Rethinking India-Pakistan relations

By S P SETH

Even as Pakistan’s establishment weighs up the country’s situation in the midst of its multiple woes a certain perspective of contemporary history might help. Ever since India’s partition and the creation of Pakistan as a sovereign state, the relationship between the two countries has been, in so many ways, a continuation of the pre-partition politics. But with independence and separation the stakes rose by externalizing and accentuating, what was once, the internal politics of an undivided people. The Hindu-Muslim divide, fostered by the British during their long rule, is continuing to characterize India-Pakistan relations. As a smaller state with its perceived insecurity, Pakistan sought powerful friends and allies to strengthen it.

This is where the United States came in with its own national and strategic interests. During the Cold War, the US was inclined to regard India with suspicion for its close ties with the Soviet Union. Which created convergence of political and strategic interests between the US and Pakistan, though they didn’t have quite the same agenda. Pakistan wanted to create leverage against India, while the US was more interested in Pakistan’s strategic location not far from the then Soviet Union. The point is that Pakistan’s insecurity against a larger India (a carry over of the pre-partition politics) militated against a fresh start between the two countries. And this has continued to this day, with added complications.

Indeed, with both India and Pakistan as sovereign nations, it was possible, after initial hiccups, to build upon their shared history and culture. But it wasn’t done and both are paying the price for it. For instance, the economic imperative of lifting the standards of their majority populations living in poverty would have created regional stability. There would have been greater cultural interaction to explore a common past and build on it. The vast amount of monies spent on defense budgets could have been used in more productive ways to fund infrastructure thus creating employment opportunities, and to fund literacy and education, to extend and improve health facilities and outcomes and the list would go on. The stakes thus created in common good would have acted as a curb on extremism and terrorist activities.

A shared peace between India and Pakistan is imperative for their common prosperity, now torn by artificial barriers built on prejudice and fear. While India is weighed down by Pakistan’s lurch toward militancy and terrorism mounted by Taliban and associated extremist groups, for Pakistan it is an existential crisis. Therefore, it is time for a rethink in Pakistan to confront the new reality when the state has become a hostage to militant groups dictating the country’s contours in a direction that is alien to majority of its population, if their voting record is anything to go by. In other words, the country’s leadership across the political spectrum requires strategic clarity. That is to decide: which is the biggest danger to Pakistan? Is it a perceived threat from India or a possible internal collapse?

When the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan after a bloody civil war and with Pakistan’s support, it was regarded as a great strategic victory. Under a friendly Taliban regime beholden to Pakistan, Afghanistan was said to provide “strategic depth” in a potential war with India. But what happened was that the Taliban’s nexus with al Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, and the 9/11 attack on the US, believed to have been orchestrated by him and his close lieutenants, eventually ended up embroiling Pakistan in the US war in Afghanistan. Which is still causing serious problems in the country, including rolling attacks in parts of Pakistan by the Taliban’s offshoot, Pakistani Taliban. And these attacks have de-stabilized Pakistan to the point of creating an existential threat to the state.

The concept of “defense in depth” turned into a nightmare created by the Afghan Taliban because of its dalliance with the al Qaeda. But the concept still finds favor with Pakistan’s political and military establishment. As the US proceeds with withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the prospect of Taliban once again capturing power in Afghanistan and beholden to Pakistan for sheltering its top leadership, the idea of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan might once again become attractive.

But it might turn out to be as deceptive as before. Islamabad might find again that a Taliban regime would like to pursue its own agenda. As Tariq Ali has recently commented in the London Review of Books, as part of a review of two books on Afghanistan: “…Gradually, Mullah Omar’s government gained autonomy from its patrons in Islamabad and even engaged in friendly negotiations with US oil companies. But its Wahhabi connections proved fatal. The rest we know.” This time, it might take the form of supporting the Pakistani Taliban against the state. Their ideological affinity to promote and impose a Wahhabi version of Islam on both Afghanistan and Pakistan is a dreadful prospect.

Pakistan, therefore, needs to rethink the country’s ethos and identity. It is true that Pakistan was created to ensure a secure future for the subcontinent’s Muslim population from a Hindu-majority India. But it hasn’t worked like that. It has simply externalized that sense of insecurity. True, the younger generations of people on both sides have very little or no experience of the violence and forced migration of communities that followed partition. But the narrative of that experience by elders and school/university textbooks has, in some ways, deepened the chasm.

Pakistan’s Taliban insurgency is not only widening the gulf, but also threatening the state. Pakistan’s establishment might re-think its founding ideology as a counter to a Hindu-majority India. Its negative formulation tends to cast it into a state of permanent insecurity and threat from India to the point that it can’t even see the serious danger it is facing from within. For sure, it will be controversial after so many years. But there is need to think outside the box of permanent hostility between India and Pakistan, because it hasn’t served the people’s interest. Besides, there is need for a new vision and a new direction in its national affairs.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.