William-Kate’s Pakistan visit hardly matters to Modi but India will follow it closely
All eyes are presently set on Pakistan, as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton visit the country. Post the scrapping of Article 370 in Kashmir by the Indian State the political scenario between India and Pakistan has taken a new turn. In this context the influence of America and Britain on the situation is also noteworthy. As the royal visit takes place in Pakistan what is going to be the stand of India – explains SAWM India member Jyoti Malhotra in this article.
The second in line of succession to the British throne Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton have arrived in Pakistan for a five-day visit that is being described as their “most complex” tour to date, according to a Kensington Palace handout.
They will travel more than 1000 kms across the country, to Islamabad, Lahore, Gilgit-Baltistan as well as to the rugged border regions to the west, in a trip that is expected to be part-Empire nostalgia and part-hardnosed foreign policy.
No one in Delhi has said a word about the royal visit, which comes three years after William-Kate came to India and Bhutan and included a much-photographed tour to the Taj Mahal, but everyone is clearly watching carefully.
No change in India’s stand
Neither William nor Kate’s bushels of clothing or diamond tiaras, nor their carefully vetted speeches will change Narendra Modi’s views on Kashmir. New Delhi retains a more-than-substantial belief that the British Raj didn’t play totally fair when it came to the Partition of India in 1947.
Remember Mountbatten, the last Viceroy who advanced instead of postponing the break-up of the country by several months, thereby setting in motion the massacres, the blood-letting and an exchange of populations that both countries are still coming to terms with – well, he was a relative of Queen Elizabeth and her husband Philip.
So when Mountbatten’s great-grandnephew William is likely to tell his hosts in Islamabad Tuesday night that “you can always rely on the UK to keep playing an important role as a key partner and friend”, Pakistan will cheer, Prime Minister Imran Khan will polish his Oxbridge accent and the red carpet will be brushed to a new gleam.
British politics & Kashmir
India will, meanwhile, shrug her shoulders and point to the political irrelevance of the British royalty. They don’t count, elected politicians do. But at a time when Britain’s determination to exit or not to exit the European Union has claimed the scalp of one British prime minister and threatens another – Boris Johnson, whose estranged wife is half-Indian, only has two weeks to meet an EU deadline – Delhi knows that in the gathering political shadows at Westminster, it’s not a bad idea to be friendly with the monarchy.
This is because Jeremy Corbyn, UK’s Labour Party chief, has gone out of his way to be unhelpful on Kashmir. At the party conference in Brighton in mid-September, Corbyn called for international observers to “enter” the besieged Valley (at the time under total lockdown) and demand the right for self-determination for its people.
In early September, Labour Party MP Liam Byrne from the Birmingham Hodge Hill constituency led a march to the Indian High Commission, along with several thousand Pakistani-origin supporters, protesting the scrapping of Article 370. Tomatoes and stones were thrown at the building.
Naturally, India registered a strong protest against both the actions. This Monday, 117 British-Indian organisations, including the Hindu Forum Britain, the British Sikh Association, the Jain Network, wrote to Corbyn, warning that his “one-sided” views on Kashmir could damage relations with India.
At least some battle lines are being drawn in Britain. It’s a no-brainer that Labour’s enthusiastic rank-and-file is significantly drawn from the Pakistani immigrant network (London’s mayor Sadiq Khan is of Pakistani origin), which the Labour hopes will help tip the balance when elections are held, sooner than later.
Last time around in 2017, the Conservative Party won 318 seats to Labour’s 262, with the difference in vote share being a little over two per cent, as was the victory margin in about 100 seats. The Labour Party knows that in a tight election, it needs the Muslim, largely Pakistani-immigrant, vote.
Should New Delhi care?
So, what’s British politics got to do with William-Kate’s five-day visit to Pakistan? And should New Delhi care?
First of all, the royal trip shatters all the illusions about Pakistan being isolated over Kashmir. Modi may have charmed the Indian-American community with his “Abki baar, Trump sarkar” slogan, but America needs Pakistan not only to get out of Afghanistan – an endeavour that is likely to take at least a few years – but also use its influence in the Middle East. In Tehran Sunday, Imran Khan told reporters that Trump had asked him to help initiate a dialogue between the US and Iran.
Second, although the British royals are above Britain’s contested political space and won’t do anything to upset that carefully balanced apple-cart, William’s speech in Islamabad will be seen as feeding into the Labour Party immigrant story.
“We share unique bonds and so it will always be in our best interests for Pakistan to succeed. Not least because of the 1.5 million people living in the UK with Pakistani origin and the fact that the UK is one of the biggest investors in Pakistan’s economy,” Wiliam is expected to say Tuesday night.
All this is, of course, par for the diplomatic course. William-Kate will probably use the exact same phrases whenever they travel abroad. It’s true they have no influence on British politics; it is equally true their enormous influence is derived from the people of Britain who adore their monarchy.
It is in these shadows of power, in the trappings of these conventions that are a palimpsest of both nostalgia and modernity, in the magnificent reach of the Commonwealth – of which India and Pakistan are members – that the British royals excel.
Narendra Modi instinctively understands the power of that image, however fraying at the edges. After all, he has taken great trouble to manufacture his own image, undeniably backed by a huge majority. It is also why he threw a lunch party for William-Kate at the magnificent Hyderabad House in New Delhi when the young couple visited in 2016.
At the end of the day, the William-Kate visit to Pakistan will hardly cause any ripples in the Ravi river or change the destiny of the country. But it will be compared (with the previous visits of UK royals), certainly followed and definitely remembered for what it did, didn’t or could have achieved.
Perhaps, the happy ending in this story is that it took place at all.