NEW DELHI: The terms of any future official engagement between India and Pakistan will be very different. With Jammu & Kashmir now fully integrated within the Indian Union, India will have no reason to include Kashmir in the list of subjects.

For Pakistan, any negotiations with India are centred on the issue of Kashmir. But after Monday’s reorganisation of the state by the Indian government, it will not be the same any more.

In addition, the

status to Ladakh will see India give greater strategic importance to this area that lies squarely between Pakistan-controlled Gilgil-Baltistan and Aksai Chin, controlled by China, and is vital for India’s security.

Former foreign secretary Shyam Saran said earlier, with the special status in place, India tacitly accepted that J&K was a ‘dispute’. Now, India would not agree to putting Kashmir as a topic for discussions or negotiations with Pakistan. This will have a huge impact on any future India-Pakistan engagement as J&K is now legitimately a domestic issue, he said.

“India would have factored in Pakistan’s reaction in their calculations,” Saran said, adding, “Our claim for PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan remains.” That is also part of India’s official claim, as set out by a Parliament resolution of 1994. It is unclear whether India would want that to be discussed. Thus far, India’s focus has been on

terrorism

from Pakistan, while Pakistan has focused on Kashmir.

Regarding Pakistan’s refrain of the UNSC Resolutions, Indian sources said that Pakistan has refused to fulfil the first two conditions of the said resolution, so the rest cannot be taken in isolation. Indian officials also point out that Pakistan has itself undertaken a similar exercise in Gilgit-Baltistan, which India claims, while POK is governed openly by Islamabad.

BJP MP Subramanian Swamy tweeted on Monday evening that the Indian government should withdraw the petition by former PM Jawaharlal Nehru in the UNSC on the Kashmir plebiscite as the next step.

In June, Prime Minister

told off Chinese President

at the

summit when the latter suggested that India should open talks with Pakistan and that China could “help”. When

suggested his own brand of mediation, the Indian government pushed back on both mediation and internationalisation.

But as the pressure on Pakistan grows to “deliver” on Afghanistan, the western temptation to lean on India to begin negotiations on Kashmir could increase, specially with a mercurial president like Trump in the White House. Monday’s decision took that issue off the table.

India’s decision on Ladakh is equally important for strategic reasons. India can now engage more deeply the Shias of Kargil as well as Buddhists of Ladakh who may be coming under Chinese influence. In the shadow of the Kashmir Valley developments, it has gone virtually unnoticed that China has been increasing its influence with the monasteries in Ladakh. There are several Buddhist sects in Ladakh and China has been accused of playing favourites, all of which have implications for not only Ladakh but the future of Buddhism in a post-Dalai Lama world.