by B. R. GOWANI
Geographic twins
The unequal twins, India and Pakistan, got partitioned in 1947. Since then there has been a (less) love-hate (more) relation between them. They are conjoined and chances are nil that they can file for geographical divorce.
There are only two ways India and Pakistan can distance themselves forever: fortunately, one is impossible <1> and the other one is more than couple of hundred million years in the future <2> — and even in that scenario, there is no guarantee things can turn out the way both want. Besides, after the continent merge, who knows the neighbor might be someone like the US! Ask Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum.
In reality, both countries are bound together for eternity, and they should improve relations, increase trade, ease travel restrictions, jointly produce music, films, TV dramas, and so on.
The recent Monsoon floods have killed about 800 people in Pakistan, and dozens of people in Indian Kashmir.
At 48 miles (72 km) length, the Himalayan Siachen glacier, known as the “Third Pole,” consisting of 15,000 glaciers all over the range is the 3rd largest snow and ice deposit, after the Antarctica and Arctic.
A recent study states that due to rising temperatures, the glaciers are melting 65% faster, since the 1990s. This affects more than a billion people. It causes floods, affects water availability, agriculture, and other issues.
Joint efforts by Pakistan and India are needed to address this, for the sake of their people, many of them live and work in subhuman conditions.
Most of the dirty work in India is done by untouchables and outcasts known as Dalits. In Pakistan, most of it is done by tiny minorities of Hindus and Christians.
Pakistani newspaper Dawn’s India correspondent Jawed Naqvi points out:
“Why is it so difficult to instill a simple, inexpensive idea for diplomacy? Why not let the masses — as opposed to state-backed mobs — take the initiative to build inevitable excellent ties, and see the menace called terrorism vanish in a jiffy?”
The leaders of Pakistan and India, and 20 other leaders, will attend the SCO Summit 2025 in Tianjin, China, on August 31 and September 1.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)
In 1996, the Shanghai Five was formed by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. In 2001, Uzbekistan became the sixth member. Shanghai Five name was then changed to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). SCO is a Eurasian political, economic and international security organization. Later, four more countries with observer status became members: India and Pakistan in 2017, Iran in 2023, and Belarus in 2024.
Fourteen countries Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, Egypt, Kuwait, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and UAE (United Arab Emirates) are dialogue partners.
Afghanistan and Mongolia have observer status, while Turkmenistan attends summits as a guest attendee.
The United Nations (UN), Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Commonwealth of Independent Sates (CIS) are guest attendees too.
In 2005, US asked to attend as an observer but was denied the request.
Chinese overture
As the host, China is trying to make the summit a success, highly aware that India’s relations with the US have hit a roadblock. China would like to gain from this. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to attend the summit in person, not virtually, as he has been doing last several years. He will be visiting China after seven years.
Last week, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan. In Pakistan, on August 21, he declared:
“South Asian countries have a long history, splendid civilization, large population, and huge development potential.”
He further added: Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan are:
“China’s close neighbors linked by mountains and rivers, and also an important direction for China to build a community with a shared future in its neighborhood.”
In New Delhi, breaking protocol, Modi himself met Wang Yi and accepted the SCO summit invitation.
Modi
Modi, a member of the paramilitary organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) became chief minister of Gujarat in 2001. The very next year, under his watch about 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were murdered in a Hindu-led pogrom. This turned him into a hero for his Hindu followers. His grip on power gained strength and, eventually, led him to the premiership.
For this Gujarat massacre, Modi was denied a US visa and remained banned from the country, for almost a decade. It was only after he became prime minister, that the ban was lifted.
Modi had gotten too close to US President Donald Trump with his 2019 “Howdy Modi” spectacle in Houston with 50,000 Indians in attendance. In 2020, in Modi’s home state, “Kem chho Trump” (How are you, Trump), later renamed “Namaste India,” to avoid impression of using Modi’s native Gujarati, was attended by Trump and more than 100,000 people. Both events were also kind of election rallies.
Modi made some wrong moves and great blunders in 2024 and 2025:
- In 2024 September, he attended the UN annual session in New York. The US presidential campaign was in full swing with Vice President Kamala Harris (Democratic candidate) and Trump (Republican candidate). On September 17, before Modi’s arrival, Trump stated Modi was coming to meet him. Modi didn’t meet either candidates. Trump didn’t like that, so Modi was not invited for his second inauguration. That was a serious blunder on part of Modi because Trump expects strong loyalty.
- In wake of terror killing of 26 people in Kashmir, Modi blamed Pakistan without providing proof and broke all contact with its neighbor. Two weeks later, he initiated a war against Pakistan. The war lasted less than 100 hours and cost India several air planes and caused a big dent in Modi’s reputation as a strong leader.
- With war, Modi augmented Pakistan’s Chief of the Army Staff Asim Munir‘s personal ego and public popularity. Thus, he did great disfavor to the people of Pakistan, where the military’s grip has further tightened. That was yet another blunder.
- Pakistan thanked Trump for bringing the war to an end, but Modi never commented on this. India’s stand is that the ceasefire came into effect at Pakistan’s request, Pakistan rejects this. Trump remembers Modi’s silence.
- Trump had invited Modi for a formal dinner at the White House on June 17, 2025 but Modi declined, fearing Trump would make him face Munir. Modi again blundered.
Modi’s stand is that Kashmir is a bilateral issue and should be solved between Pakistan and India. That is wrong policy. Sometimes, a mediator is needed and there is nothing wrong as a solution can emerge from it.
Trump regime doubled the tariff rate to 50% on Indian goods on August 27 because of India’s import of oil from Russia. (The biggest beneficiary of Russian oil imports has been Modi’s supporter and fellow Gujarati Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest and world’s 13th richest person.)
18% of Indian exports go to US, India’s biggest importer. Production in three Indian cities have been stopped by apparel and textile manufacturers on August 26 because of these high tariffs.
This is a big problem for Modi, but it looks like finally, he has decided to take some stand. In recent weeks, Modi has refused to take four phone calls from Trump, according to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). The paper speculates that Modi’s refusal is due to the “depth of his anger, but also his caution.”
It’s hard to predict if Trump will reduce the tariff rate, or whether Modi will call Trump. Both have big egos and are like cult leaders to their followers. Modi has now realized putting all eggs in one basket (US), now showing much uncertainty, is not a sound decision so he is getting closer to China.
The Global South leaders should bear in mind the US national security advisor Henry Kissinger’s words:
“… it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
Munir
A Pakistani general once told Tariq Ali:
“Pakistan was the condom that the Americans needed to enter Afghanistan. We’ve served our purpose and they think we can be just flushed down the toilet.”
But the Pakistani army is environmentally friendly and would like to recycle that condom for reuse again and again through flattery, suggesting Trump’s name for Nobel Prize, or, handing US some or other alleged or actual terrorist, etc.
Pakistan’s Islamist Supreme Leader General Asim Munir is still flying high for a few reasons:
- Pakistan’s slight dominance in aerial warfare during the May war,
- Munir’s lunch with Trump,
- his other US trip to attend a farewell event for General Michael Kurilla, the 15th commander of the United States Central Command, and
- the meet with the Pakistani diaspora.
Munir, intoxicated with power, declared in Tampa, Florida:
“we are a nuclear nation, if we think we are going down, we’ll take half the world down with us.”
Pakistan/India should remember
The leaders of India and Pakistan should remember that the Columbian era hasn’t ended yet — still The conquest Continues as Professor Noam Chomsky put it back in 1992 when the US was celebrating the Columbus Quincentenary. This is year 532 of the post-Columbus era.
German Chancellor Friederich Merz recently told the public broadcaster ARD:
“It would be good if this [Iranian] regime came to an end.” “[If they refuse to talk, then] Israel will go all the way.”
Just look at the Israeli carnage being carried out live in broad daylight, without any fear, on a daily basis on Palestinians in Gaza.
The Palestine Chronicle‘s Ramzy Baroud, a target of Zionist forces in the US, describes how Israel is systematically eliminating Palestinians:
“But for the systematic destruction of a whole nation to succeed, it must include the deliberate targeting of its scientists, doctors, intellectuals, journalists, artists and poets. While children and women remain the largest categories of victims, many of those killed in deliberate assassinations appear to be targeted specifically to disorient Palestinian society, deprive it of societal leadership, and render the process of rebuilding Gaza impossible.”
The white Western world is not out of the colonialist and imperialist mindset, and of divide and rule or divide and conquer mode. Indo-Pak leaders should stop competing for the role of “favorite” of the US and instead concentrate on enhancing their own relations.
Financially and economically challenged Pakistan, has hired six lobbying and legal firms spending $600,000 every month to get access to DC’s power corridors. India, with an economy ten times bigger than Pakistan, has hired two lobbyist firms and pays $200,000 a month for the same.
I have not included China above, because Chinese leaders demonstrate self-respect. They remember Opium Wars (First and Second), and the humiliation, death, and destruction inflicted on Chinese populace. China stands up against the US rather than bowing to it.
Chinese intervention is needed
By Chinese intervention I don’t mean military intervention; just a discussion breakthrough in mediation. China and India have border problems, and so do India and Pakistan. In this situation, some flexibility is needed on part of all the parties.
China is more powerful economically and technologically than India, so it should be somewhat charitable to India. On the other hand, Pakistan is an economically and technologically weaker neighbor of India who should extend some generosity towards Pakistan.
China should also make Pakistan military understand to come out of its exhilarated state and face the real world.
All three countries should understand that a war between any two of them — either through misunderstanding, provocation, or US instigation — will affect the third one and also affect the region. The US has nothing to lose as it’s situated thousands of miles away.
Why is common sense in so many country leaders so rare? Why are so many novice leaders so obsessed with power and not employing wise seasoned talent for the betterment of world citizenry?
Notes
<1> There are several maps, as Big Think (2010) and Medium (2021) where the most populated country gets matched with a country with the largest territory. The constantly changing population of each country and using a different methodology, are reasons why India, and Pakistan get assigned a different territory in both maps.
It is 2025, so the new map will assign Russia to India because in 2023, India became the most populous country.
<2> Some natural phenomenon occurs. About 335 million years ago, our world was one giant subcontinent or Pangaea. It started to break into many continents about 200 millions years back. Scientists say there will be one supercontinent again in 200 to 300 million years. Even if that happens again, there is no guarantee it would split the way Pakistan and India want. What if it splits in the middle making halves of both into two new units?
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com