Critically review the progress of India-Pakistan peace process since the Kargil War. (2007, 60 Marks)
The Kargil War (May–July 1999) began barely three months after Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif signed the Lahore Declaration of 21 February 1999. It set the pattern since: openings followed by ruptures, with lasting gains in crisis management and almost none in conflict resolution.
The cycle of opening and rupture
| Phase | Opening | Rupture |
|---|---|---|
| 2001–02 | Agra summit, July 2001 | Parliament attack, December 2001; Operation Parakram |
| 2003–08 | LoC ceasefire (November 2003); Islamabad statement (January 2004); Composite Dialogue | Mumbai attacks, November 2008 |
| 2014–16 | Sharif at Modi’s swearing-in; Ufa (2015); Lahore stopover | Pathankot and Uri, 2016 |
| 2019–21 | Kartarpur corridor (2019); DGMO recommitment to the ceasefire (February 2021) | Pulwama, Balakot; Pakistan’s downgrade of ties |
| 2025– | Multilateral contact only | Pahalgam (22 April 2025); Operation Sindoor; Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance |
What the process achieved
- The 2004–07 high point. Pervez Musharraf pledged that territory under Pakistan’s control would not be used for terrorism, and the eight-basket Composite Dialogue completed four rounds. A back-channel produced the four-point formula (soft borders, self-governance, demilitarisation, joint mechanism). Manmohan Singh framed its logic in 2006: borders cannot be redrawn, but they can become just lines on a map. Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, then foreign minister, later claimed (Neither a Hawk nor a Dove, 2015) that a framework was close by 2007.
- People-to-people steps: the Srinagar–Muzaffarabad bus (2005), cross-LoC trade (2008), Kartarpur (2019).
- A durable war-avoidance floor: the 1988 non-attack agreement, missile-test pre-notification (2005), the nuclear-accidents agreement (2007) and the DGMO hotline. Nuclear-installation lists were exchanged on 1 January 2026 for the 35th consecutive year, even after Sindoor.
Why it stalled: a critical review
- The stability–instability paradox. Glenn H. Snyder argued that nuclear stability makes lower-level violence safer. Kargil came a year after the 1998 tests; every later attack exploited the same space.
- The civil–military gap. Ayesha Jalal, in The State of Martial Rule (1990), locates power in Pakistan’s army, not its elected leaders. Kargil was planned while Sharif negotiated; the 27th Amendment (November 2025), making Asim Munir Chief of Defence Forces, formalised that primacy.
- Identity, not territory. Stephen P. Cohen, in Shooting for a Century (2013), calls the dyad a paired minority conflict in which both sides feel besieged, so functional cooperation never builds trust.
- Sequencing deadlock. India puts terrorism first, Pakistan Kashmir; each attack resets the agenda.
- India’s own oscillation. Shivshankar Menon, in Choices (2016), defends restraint after Mumbai but warns that a repeat would make visible retaliation almost unavoidable. Uri, Pulwama and Pahalgam proved him right. Cost imposition restored deterrent credibility but has no political end-state.
- Third parties. Washington’s claim to have brokered the 10 May 2025 ceasefire, which India rejects, shows crises reopening what the Simla Agreement (1972) sought to bilateralise.
The position in 2026
The formal process is at its lowest point since 1971. India rejected the Court of Arbitration’s Indus award of 31 August 2026, keeps the treaty in abeyance and has banned all imports from Pakistan since 2 May 2025. Narendra Modi’s doctrine of 12 May 2025 rejects nuclear blackmail and refuses to distinguish terrorists from their sponsors. Contact survives only multilaterally: Joint Secretary Alok Dimri led India’s delegation to the SCO National Coordinators’ meeting in Islamabad (28–30 September 2026), the first official Indian delegation there since Sindoor.
Conclusion
The process since Kargil has managed the rivalry rather than resolved it. Its real achievement is negative: five crises have stayed below the nuclear threshold. Its central lesson: agreements with Pakistan’s civilians do not bind its army. The way forward is to protect the quarantined CBMs and DGMO channel and tie any back-channel to a verifiable end to cross-border terrorism. Until then, as Cohen’s generational outlook suggests, low-violence management is the realistic goal.