'Hopeful That They Will Come,' India Invites Pakistan To First SCO Civilisational Dialogue Forum In New Delhi

Pakistan has been invited by India to the inaugural Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Civilisational Dialogue Forum in New Delhi from November 20 to 22. Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said he was hopeful that Islamabad would participate.

“I should be hopeful that they will come,” Shekhawat said at a press conference while discussing the invitations sent to participating countries.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the opening on November 20 at Purana Qila in Delhi. The meeting matters because it will launch a new SCO platform focused on culture and civilisational links, not only diplomacy and security. It also places Pakistan’s invitation against the backdrop of strained ties, while signalling India’s push to widen engagement within the regional grouping.

Invitations And Attendance

India has sent invitations to 25 countries, including SCO member states. So far, 15 countries have confirmed participation, Shekhawat said.

China, Iran and Kazakhstan are among the countries that have confirmed their presence. The forum is meant to deepen cultural understanding and people-to-people ties among SCO member states.

Shekhawat said the SCO should function as more than a geopolitical platform saying that it should also give countries a space to discuss their shared civilisational heritage.

UNESCO And Heritage

Heritage will be a central agenda at the meeting. Shekhawat said discussions at the forum would include multinational nominations for UNESCO sites.

The initiative is also expected to encourage cultural cooperation and improve understanding of the region’s shared heritage. That broader framing ties the forum to India’s effort to place civilisational links alongside formal state-to-state engagement.

The idea for the forum came from Modi’s visit to Tianjin for the SCO summit last year. He proposed the civilisational dialogue forum there to build closer people-to-people connections and stronger cultural understanding within the grouping.

Pakistan Ties And History

Pakistan’s invitation comes despite strained ties between the two neighbours. Pakistan’s minister for national heritage and culture, Aurangzeb Khan Khichi, was invited to the meeting.

The SCO has continued to offer a channel for contact between India and Pakistan even without substantive bilateral talks. That has made the grouping one of the few regular multilateral settings where both sides still engage.

That pattern has held in recent years. Pakistan’s then foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto visited India in 2023 for an SCO foreign ministers’ meeting, while external affairs minister S Jaishankar travelled to Pakistan in 2024 for a meeting of the grouping's heads of government. Neither visit led to a bilateral meeting.

Delhi Inaugural Plans

The Delhi event will be the first edition of the initiative. India’s decision to host the inaugural SCO Civilisation Dialogue Forum was announced by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at the SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, last month.

Singh invited all SCO member countries to take part in the initiative. He said it was intended to strengthen cultural ties and mutual understanding.

He also linked the outreach to wider cooperation within the bloc. Singh referred to the need for closer coordination among member states on security, connectivity and regional opportunities, while stressing a collective approach to tackling terrorism.