Feeling Beyond That Crack

Trump’s gambit on Kashmir and warmth towards Pakistan leaves India with less manoeuvring room towards those two vital issues

- Pranay Sharma

Diplomatic controversies have a life of their own; they resist being wished away conveniently. When a controversy over a dispute involving India and Pakistan involves an eager US hovering around to step-in as a ‘mediator’, a long shelf-life is guaranteed. though over a week has passed since Donald trump publicly asserted that Narendra Modi sought his mediation on Kashmir—a claim that India officially denied—the controversy over the U.S. president’s remarks still rages on.

Made during a joint press conference with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Washington, the remarks led to angry protests in India, forcing Union foreign minister S. Jaishankar to categorically state that no such request was made by Modi when he met Trump at the G-20 Summit in Japan last month.

As part of the episode’s afterlife, analysts are persevering in their efforts to ferret out the truth behind it and the import of the US president’s remarks on Kashmir and the region beyond.

America’s desire to act as go-between in India-Pakistan disputes has been alive since 1962. Successive US governments have tried their hands at it. But after the 1972 Shimla Agreement and a follow up in the Lahore Declaration, where the two countries had agreed to resolve their outstanding issues bilaterally, through mutual discussions, the scope for outside interference had significantly diminished. Trump has managed to bring it to the forefront.

Pakistan, thwarted by India in the three wars they started in Kashmir, dearly wants an internationalization of the issue, and saw it as a victory.

“Imran Khan made Trump realise Kashmir was a ‘flashpoint’ that needs early resolution,” claimed Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.