India-Pakistan in 2019: Mistrust plagues relations

KARACHI, Pakistan

From almost on the brink of war in the beginning of the year to the opening a peace corridor for Sikh pilgrims in November, the two nuclear-armed neighbors, India and Pakistan, remained largely on the edge in 2019.

In February, following the militant attack in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir that killed dozens of soldiers, New Delhi carried out airstrikes in Pakistan, igniting a military stand-off.

A day later, Islamabad retaliated by dropping bombs inside Jammu and Kashmir, near military installations and shot down an Indian jet. It also arrested an Indian pilot, who was released later as a "goodwill gesture" in order to put relations back on the track.

But, the gesture failed to calm nerves. In a fresh wave of border clashes along the Line of Control (LoC), a de facto border that divides the disputed Himalayan valley between Pakistan and India Kashmir, dozens of soldiers and civilians were killed from both sides.

The year also saw the two countries fighting a legal battle in the International Court of Justice in The Hague over the issue of Kulbhushan Jadhav, an Indian national facing death sentence in Pakistan.

The perennial enmity deepened further, after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi government, not only revoked the special status of Kashmir but also divided the disputed Muslim majority state into two centrally administered territories. The move angered Pakistan, which downgraded diplomatic ties by expelling Indian envoy from Islamabad.

"The whole year, especially February fared badly in terms of relations between the two countries. At one point, they were on the verge of war," Ikram Sehgal, an Islamabad-based defense and security analyst, told Anadolu Agency.

He said the events that unfolded in 2019 have made it one of the worst years in the relations between the two countries.

"It [India's intrusion] was unprecedented because its jets crossed not only the LoC, but the international border [between Pakistan and India]. It almost pushed the region close to a full-scale war", he said.

- Nuclear deterrent and diplomacy prevented war

According to Sehgal, some elements in the Pakistani establishment wanted a tit-for-tat response. But the saner elements led by the Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa prevailed because there were no casualties in the Indian attack.

Munawar Hussain Panhwer, an assistant professor at the Islamabad-based Quaid-I-Azam International University, believed that there is no possibility of any change in the relations between the two countries.

"I don't see any change in the current situation in the near future until unless there is a major change either in India's leadership or the policy. Chances are scanty for both," he said.

Sehgal said it was actually the nuclear deterrent that prevented further escalation.

"It was Pakistan's nuclear arsenal that refrained India from launching a large-scale invasion despite having a numerical advantage in terms of conventional war," said Sehgal, who is also the editor of Pakistan Defense Journal.

He, however, cautioned that continuing clashes along the LoC may turn into a bigger conflict.

But Panhwer said, it was the international diplomacy that prevented major conflict because the world cannot afford a nuclear war.

Even as the opening of a historic peace corridor to allow Indian pilgrims visa-free access to Sikhism's holiest shrines in Kartarpur invigorated hopes of normalization of relations, closer towards the end of the 2019, India’s adoption of the controversial citizenship law brought the situation back to the brink.

The new law grants citizenship rights to six minority groups migrating to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan and allegedly discriminates against Muslims.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan launched fresh assault and warned of a looming refugee crisis in South Asia due to the steps taken by the Indian government.