
Summary. More than six years after India and Pakistan withdrew their top diplomats in the aftermath of the 2019 Pulwama attack, the two neighbours remain locked in a diplomatic freeze that has now outlasted even the post-war silences of the past. What's more problematic is that even the informal dialogue, which has been sponsored by NGOs and civil society groups and was critical to building bridges between the two countries, remains missing. However, it is also true that permanent disengagement between the two nuclear-armed neighbours is neither practical nor sustainable.
Few would disagree that the last 30 years of India-Pakistan relations have been a volatile mix of active confrontation and constrained hostility. Diplomatic overtures, though cautious, have been repeatedly shattered by acts of terrorism like Mumbai (2008), Pathankot (2016) and Pulwama (2019) which brought pain to countless families and derailed any hope of sustained engagement. Although India blames Pakistan for...
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The writer is a member of staff.