Indian media has been to complain about how Jadhav was separated from his family by a glass wall and only allowed to speak through a telephone, although such measures are quite common when a prisoner is believed to be a security risk. The cynical interpretation from India seems to be that Pakistan permitted the meeting only to score brownie points before the next hearing in Jadhav’s case at the International Court of Justice; this, even though the court will not be meeting for a few months. One Indian MP even went to the extent of suggesting that Jadhav had been tortured, going on nothing more than a grainy photograph and a short video clip for evidence.

Just how poisoned relations between Pakistan and India are right now can be seen by the fact that three of our soldiers were killed by firing across the Line of Control. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has still shown no signs of resuming diplomacy even though both the Pakistani civilian government and the army chief, speaking to the Senate last week, have spoken in favour of talks with India. Jadhav is only one of many points of contention between the two countries but the outcome of his case in the ICJ could have an outsized impact on future relations. A military court had given Jadhav the death penalty in April but the verdict has since been put on hold by the ICJ. It is expected to rule on the matter sometime next year, after which there will be a lengthy appeals process. For the foreseeable future, Jadhav – who once again admitted to spying and also said he was being treated well – will be imprisoned in Pakistan. Further visits between Jadhav and his family may be possible but India too needs to try to be more cooperative and use these meetings as a way of furthering diplomatic engagement.