Imran is out, Shehbaz is in, but unlikely to impact Pak ties with India

The exit of Imran Khan and the arrival of Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister of Pakistan may have minimal or no impact on the country’s relations with India. Khan’s departure is more to do with the souring of his relationship with the Army and his preference for Russia over the US.

The civilian authority, or the elected government in Pakistan, has for long informally shared power with the Army and the state intelligence, the ISI. Though jostling occurs among the three, it is the Army that holds real power.

Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif,  therefore inherits a chair that has in reality been controlled by the Pakistan Army.

Army ties

Unsurprisingly, Shehbaz is considered close to the Army. Over the years, no elected prime minister has antagonised the Army and completed their tenure in office. Most famously, Shehbaz’s brother Nawaz was overthrown in a coup by General Pervez Musharraf.  Nawaz, possibly deluded by his position as the civilian prime minister sacked Musharraf in October 1999 and tried to prevent his aircraft from landing at the Karachi airport, endangering the Army chief’s life and that of the crew. Within hours Nawaz found himself unseated from power and Musharraf taking over the reigns of the country.

In fact, the surprise election in 2018 of PTI (Tehreek-e-Insaaf Pakistan) chief Imran Khan as prime minister, defeating the more established Pakistan Muslim League (Shehbaz was the then candidate) and the Pakistan Peoples’ Party, was in itself due to his informal tie up with the Army.

That the replacement of one civilian by another is bound to make no difference to its relations with India can be gauged by a look into recent history. Each time the government in Islamabad takes the initiative to ease relations with India and specific steps are taken in that direction, they are soon sabotaged by the Pakistani deep state.

Past experiences

In 1999, even as the then Indian prime minister A B Vajpayee visited Lahore and talked peace with General Musharraf,  within weeks the Kargil conflict broke out, stalling any further development to normalise relations. Ironically, this despite the fact that Musharraf was himself from the Army. This was followed by another attempt via the Agra summit in 2001, which ended in a disarray but kept the door open for further talks. Soon after, in December of the same year, the Indian Parliament was attacked by suspected terrorists from Pakistan. Relations immediately went south.

More recently,  Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 made his famous unscheduled stopover in Lahore to wish his then counterpart Nawaz Sharif on his birthday.  Logically, it should have led to better ties with India. But before long, in January 2016, India’s military base in Pathankot was attacked by suspected Pakistan-based insurgents. In September that year,  another military base in Uri was similarly attacked, reversing any attempts to normalise mutual relationship.

Since then, relations between the two neighbours have been tepid at best and cold at worst. And, they came to a head after the February 2019 attack on Indian paramilitary troops at Pulwama in Kashmir.  India retaliated  by a surgical strike at Balakot in Pakistan followed by an aerial fire fight between the two countries across the Kashmir border.

Imran Khan’s leadership

When Imran Khan took over office in 2018  it was widely believed that tensions would ease between the two as the cricketer-turned-prime minister was familiar with India,  had close relationships with several  Indian cricketers and was a popular figure in this country. Yet, there was no dramatic change in relationships and the cold war between the two continued under his leadership.

It can be argued that since February last year there has been a complete ceasefire between the armies of the two countries across the border and some credit is due to Imran Khan. But similar ceasefires have existed in the past. They characterise the long-standing “blow hot, blow cold” type relationship that has existed between the two ever since Partition.

Khan’s ascension to office did not make any difference to the unspoken rejection of Pakistani cricketers in India’s  premier IPL cricketing tournament since 2009. Though it has never been spelt out as policy, it is an open secret that this has been India’s way of reacting to the souring of relationship between the two.

Shehbaz’s coming to power may make some difference in the style of functioning of the prime minister’s office due to his personal proclivities and relationships with people in India. But nothing more substantial can be expected on this front.

Early statements

Shehbaz’s first statements after being sworn in as prime minister are a reiteration of the oft-stated positions on Kashmir and bilateral ties by previous governments. Shehbaz opposed the abrogation of special status to Kashmir under Article 370 and expressed support to Kashmiri separatists in international forums. Shehbaz also made it clear that normal relations could not be established with India without first solving the dispute over Kashmir.

China, the other country with huge stakes in Pakistan, does not see the removal of Imran and the taking over of Shehbaz as an event it should be concerned about. On the contrary, the incoming prime minister has a track record of being even closer to Beijing and is a big votary of China’s role in the Pakistani economy, specifically the economic corridor project.

Pakistan’s relations with the United States may undergo immediate reconciliation with the arrival of Shehbaz. Imran’s high profile efforts to take Pakistan closer to Russia would not have won him friends in the Army, which is a bastion of US-Pakistan ties. In fact, this is one among the prominent list of reasons why Imran fell out with the Army, leading to his eventual exit.

Shehbaz is also expected to make amends for Khan’s recent statements publicly accusing Washington as the force behind the attempt to remove him from office.

The change at the helm in Pakistan therefore seems little to do with India or its ties with China and more to do with reworking its relationship with the US and Russia.u