Talks? What talks? When it comes to Pakistan, one marvels at Indian elites’ limitless folly and affinity for self-laceration

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” This quote is generally attributed to Albert Einstein. Whether or not the great man actually said it, I can relate to the message more and more as I age. Pity he didn’t leave a pithy quote on sadomasochism for me to use. For, when you combine limitless folly with a penchant for self-laceration, you get the cyclical delusion that permeates the drawing rooms of India’s liberal elite on Pakistan.

I am, of course, talking about the ‘open letter’ by so-called “eminent citizens” of India, a motley cabal of politicians, self-styled public intellectuals, and utopian activists who seize upon every opportunity to advocate for the resumption of dialogue with Pakistan. I was trying to ignore the predictable cacophony that resurfaces every few months, as if an invisible operatic conductor has waved his wand, but the steady drumbeat is becoming too loud to overlook.

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One may still understand that Pakistanis will call for ‘dialogue’ – the diplomatic coup de grace that Asim Munir desperately wants. What explains the delusion of India’s liberal elites, public figures and the posse of activists? Or better still, the Track 2 or Track 3 enthusiasts – some retired diplomats and military officials who crisscross the globe for overseas ‘Aman ki Asha’ events that are almost always backstopped by Western institutions? They should know better, right? Right?

This particular ‘open letter’ came out in the first week of July, signed by 61 cherubs from India who have just emerged from the woods, and 56 from Pakistan, coordinated by a New Delhi-based think-tank. The letter urged Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif to restore dialogue, reinstate high commissioners, reopen the Wagah-Attari border, and revive the composite-dialogue framework of 2004-07.

As if on cue, reports emerged of Track-2 conclaves in Colombo and Bangkok, involving retired generals and diplomats close to both establishments, that gave the appeal a veneer of momentum and cogency. The message was delivered with the practiced warmth of the peace industry.

The message was also, based on facts, a category error. India has not ruled out ‘talking’ to Pakistan out of pique. This narrative should be dismissed with all the disdain at our command because none of the conditions conducive for resumption of dialogue has been met by Pakistan.

India has reiterated its position with monotonous consistency: terror and talks cannot go together. The fact that these efforts bear no official sanction became clear once more when Vikram Misri, the Indian foreign secretary, clarified that “dozens of these kinds of events… and there’s nothing new, nothing special about these events”, and “as far as the government of India is concerned, there is no official participation, no official support or involvement, in these visits… (It) should be obvious, therefore, that anybody from India who is participating in these events, whether they are retired diplomats, retired military officials, or members of civil society, they speak for themselves and they represent their own point of view.”

It should have been enough to silence the ‘peace advocates’, but it won’t be.

The immediate catalyst for the current barrage of international pressure seems to be India’s principled stance on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). Following the horrific Pahalgam terror attack that claimed the lives of 26 innocent civilians, who were killed after being identified on the basis of their faith, New Delhi took the unprecedented step of putting the treaty ‘in abeyance’. The Modi doctrine was unequivocal: blood and water cannot flow together.

Pakistan, that initially dismissed the IWT abeyance as ‘rhetoric’, has now been gripped by panic. It has since mounted a desperate campaign of international victimhood, pointing to international legal obligations and predictably appealing to Western capitals. One washed up Pakistani politician, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is threatening to go nuclear.

India has reacted calmly to the victimhood and hysteria. As the MEA spokesperson clarified again on Friday, the IWT was signed in a spirit of goodwill and friendship, a gesture that Pakistan has systematically violated for decades through its relentless promotion of cross-border terrorism.

International treaties are not suicide pacts. They are reciprocal arrangements predicated on baseline peaceful coexistence and expectation of normal behaviour from sovereign states. It is a strategic absurdity to expect India to faithfully ensure the uninterrupted flow of 80 per cent of Indus waters to a downstream neighbor that uses its state resources to bleed India with a thousand cuts.

What’s more, the ‘prominent citizens’ calling for dialogue are validating Pakistan’s grand strategy. They reinforce the Rawalpindi khakis’ steadfast belief that terrorism never fails. Munir espouses two-nation theory based on Islamist supremacism, sponsors Pahalgam terror attack, and Indian elites respond by clamouring for a peace process. This charade confirms the ISI’s thesis that violence is a legitimate tool to force India to the negotiating table.

There will therefore be no “talks”. And the suspension of the IWT must remain absolute until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures support for terror. Restoring the treaty or entering into arbitration while terrorists continue to train in camps inside Pakistan or PoK would signal disastrous weakness.

Terrorism against India is not an aberration of Pakistani policy that ‘better diplomacy’ might address. It is the very instrument of that policy, embedded in the institutional worldview of the army that governs the country through a civilian proxy.

Dialogue presumes that two states are seeking a settlement. What India faces is a security establishment for which the conflict is itself the raison d’etre of its existence, a never-ending proxy war against a permanent adversary that justifies the Pakistani military’s outsized share of the budget, its custody of the nuclear arsenal, and its dominance over civilian life.

There is nothing to talk about with Pakistan. Spending time and resources on flogging this dead horse carry no utility for India in terms of its developmental or global ambitions. Pakistan may well want it as an extension of its diplomatic theatre, the compulsion for India does not exist.

India is a rising global power, an economic juggernaut, and a critical node in the emerging multipolar world. Pakistan is a garrison state teetering on the edge of permanent economic crisis, sustained only by IMF bailouts and its utility as a geopolitical pawn. Talks? What talks?

(Views expressed are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)