Many of us have seen the heart-warming picture of Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi seated comfortably on a couch and talking informally with his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. This was during the multilateral meeting of foreign ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Not many people know that Swaraj’s plane to Bishkek and back flew over the otherwise closed Pakistani airspace, allowing her a much shorter route. This favour was granted by Pakistan on India’s request. Fewer still know that Pakistan, too, had requested India for a similar favour for its foreign minister’s trip to Male and Colombo in the beginning of May which, as per Indian claims, was granted in much less time. The Pakistani foreign minister had to cancel his trip owing to bombings in Sri Lanka though.

In the so-called reciprocal diplomatic lives the two countries lead, both had restricted each other’s airspace early this year. Pakistan closed its airspace on February 26, a day after the Indian Air Force strikes in Balakot, and India obviously followed suit. This does not just mean increased flight time on most routes and affected flight schedules to the discomfort of passengers and airlines; both countries have incurred huge losses to the tune of billions of rupees as a consequence. Meanwhile, the road and rail link between the two countries remain open.

This is how tragic and clumsy the relations are between the two countries, any heart-warming pictures in between notwithstanding.

The Balakot airstrikes were a consequence of the Feb 14 suicide attack in Pulwama, said to be the deadliest in Kashmir since the beginning of insurgency. The Pulwama attack was claimed by a group that called itself Jaish-e-Muhammad, allowing New Delhi to turn its attention to its arch enemy Masood Azhar. It would be incorrect to say the relations between Pakistan and India became tense after Pulwama; they were already extremely tense since the attacks in Pathankot followed by Uri in 2016. To be fair, the relations were on a steady decline since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

This time, the two countries -- often referred to as "nuclear powers", for the effect may be -- came to the brink of actual war.

The much-feared all-out war may have been averted owing to many factors, including international diplomacy, its impact on the recently concluded general election in India seems palpable. The hyper-nationalist slogans of those days compounded by a war-mongering media proved to be the grist for the election mill in favour of the incumbent party that won with a thunderous majority, returning Narendra Modi as India’s prime minister for a second time.

As both major parties were claiming to emerge victor a little before the forthcoming elections, the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a statement in early April to the effect that if the BJP returns to power, there was a better chance of Indo-Pak peace talks and even the resolution of Kashmir. This was heard with a sense of disbelief in both countries. However, this echoed a concerted view among some circles that such is the baggage of mistrust between the two neighbours that only a military government in Pakistan and a right-wing government in India could resolve it. Others thought the PM Khan’s statement was only meant to "hurt the BJP campaign".

However, once the results were announced, Imran Khan wasted no time in congratulating the likely new Indian Prime Minister Modi through a Tweet, which was reciprocated in the same spirit. This was followed by a phone call by Khan to Modi, which was the first formal contact between the two leaders since Pulwama, and as per the press statements both leaders affirmed the commitment to peace and dialogue.

However, what has happened after the phone call is not so pleasant, and perhaps not unexpected either. Flouting its stated policy of "neighbourhood first", India has not extended an invitation to the Pakistani prime minister for the swearing-in ceremony of its new premier. Note that the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, was invited and did attend Modi’s ceremony in 2014, though the two leaders could not fulfil the promise of peace in their next three years or so together.

Many analysts had predicted that India would not headlong rush into dialogue with Pakistan after the 2019 election. Indeed, if national security and Pakistan, in the backdrop of Pulwama, impacted the election result, then FM Qureshi is perhaps right in pointing out that domestic politics prevents Modi 2.0. from inviting Pakistan’s PM. But the two leaders are likely to meet at the SCO summit in Bishkek on June 13-14, where some thaw in relations can possibly happen.

Beyond the here and now of politics, what the next five years under Modi mean for Pakistan is a valid question.

In my view, it is important not to see Pakistan and India as independent countries trying to fix the hubris they have accumulated over the last 72 years; rather, they should be seen as regional powers that have larger interests and alignments to watch. Since the world and regional politics are always in a flux as is their wont, there are realignments happening all the time.

Also read: Behind BJP’s win

To put it crudely, therefore, unlike the past, India is now a strategic partner of the US while Pakistan is more in the China-Russia sphere. There are many deviations to this as well. For instance, both Pakistan and India are a part of SCO along with China and Russia. Or Pakistan counts Iran among its allies but the US sanctions on Iran exclude Chabahar Port Project that connects India with Afghanistan. India wants to engage with its neighbours as a regional power, many of which are already in China’s sphere through its Belt and Road Initiative. China was aiding Pakistan at the United Nations for many years, vetoing its decision to declare Masood Azhar a global terrorist but this year it has finally relented to other global powers, albeit through a diluted resolution. And because it suits both India and China to counter the US influence, a date for an Indo-China summit in Varanasi, PM Modi’s constituency, has also been tentatively announced for later this year.

If there is to be any dialogue for peace between India and Pakistan, it has to happen in this regional and strategic context. This is how Modi’s next five years should be seen in Pakistan.