Mr. Modi’s aggressive branding for a decade did not weigh heavily on voters who have expressed a clear desire to improve their economic well-being. While India’s economy has grown at a healthy pace with noticeable achievements in the country’s infrastructure, ports, electronics, and banking reforms, it has also, yet again, brought to the fore the structural problems that continue to afflict India’s ambition of being a global growth engine. An ill-designed and implemented uniform tax regime, demonetization, and the pandemic have all but decimated small and medium-sized companies. Soaring inflation, unemployment, rising household indebtedness, income distress with the farmer’s spirited agitation against revoking the MSP scheme, Rajput anger, the controversial rollout of the Agniveer recruitment scheme for the military, fear among India’s Scheduled Tribes (ST), Scheduled Castes (SC), OBCs (Other Backward Castes) and indigenous people or Adivasis of a change in the constitution and resultant guarantees were the chief economic reasons which added to BJP losing its majority. Mr. Modi’s election pitch of “Ab ki baar, 400 paar” only compounded these fears, which the opposition deftly exploited. A serious fissure that deserves closer attention is the fissures within the Sangh Parivar. The RSS cadres were mobilized in the last stages of the election. This may have been deliberate, particularly after the BJP’s national president, J.P. Nadda’s comments on the “BJP having outgrown the RSS.” In his first statement after the elections, the RSS Sarsanghchalak (Chief), Mohan Bhagwat, said, “A true sevak doesn’t have arrogance and serves people by maintaining dignity.” The forceful approach to party politics by the Modi-Shah combine also alienated many people within the party. The succession battle within the BJP and the national aspirations of Yogi Adityanath may have contributed to Mr. Modi’s loss in the Hindi heartland’s most prized state of Uttar Pradesh.

Finally, how must Pakistan navigate the labyrinths of its relationship with India? Particularly with an enormous baggage of history, conflict, mistrust, bitterness, and what increasingly seems an unbridgeable gulf? The state of Pakistan is found wanting in search of an India policy. This assumes greater importance at a time when competition for influence escalates in the Pacific, the Ukraine war, Middle East conflict, and our strategic partner coming under further contest.

Matters have only been aggravated by Pakistan’s self-created vortex of underlying internal dysfunction presenting itself in an economic meltdown, deep polarization, tense frontiers, and terrorism exacerbating external policy postulates and severely constraining policy choices.

It is imperative for Pakistan to understand that the Indian policy of non-engagement or even the conduct of proper bilateral relations between the two states has somewhat been institutionalized in New Delhi’s North and South Block. The Indian leadership does not see an incentive to speak to Pakistan. On the matter of trade, too, our bilateral trade imbalance has consistently been in India’s favor. Nor do our exports complement what India imports or sources from the world. Twenty years ago, Pakistan’s economy was 18% the size of India’s; now that figure is only 9%. Significant concessions by Pakistan only resulted in a ceasefire on the LOC, more due to India’s preoccupation in its Eastern theatre then.

For too long, Pakistan has played “ready for talks” and vacillated between engagement/disengagement, geo-economics/geo-strategy, trade, and tariffs. Eschewing our differences, the interregnum with India should lay the groundwork for realizing the socio-economic aspirations of our people. A long-term policy on India, with all stakeholders, must be framed while protecting our national interests with that country. The policy must be characterized by patience and persistence for opportunity and allowance of the natural course to play out in India. India’s fault lines will present themselves with a leadership struggle within the ruling party, economic disparity between the Indian North and prosperous South (which resists Hindu majoritarianism), incumbency, and socio-economic discontent particularly among backward, scheduled castes, tribes, and minorities that feel threatened and left out from the Indian success story.

Mr. Jaishankar’s recent statement on finding a “solution to cross-border terrorism” is a nuanced utterance by a seasoned practitioner of diplomacy. Some would like to interpret it as an opening but is more indicative of aggressive Pulwama-style posturing, particularly to shore up the BJP and Mr. Modi’s depleted voter base. We must be guarded yet continue to extend all possible support to the Kashmiris for their universal concept of self-determination. The events in the Middle East have only swelled the sentiments of the global public opinion towards that end. Silence can be eerie in Kashmir and a sign of things to come.

Muhammad Nasir Chaudhry
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.