WHILE Pakistan’s squabbling politicians have paralysed the nation’s capital in a naked power struggle, the emerging threat to the country from across the border has been almost completely ignored.

The peremptory cancellation of the foreign secretary-level talks by New Delhi — on the flimsy excuse that Pakistan’s high commissioner met the Kashmiri Hurriyat leaders — is but one danger signal.

This was preceded by the belligerent remarks against Pakistan by the incoming Indian army chief; the statements by Prime Minister Modi in Jammu and Leh (in India-held Kashmir) that Pakistan has lost the ability to fight India conventionally and is thus resorting to terrorism; and the simultaneous outbreak of ceasefire violations along the Line of Control in Kashmir. Even India’s past enthusiasm for trade and ‘people-to-people’ exchanges with Pakistan has waned in recent weeks.

It is now clear that Modi’s invitation to Pakistan and other South Asian leaders to attend his ‘inauguration’ was mostly a public relations exercise rather than a shift in India’s strategic thinking.

Hopefully, realisation has dawned that peace is not about to break out with India.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s participation in Modi’s swearing-in ceremony and the honeyed sentiments exchanged on that occasion created the illusion in Islamabad that the prospects for normalisation with India had been enhanced by Modi’s election. The long-standing ‘tradition’ of Pakistani leaders meeting Kashmiri leaders while in New Delhi was broken, creating a new ‘benchmark’ for India’s conditions for talks with Pakistan.

Some naïve officials in Pakistan’s foreign ministry — drawing comparisons with Nixon’s opening to China — even opined that a hard-liner like Modi was more capable than the then outgoing Indian Congress government of making the compromises required to resolve outstanding issues with Pakistan.

Hopefully, realisation has dawned on these officials that peace is not about to break out with India. On the contrary, the danger of confrontation and conflict is now clear and present. India’s aim remains to neutralise Pakistan as a regional military and political rival at the negotiating table or by other means.

There are several reasons why the gloves have come off now in New Delhi.

First, Modi’s promise of Indian economic revival is proving difficult to deliver. His first budget failed to curtail India’s crippling subsidies, raise revenues or introduce the economic reforms required to attract investment. Government finance is unavailable for essential infrastructure projects. Populist and nationalist barriers to trade and investment have not been dismantled.

In the absence of instant economic nirvana, the Bharatiya Janata Party government has fallen back on its fundamentalist Hindu stance to retain the support of its core constituencies. An aggressive posture towards Pakistan is an integral part of the BJP’s ideology.

Unfortunately, Western pandering also appears to have encouraged the Modi government to adopt a more belligerent policy towards Pakistan. The communiqué issued after US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visit to India contained American endorsements of several Indian foreign policy objectives, including a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and the equation of the pro-Kashmir Lashkar-e-Taiba — which is also banned in Pakistan — with Al Qaeda.

India has been offered access to the entire American arsenal; and is also encouraged to assume a larger role in Afghanistan and the Indian Ocean. The West studiously refrains mentioning the Kashmir dispute or India’s well-catalogued human rights violations.

New Delhi’s revived hard line is also linked to the current political turmoil in Pakistan. On the one hand, India does not want to invest politically in a beleaguered Islamabad government whose shelf life may be short. On the other, it sees the internal turmoil as an opportunity to intensify pressure on a divided and rudderless Pakistan

Having taken the turn towards a hard line, India’s belligerence is likely to be manifested across a broader front. While Pakistan can live without talks with India, three areas of possible Indian action deserve special attention.

The first among them is, of course, Kashmir. Apart from putting down any remnants of the Kashmiri insurgency, the BJP’s strategic aim is to neutralise Kashmir’s Muslim-majority status. The principal purpose of abrogating Article 370 of the Indian constitution will be to enable Hindu ‘migration’ to Kashmir. Pakistan and the Kashmiris must mobilise to prevent this.

India’s military build-up and deployments are also cause for serious concern. Will these enable it to execute its Cold Start doctrine or to intervene against Pakistan? How will it respond to Pakistan’s larger deployment of theatre nuclear weapons? What is implied by the proposed ‘update’ of India’s nuclear doctrine?

Pakistan will also need to monitor India’s desire for a larger role in Afghanistan and neutralise the threat of a two-front conflict or enhanced subversion fomented from Afghan territory. The recent ‘declaration of independence’ by Brahmdagh Bugti and a couple of other Baloch tribal leaders just as Indo-Pakistan tensions were escalating was not accidental.

The Pakistan government is obviously ill prepared to respond to the present or putative threats from India. The shenanigans of Pakistan’s political leaders have intensified the external threat.

Recent events in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine illustrate how easily states can be destabilised and divided if their domestic schisms are allowed to spin out of control. Pakistanis should remember how in 1970 the political ambitions of rival political leaders led eventually to civil war and India’s military intervention to break Pakistan. As is oft stated, those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.

Democracy is no doubt the most desirable form of government. But, as so widely witnessed across the developing world, elections do not a democracy make. True democracy is more about building consensus among diverse interests and groups within a nation. Obviously, Pakistan’s political leaders have not yet learned the art of accommodation, compromise and consensus.

Despite the fears expressed about a military takeover, the Pakistan Army has been called on by the civilian leaders to mediate between them. Simultaneously, it must combat an internal and externally sponsored insurgency, and defend Pakistan’s frontiers from the enemy at the gate.

The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.

Published in Dawn, August 31, 2014