"Multilateral platforms like the SCO allow India to engage adversarial neighbours without diluting its bilateral position." Critically examine this in the context of India–Pakistan relations after 2025.

After the 2025 Pahalgam terror attack, India restricted bilateral engagement with Pakistan under a "national policy". Yet it invited Pakistan's culture minister to the first SCO Civilisational Dialogue Forum in New Delhi (20–22 November 2026) [1]. The proposition largely holds, but multilateralism manages hostility rather than resolving it.

How the SCO enables engagement without dilution

• Host duty, not concession: as host, India invites all ten members. Inviting Aurangzeb Khan Khichi, the first ministerial invitation to Pakistan since 2023, shifts the burden of refusal to Islamabad [1].
• Low political level: the Ministry of Culture runs the Forum, while the MEA keeps Pakistan policy and travel clearances. Security and trade stay off the table [1].
• Stage to call out terrorism: at the Goa SCO Foreign Ministers' meeting (May 2023) [2], Jaishankar said terrorism must be stopped "in all its forms", including cross-border, and called it an original SCO mandate [3].
• Precedent of firmness: Pakistan's Foreign Minister attended Goa. Even so, India's line that Pakistan must create a "conducive environment" stayed unchanged [4].
• Regional credibility: China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have confirmed participation, which presents India as an inclusive host [1].

Limits of the proposition

• Presence without progress: Pakistan has not replied [1]. As Goa showed, attendance alone brings no thaw [4].
• Adversary's veto: Pakistan can boycott or send a junior official, which reduces the Forum to box-ticking.
• Mixed messaging: the Centre speaks of a "shared civilisational and cultural" past for Delhi. Yet the MEA may deny Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann clearance for a Punjabi cultural conference in Lahore [1].
• Federal cost: foreign affairs is a Union subject (Article 246, Seventh Schedule, List I, Entry 10). Border states with cross-border linguistic ties bear the cost without being consulted.

The SCO lets India hold its bilateral red lines while remaining a credible host, but the engagement stays procedural rather than transformative. A calibrated way forward has two parts: sideline contact only if Pakistan takes verifiable counter-terrorism action, and structured Centre–State consultation on cross-border cultural ties. Together they would let multilateral diplomacy serve both security and people-to-people links, in the spirit of Article 51's commitment to international peace.