Why did Modi say Pakistan doesn't matter for India anymore?

In an act of apparent political grandstanding, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told an interviewer last week that arch-rival Pakistan was “no more a factor in running India”.

“Let Pakistan manage two square meals. We don’t need to waste our time (on Pakistan),” he said.

Relations between the two neighbours, which gained independence from British rule in 1947, have remained tense mostly because of Kashmir — the disputed region in South Asia that each nation claims in full but administers in part.

The two countries have fought four wars and engaged in frequent border skirmishes throughout the eight decades of their existence.

Saying that India shouldn’t be fixated on its neighbour, Modi urged Indians to focus on national development without making Pakistan a reference point.

The latest statement by Modi, which came as the election process enters the final phases in the world’s largest democracy of 1.4 billion people, appears to be in contrast with the jingoistic tone usually taken by the leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in every election cycle.

“From the BJP’s perspective, taking a hard line on Pakistan is something that’d galvanise the base,” says Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center.

“But we haven’t heard about Pakistan on the campaign trail this year as much as the last election,” he tells TRT World.

He says the main reason for the relative let-up in the jingoist bombast in this electoral cycle is that, unlike in 2019, India didn’t have any “military crisis” with Pakistan in the days leading up to the general election.

A suicide attack in the India-administered Kashmir killed 40 policemen in the run-up to the 2019 parliamentary polls. New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan, with the right-wing BJP using it as a bogeyman to rally support in an election that returned Modi as premier for a second term with an even bigger majority in parliament.

Enter the dragon

“You don't have any type of crisis or even major tension point now. I think it’s true that India believes Pakistan is not really that big of a deal in a broader strategic context,” Kugelman says.

Kugelman feels the focus of Indian leaders in recent years has shifted from Pakistan to China, another neighbouring country with which India has unresolved border disputes.

“They want to focus more on the China challenge that, for India, is the prime external strategic and security threat,” he says.

India’s economy, estimated at $3.7 trillion, has grown at roughly seven percent a year in the last decade to become the fifth largest in the world. Diplomatic relations between New Delhi and Beijing have been uneasy because of their decades-old dispute over a 3,440 km-long ill-defined border.

According to New Delhi-based political affairs analyst Rajesh Mahapatra, Indians like to compare and compete with China rather than Pakistan, which they once saw as their archrival.

“Contrary to what many people would like to believe, Pakistan is not of much significance as far as the broader public discourse in India is concerned,” he tells TRT World.

Yet Pakistan pops up every election cycle as an issue mainly because of the BJP, which pursues the politics and ideology of Hindutva, he says.

“The ruling BJP needs to raise the Pakistan bogey as an instrument of political mobilisation. The average Indian couldn’t be bothered,” he says.

While the true extent of jingoism may be up for debate, there’s no denying that the BJP has used Pakistan bashing as a tool in the 2024 election campaign. For example, Modi has accused the opposition Congress party of “partnering” with Pakistan to install Rahul Gandhi as head of government.

Similarly, he recently said he would make Pakistan “wear bangles if it wasn't wearing any” after an opposition leader insisted that India should “respect” its nuclear-armed neighbour.

The misogynist reference to the bangles was meant to mock Pakistan for its economic weakness.

Better ties ahead?

Analysts expect Modi to win an even bigger majority in the ongoing election. But the BJP's consolidation of power isn’t expected to bring any meaningful change in India’s policy towards Pakistan, says Kugelman of the Wilson Center.

“My personal view is that Modi has little interest in trying to engage with Pakistan. I think he feels that his country is better served not by trying to provoke a crisis but simply by leaving the issue alone,” he says.

Accusing Pakistan of harbouring "anti-India" elements, New Delhi has refused to engage in structured dialogue with Islamabad since 2011.

Sporadic attempts at rapprochement from both sides, beginning with Modi's surprise visit to Lahore in the second year of his first term, have yielded little progress in the last ten years.

“After that visit, India was hit by two significant terrorist attacks… For Modi, it convinced him that it simply wasn’t worth trying to extend a hand to Pakistan,” Kugelman says.

But Mahapatra insists that making peace with Pakistan will help enhance Modi’s global stature.

“If elected to a third term, Modi will try to improve relations, notwithstanding what he says about Pakistan in his election speeches.”

He says the biggest beneficiary of peaceful relations between the two countries will be their respective economies and people.

Bilateral trade hit rock bottom in August 2019 when Pakistan severed all economic ties with India in response to New Delhi’s “illegal” actions regarding the constitutional status of the India-administered Kashmir.

India repealed Article 370 of its constitution under which Jammu and Kashmir maintained its separate constitution along with a flag and a two-house legislature with the authority to enact its own laws.

In a major policy shift last March, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said Islamabad wanted to “seriously examine” the possibility of resuming economic ties with the arch-rival, which is nine times its GDP.

The volume of bilateral trade is nominal. India exported goods worth only $629.4 million to Pakistan in 2022, while Pakistan exported merchandise worth just $121,330 in the same year.

But these numbers don’t fully capture the extent of informal trade that often takes place via a third party based in countries like the United Arab Emirates.

“Restoring bilateral ties can unlock billions of dollars in trade and help pull millions out of poverty living on either side,” says Mahapatra.