India, Pakistan open window: Cricket on the table. Foreign ministers hold talks. S Jaishankar and Muhammad Ishaq Dar speak twice in 24 hours at the SCO meet at Islamabad on October 15 and 16. The breakthrough came when the Pakistan Cricket Board chief joined them. Jay Shah should have been flown in, if reducing Indo-Pak relations to the level of cricketing ties was the intention. This is what happens when foreign ministers of India and Pakistan start talking after a gap of nine years.
They liked each other’s voice, so they returned for a second round of talks after the first and all in a matter of 24 hours! This event doesn’t need the nuance normally reserved for diplomacy. This was “indication that these talks explored the idea of resuming some form of cricketing ties between the two countries!” The talks took place on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting of the Council of Heads of Government.
Indian media gave S Jaishankar a build-up reserved for the emperors of yore, when there was no Pakistan. When Jaishankar took a morning walk in the Indian High Commission compound, flanked by security and a couple of ladies in sneakers, it became a celebrity photo-shoot. Jaishankar in dark glasses was the symbol of macho Indian foreign policy.
The Pakistani hoi-polloi loved it, not Jaishankar’s dark glasses or the thought of India-Pakistan resuming talks, but the hope that India and Pakistan will once again trade inswingers and outswingers with a kilo of trade in tomatoes thrown in. Pakistanis will not starve for lack of ‘aata’ and Indians can hop over for a plate of ‘chappli kebab’.
It is torture to even think that ties between India and Pakistan have remained frozen for such a long time – 10 years. A window is open, no? Next, the Champions Trophy! Pakistan is hosting the cricketing event. Imagine the ramifications if India joins Pakistan on the pitch and it is perfect to bowl and bat and break ice? Virat Kohli and Babar Azam? Make it somebody who doesn’t halt the match when the Azan sounds.
What better condition than playing cricket, the environment when people are not on the nervous edge but on the edge of their seats in the cricket stadium. India and Pakistan are always at each other’s throats, India and Pakistan greet each other with full-throated cries.
We are two nations, like Mohammad Ali Jinnah correctly said, but one soul, like Jinnah, thank God, didn’t even try to say. Jaishankar and Ishaq Dar met at the dinner hosted by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for SCO leaders at Sharif’s residence. They say it was ‘Ishq’ at first sight. Jaishankar and Dar exchanged pleasantries, shook hands and conversed over what’s on your plate and what’s on my plate.
Will the India cricket team travel to Pakistan for the Champions trophy — one window opened? The premier cricketing event will take place in Pakistan from February 19 to March 9, 2025. Doesn’t it smell like this was in the pipeline all along and both the countries had planned it beforehand? Nothing could have stopped this, neither territorial integrity, nor terror incidents and what have you not!
