Parth Raman
The title of this opinion-based article has been taken by the influence of the blockbuster Bollywood movie “Tiger Zinda Hai” which means “Tiger is alive”!
On the 15th of this month, S. Jaishankar (External Affairs Minister of India & Former Diplomat) is leading India’s delegation to the Council of Heads of Government called by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) which is hosted by Islamabad, Pakistan this time. Behind the scenes, this is the first visit scheduled of S. Jaishankar to Pakistan after taking an oath of the Minister of External Affairs. Before this Sushma Swaraj was the last External Affairs Minister of India accompanied with Shri. Narendra Modi landed in Pakistan 9 years back from today.
Background before visiting
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is an effective organisation with a great vision. A trivial about SCO, it is a cooperation among states that share borders or have diplomatic interests/benefits with Europe, in general, it emphasises covering the region of Eurasia. On 4th October, Dr S. Jaishankar confirmed his visit to Islamabad. In the very first instance, he made clear that this visit would only have a stagnance in terms of multilateral events and not to have any bilateral talks.
In my opinion, Jaishankar has a clear stance towards his foreign policy with Pakistan on not opening any front for exchange. He somewhat also won the battle on the isolation of Pakistan in the sphere. Further in this OpEd, I will describe the context of SAARC, but two countries of SAARC are highly affected by the terrorism policy of Pakistan which are India and Afghanistan.
To understand the diplomatic win of S. Jaishankar, we have to analyse three recent incidents. Firstly, before having this prestigious Council of Heads of Government met under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Pakistan took a loan from the International Monetary Fund for their breads. Secondly, the ongoing crisis in the whole of Pakistan by the Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf party which is led by people for illegally confining the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Iman Khan, additionally, they have officially invited S. Jaishankar to join their protest against the undemocratic and non-elected PM and army dominance. In addition to this thirdly, The Taliban government in Afghanistan spoke to the officials of Pakistan mentioning the status of bad governance and asking them to report with possible peace solution. It would be harsh in my opinion to say that this is a matter of introspection for the legislative representatives of Pakistan that the government like the Taliban is also giving a mandate and guiding opinion in a similar way to the United States of America used to give.
Recent diplomatic strick by Dr S. Jaishankar in New York
A month before, all ministers having External Affairs charges and the Heads of State met in UNGA to talk about so-called diplomacy. But Dr S. Jaishankar started his speech with, “Namaste from 1.4 Billion people of the Bharat”. The statement made an impact showing a mandate to speak on behalf of a large portion of the globe. India in 2019 made a policy of diplomatically boycotting Pakistan on major fronts.
Sideline to the UNGA meeting, Muhammad Yunus (Chief Adviser of the Interim Government of Bangladesh) and Shehbaz Sharif (Prime Minister of Pakistan) attempted to schedule an official session of the SAARC during their bilateral talk, it is a platform for the regional corporation among South Asian states, and the South Asian nations was having the idea to develop it in a way to have a replica of European Union. Muhammad Yunus talked about his intentions numerous times to revive the status of SAARC even before having constitutional powers in Bangladesh through unconstitutional means. Here everyone’s eyes were on Nepal which showed interest in scheduling a met of the SAARC nations, but in the limelight, it did not get a spot! On establishing the communication with the office of Dr. S. Jaishankar they got a direct denial. Bharat is no longer interested in holding any SAARC meetings after the 2017 Uri Attack.
Interpretation and analysis of the author
The democracy and constitutional values in Pakistan are very fragile after the last elections when the non-elected candidate took the oath as the Prime Minister of Pakistan and he still represents the nation on various platforms. The military intervention in Pakistan has been very prominent since its formation because of the badly implemented and interpreted mixed legal system.
We can’t forget a recent Pakistan army attempt to “forcefully” arrest sitting Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Aman Ali Gandapur a few days back who is an aide of the imprisoned leader and elected leader Imran Khan. Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf party has a government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and within a month more than 500 protestants have been imprisoned by the government.
According to me, this upcoming Council of Heads of Government called by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will not be a safe venture to be hosted in Islamabad, again it’s not completely my opinion, Pakistan’s Defence Minister accused Imran Khan’s PTI plot to sabotage upcoming SCO Summit. But he has to be clear that if any state is hosting diplomats, their security is a subject matter of the host state under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
In concluding remarks, I would like to quote Dr S. Jaishankar during his press conference while confirming the schedule of his visit to Pakistan; “I will behave myself”.
The views and opinions expressed by the author/s in this article are their personal opinions and do not represent the views of PureSociology. You can contact the author/s at officeofparthraman@gmail.com . The details of the author/s are:
Parth Raman is a Legal Consultant and Public Policy Researcher with a keen interest in Diplomacy. He is a Law Graduate and pursing Masters in Human Rights and Multi-Level Governance from University of Padua, Italy.
