The recent failure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to issue a joint communique after its meeting in China is a collective failure, not one that can be pinned on a single country. Since the SCO functions on the principle of consensus, the inability to arrive at one indicates that multiple member states were either unwilling or unable to agree on common language. Defence minister Rajnath Singh has blamed “one particular country”—clearly referring to Pakistan—for blocking consensus. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar echoed this, stating that Pakistan objected to the inclusion of the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, in which 26 tourists were killed. If this is true, it raises the critical question:........

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