New Delhi: India’s diplomatic riposte of downsizing the respective high commissions in Islamabad and New Delhi to merely 30 personnel, and summarily withdrawing the corresponding military attaches in response to the Pahalgam terrorist attack, in which 26 were killed, was a low-risk measure to dial down the heat, without shutting the door completely between two nuclear-armed neighbours.

A cross-section of diplomats and security officials in Delhi also believed it to be a ‘long overdue’ move, as the massive contingent of diplomats and associated staff in the two missions, were simply unable to perform their fundamental task of bettering bilateral ties.

For nearly six years, since August 2019, following Delhi’s reading down of Kashmir’s Article 370, the two missions have operated without high commissioners. Soon after, more than half their staff of around 150-odd personnel were withdrawn, as relations deteriorated further and thereafter both missions have been headed by charges d’affaires, supported by a skeletal staff that will now be further truncated.

Diplomacy is all about keeping one’s country flag flying in foreign, often hostile lands and furthering bilateral relations through established norms: people-to-people contact, liberal issuance of visas, trade, cultural exchanges and facilitating contact between political, diplomatic and even military leaders, in addition to other sundry responsibilities that can, and often do, advance mutual ties.

But the Indian and Pakistani missions, constructed, staffed and maintained at enormous expense, have over decades fulfilled none of these requirements.

Relevance

The proliferating animosity between the neighbours, underscored by enduring territorial disputes, terrorist attacks, interminable exchanges of artillery and small arms fired at their borders, amongst myriad other historic antagonisms had ensured that the two diplomatic missions with their fake bonhomie and irrelevant demarches, had failed miserably in facilitating any kind of reciprocal détente or rapprochement.

Embassies are normally accepted conduits for overt and, in some instances, back-channel diplomacy, especially during times of crisis, but nothing could be further from this endeavour with regard to India-Pakistan ties. There was minimal public exchange between them with tourism, trade, academic collaboration, and even sporting links had altogether broken down.

Hence, a reduction in embassy staff to merely 30, as decided on Wednesday by India’s Cabinet Committee on Security or CCS, was symbolic or of little or no consequence to the overall diplomatic opus between the warring neighbours.

In short, any hint of furthering diplomacy via the two High Commissions has, for years been no more possible than wishing for dry water. And, trimming them further was highly unlikely to even adversely move the needle even minutely on the ground towards ‘punishing’ or ‘disciplining’ Islamabad.

Souring

The overwhelming view in the respective nuclear-armed establishments is that either side is bent on dismembering and destroying the other by fuelling ethnic and sectarian tensions, amply abundant for exploitation. The underlying cynical reasoning, albeit in varying vehemence, is that individual survival and wellbeing was possible only if the other side was destroyed or, as an acceptable and workable alternative, appreciably weakened.

Withdrawing defence attaches, as announced by the CCS was also inconsequential, as they too were unable to justifiably perform their designated roles, as the concerned officers and their families were constantly shadowed and harassed by heavies on either side. The glaring difference was that Pakistani embassy diplomats, including defence attaches and staff had an easier ride in Delhi compared to their hassled and fraught counterparts in Islamabad, though doubtlessly the former will disagree with this assessment.

Many Indians, for instance, could previously socially interact in Delhi with the host of genuinely hospitable Pakistani diplomats, without fearing a visit from Indian security operatives, followed by endless and mindless interrogation. The reverse occurred in Pakistan with locals, however privileged, who were prohibited from socialising with Indian diplomats unless approved by the authorities. Consequently, few Pakistanis were willing to run the formidable gauntlet of the dreaded security ‘agencies’ or ‘mehakma’ (department) as these were euphemistically termed, inhibiting the fundamental function of spreading bonhomie via diplomatic missions in foreign lands.

A report card

So, this begets the larger question: Why even maintain the individual embassies at their inflated levels of representation, as several diplomats who were posted in Islamabad and earlier in the Indian consulate at Karachi, conceded that these missions had achieved nothing in fostering good neighbourliness?

Till recently, a stint in Pakistan for Indian Foreign Service (IFS) diplomats was widely considered a career booster and some who had been posted there had ended up as Foreign Secretaries, implying thereby that their blank report card in Islamabad was worthy of high reward.

But in light of moribund returns in recent decades, this veneer had worn off and Pakistan had emerged in IFS circles more as a ‘punishment’, rather than a professionally ’rewarding’ posting. Ironically, even designated, or ‘declared’ spies from India’s various security agencies like the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing, were unable to perform their clandestine tasks and were now loath to a three-year stint in Islamabad as it exacted a heavy toll not only on themselves but also their families.

Islamabad’s fundamental reality is that the Pakistan Army, the country’s principal fulcrum of power, is the least interested in conflict resolution. Instead, it is intent not only on stockpiling nuclear assets but cosseting Islamist groups to wage low-cost war against India under the strategic radar.

Weary pugilists

US scholar C. Christine Fair of Georgetown University in Washington D.C. , argues in her excellently researched book The Pakistan Army’s Way of War that “Pakistan’s revisionism persists regarding its efforts not only to undermine the territorial status quo in Kashmir but also to undermine India’s position in the region and beyond”. She identifies Pakistan as a ‘greedy state’, willing to suffer any number of military defeats in its efforts to undermine India.  But under no circumstances, she declares, will it acquiesce in any way to India, as this would mean the ‘unthinkable’: defeat for the Pakistan Army.

Conversely, Fair argues that retaining even the ability to challenge India is a victory for the Pakistan Army. She also contends that despite its many setbacks in wars with India- in 1971 and Kargil, the Pakistan Army continues to view itself as India’s peer competitor and demands that Delhi, the US and the world treat it as such.

In conclusion, like weary pugilists, leaders from both sides have been circling each other for most of their 78 years as independent states, waging four wars, periodically mobilising their armies for battle and exchanging nuclear and military threats. This has been frequently interspersed with Pakistan-sponsored terrorist strikes, like the one at Pahalgam, jerky half-baked treaties, ‘composite’ dialogues and stillborn peace initiatives. In turn, this had rendered the region highly unstable and ‘nuclear vulnerable’ due primarily to their seemingly un-resolvable dispute over Kashmir, divided between them, but claimed in entirety by both.

So, other than expending perennially scarce financial resources, why commit competent Indian diplomats and defence attaches to the high commission in Pakistan when they could be more gainfully employed elsewhere?