In the world of diplomacy, optics do matter, and therefore, the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s caustic remarks about what he hopes to achieve — or fails to achieve — in his forthcoming Islamabad visit didn’t really come as surprise. Pakistan is a toxic issue in India and it matters like hell to the government, for obvious reasons, to be seen as adopting a ‘tough’ posture, especially for the consumption of its core constituency that is weaned on delusional musings over the ‘unfinished business’ of Partition.

It is highly likely that our highly cerebral minister spoke with an eye on the hugely important assembly election in Maharashtra that must happen before November 26. And it pays to be seen hanging ‘tough’ in front of the electorate. This is one thing.

However, the Heads of Government (HoG) meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Islamabad (October 15-16) is not expected to be a watershed event in regional security. BRICS has come to overshadow the SCO, which was a brainwave of the Chinese and the Russians in a bygone era when the world order was in a state of innocence. Even India used to be ecstatic about the ‘rules-based order’ until quite recently. In fact, the last time Jaishankar uttered those archaic words would give us more or less the timeline of the contemporary world in transition from unipolarity to multipolarity.

The paradox is, the great turbulence in Eurasia around the US-Russia confrontation and the prospect of a Russian victory in the Ukraine war, plus the US’ defeat in the Afghan war in 2021, have significantly contributed to a cooling down of security tensions........

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