Are India and Pakistan quietly planning to resume talks? | | India-Pakistan Conflict News

Islamabad, Pakistan – Earlier this month, as Indian media and government leaders commemorated the anniversary of the war against Pakistan in May 2025, one of the most influential figures in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political agenda struck a chord.

In an interview with the Indian media, Dattatreya Hosabale, general secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – the mother of the Hindu philosophy of Hindutva that leads Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party – said that New Delhi should explore dialogue with Pakistan.

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“We don’t have to close the doors. We have to always be ready to talk,” he said.

His comments immediately caused a political storm in India, with critics questioning the RSS’s position and pointing out how it was very different from Modi.

Indeed, Modi and his government have repeatedly said that “threats and talks cannot go together”, opposing any talks with Pakistan, which India accuses of supporting and armed militants who have attacked Indian-controlled cities in Kashmir and India for years. The four-day war in 2025 – which both Pakistan and India insist was “won” – followed a terrorist attack in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir in which 26 foreigners were killed.

Pakistan welcomed Hosabale’s comments, while Foreign Ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said Islamabad was waiting to see if “there is any progress” on India’s demand for talks.

A week later, the Modi government has yet to respond to Hosabale’s call for talks, but some prominent voices in India have backed the RSS leader, prompting New Delhi to prepare to re-engage with Pakistan.

Experts say, however, that although there are growing reasons for the neighbors to rejoin diplomatically, and that they have already taken baby steps quietly in this direction, reviving a full dialogue will not be easy.

Words from the margins – or testing the waters?

The push for negotiations did not end with Hosabale.

The former head of the Indian army, General Manoj Naravane, agreed with the leader of the RSS, he also told the Indian news agency at the end of a book he announced in Mumbai that “the common man has nothing to do with politics” and that the relationship between people naturally helps to improve relations between countries.

Crossing the border, Andrabi replied: “We hope that India will get better and the heat wave will end and pave the way for more voices to be heard.”

Although the RSS is similar to the BJP and is not in the government, many BJP leaders, including Modi, have worked for years in the organization, which plays an important role in building mass support for the ruling party.

Irfan Nooruddin, a professor of Indian politics at Georgetown University, said the negotiating signals are coming from the RSS and retired officials like Naravane for a reason.

“The Modi government has backed itself into a corner with its anti-Pakistan rhetoric,” he told Al Jazeera.

“For him to sit down and start a conversation would be very expensive politically.” Therefore, the invitation from the RSS and from the ex-military leaders is beneficial for the BJP as it protects them politically.

Bottom up

Invitations to talks don’t just come by chance, experts point out.

Jauhar Saleem, a former Pakistani diplomat, told Al Jazeera that about four meetings involving former officials, retired officials, intelligence experts and parliamentarians from both sides have taken place over the past year, since the May 2025 war that ended in a ceasefire that US President Donald Trump insists was brokered.

The meetings, divided between Track 2 and Track 1.5 involving several officials, were held in Muscat, Doha, Thailand and London, he said. Track 1.5 refers to a meeting where there are serving and retired officials, military officials and government agencies from both sides. Follow the 2 events and what the members of the government agencies and government officials and retired soldiers meet, but with the blessings of the governments. These vessels are used by governments as icebreakers and to test the waters for cooperation between two countries that do not trust each other.

“I believe that they will help to advance countless discussions on various issues in order to avoid serious disagreements, and to test the ground, perhaps to open a way of communication, which has not been there in recent years,” said Saleem.

Tariq Rashid Khan, a former general who later became Pakistan’s ambassador to Brunei, described the talks as more important than diplomatic progress.

“Track-1.5 and Track-2 negotiations do not replace official negotiations. Rather, they are a safety valve,” he told Al Jazeera.

Asked directly last week about the reports about the people, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

“If I were to answer, there would be no way back,” Andrabi said in a summary.

Modified equation

These silent actions are taking place against a backdrop that has changed dramatically since then ceasefire on May 10, 2025.

Pakistan’s international status has changed dramatically during this period. Field Marshal Asim Munirwho commanded the Pakistani military during the war, by April 2026 he planned to end the war between Washington and Tehran.

The Islamabad speaks which took place on April 11-12 created the first agreement between the US and Iran since 1979, with President Donald Trump. public appreciation Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif several times.

Meanwhile, India’s relationship with the US is in jeopardy over trade tariffs and immigration restrictions, reducing the space on which New Delhi can rely to get Washington to back off. regional interests and Pakistan.

For India, experts say, the change has implications that New Delhi has not publicly acknowledged.

“The political situation has come to a head,” Nooruddin told Al Jazeera. “India is no longer at the center of Washington’s influence abroad, while Pakistan has technically managed to re-enter America’s good fortune. India could stop Pakistan if it seems to be developing a special relationship with the US, but not anymore.”

But Khan, a former Pakistani soldier, cautioned against overstating the importance of recent signs.

“A silent demonstration shows more reality than sudden reconciliation,” he said.

Deep division

Khan’s suspicions were confirmed by what happened last week.

Speaking at a military event at the Manekshaw Center in New Delhi on May 16, Indian Army chief Upendra Dwivedi said that if Islamabad continues to “host terrorists and act against India”, it must decide whether it wants to be “part of geography or history or not”.

Within 24 hours, the Pakistani military responded. Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) officials described the comments as “frivolous, frivolous and baseless”, warning that threatening a nuclear-armed neighbor to wipe them off the map “is neither ill-informed nor disruptive; it is a blunder of intelligence”.

Any attempt to attack Pakistan, the ISPR added, “could lead to negative social or political consequences for India”.

Meanwhile, a ruling from the International Court of Justice clarified the nature of the relationship.

The Court of Arbitration at The Hague issued an award on May 15 regarding the pondage limits for Indian hydroelectric projects on the Indus River.

Pakistan accepted the ruling, hopefully, while India rejected it, reiterating that the tribunal was “illegally constituted” and that any decision it made was “null and void”.

The Indus Waters Treatyposted by New Delhi to follow Attack on Pahalgam in April 2025, it was suspended, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said. The agreement has been the cornerstone of water sharing between India and Pakistan, and, before it was canceled in 2025 by India, it survived three wars between the neighbors.

The exchange between Dwivedi and ISPR was a clear public sign of a relationship.

“Discussions are taking place in India’s diplomatic system on the details of what is happening with Pakistan, where some feel it is necessary to negotiate,” Saleem, a former Pakistani diplomat, told Al Jazeera. “But these same political interests are not clearly visible.”