Negotiating Disputes between India and Pakistan

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April 1, 2021
Mehreen Naushad
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Can India and Pakistan reach the stage of negotiating on key long-standing issues between both states in light of Pakistan’s aggressive India-centric foreign policy? Prime Minister Imran Khan in his inaugural speech in 2018, highlighted that Pakistan’s foreign policy priority is to improve its relations with its neighbors. However, India has rejected all attempts by

Can India and Pakistan reach the stage of negotiating on key long-standing issues between both states in light of Pakistan’s aggressive India-centric foreign policy? Prime Minister Imran Khan in his inaugural speech in 2018, highlighted that Pakistan’s foreign policy priority is to improve its relations with its neighbors. However, India has rejected all attempts by Pakistan to establish cordial relations. Consequently, and in particular, since the Pulwama and Balakot incident followed by the revocation of Article 370 and 35A of the Constitution of India, Pakistan’s foreign policy has become more India centric. Pakistan has resorted to pressuring India by employing a global diplomatic offensive strategy that highlights India’s gross violations of international norms.

If one assesses Pakistan’s negotiation strategy on a number of disputes with India such as Kashmir, Indus Water Treaty, and Ceasefire Violations, the strategy employed by Pakistan during both multilateral and bilateral negotiations with India is a positional negotiation strategy. In positional bargaining each party takes a position on the issue at hand and then bargains from the party’s separate position, making concessions to eventually reach a compromise.

A negotiation is impacted by several factors including the impact of cultural differences. Pakistan’s positional bargaining strategy is deeply embeded in ideology, ethnicity, identity and culture. Ethnicity provides an individual with a sense of belonging among a community, it gives him identity. Whereas, ideology is belief in something that seeks to transform an individual’s way of life.

It is an ineffective method of reaching agreements, as it leads to unwise outcomes. It is most likely that negotiators, when they “bargain over positions, they tend to lock themselves into those positions.” This only leads to parties going on a defensive as they continue to clarify their positions, as the people identify their egos with their respective positions. Accordingly, the negotiators develop a new interest in ‘saving-face’ by reconciling acts of future with past positions. It is likely that the result will not reconcile with the parties’ original result.

It is clear that the ‘positional bargaining’ strategy adopted by Pakistan has not worked out effectively in resolving the dispute with India. An alternative negotiation strategy that can be adopted by Pakistan is ‘principled negotiation’ strategy. According to Roger Fisher and William Ury in their book, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving, “Principled Negotiation … is to decide issues on their own merits rather than through a haggling process focused on what each side says it will and won’t do. It suggests that if you look for mutual gains whenever possible, and that where your interests’ conflict, you should insist that the result be based on some fair standards independent of the will of the either side.”

Pakistan must learn to separate the people from the problem. They should focus on the interests of the Parties involved rather than position. Moreover, it is essential that Pakistan generates a variety of options for resolving its disputes with India prior to concluding as to what to do. Furthermore, Pakistan should insist that the basis of the result of the negotiations should be an objective standard.

Accordingly, Pakistan should attempt to reconcile it interests with those of India i.e. to maintain peace and stability in the region, economic prosperity, etc. As evidenced by the previous negotiation, there haven’t been many options provided by either party that can lead to a win-win solution for all Parties involved. Hence, Pakistan should develop multiple alternatives to propose to India that can also be mutually beneficial to it.

Consequently, another alternative is to make a second attempt at mediation. The long-standing disputes between India and Pakistan can only be negotiated peacefully if the focus of the Parties involved shifts from compromise to cooperation. It is necessary to seek a resolution that leads to a win-win outcome as this ensures that all parties are happy with the outcome and will benefit from it. This approach involves both India and Pakistan putting their specific demands on the back burner and instead indulge in discussions on the broader concerns they share with each other.

The reason why negotiations between India and Pakistan have hit a stalemate is that both parties maintain strong positions on a variety of issues including but not limited to territorial partition, plebiscite and demilitarization. The stalemate can only be broken if both Parties change the nature of their negotiations from resolution focused to relationship focused. Accordingly, this can kind of shift can be provided by a third-party neutral mediator.

However, unlike Pakistan who is open to the idea of mediation to resolve the dispute, India is not so keen on the notion. This is due to certain multifaceted factors including mistrust of the international community, including the United States. Moreover, bilateral negotiations allow India to be immune from pressure to concede to an unfavorable settlement. In view of the foregoing, the question that arises is, how can Pakistan re-engage India in mediation?

The idea is to apply principled negotiation strategy to the mediation process. India may accept third-party mediation if the concerns of the Indian government are addressed. The primary concern India has concerning mediation is the appointment of an official government representative. However, the bias of mediators can be neutralized by employing a conglomerate of countries or influential individuals that have been chosen by both States. If one of the States has stronger ties to one of the mediators, they can contribute to the mediation process from behind-the-scene rather than a direct presence in the mediation. Another way of re-engaging India toward mediation is that Pakistan can influence the international community through United Nations or diplomatic influence to pressurize India to move towards the possibility of facilitating discussions through mediation.

Consequently, India needs to be reminded that since one of its interests is to be recognized as global player, it needs to assume greater responsibility in ensuring that international peace and security are maintained. Moreover, India is also interested in gaining a reputation in the international community. Hence, it is likely that if the international community places pressure on India to safeguard its reputation and image by establishing peace, India can be forced to come to the negotiating table.