A STRATEGY TO DETER TERRORISM continues....

But during the tenure of other Congress governments as well as in the present BJP-led NDA government period, the relations have been fluctuating with interregnums of extreme hostility, even war (four in the last 56 years), or waxing eloquent about peace and harmony between neighbours.

It will not be an oversimplification to state that the lack of normal healthy and stable Indo-Pakistan relations is mainly due to the unresolved Kashmir issue. Cross-border terrorism, which is being raised by the Indian Government in every forum, is also embedded in the larger Kashmir problem. The former cannot be sustained without the rhetoric on the latter.

Can a genuine thaw in Indo-Pakistan relations happen?

It will require extraordinary effort to find such a solution. There is prima facie a doubt if indeed such a solution is practical or operational terms exist at all to be negotiated.

The Kashmir issue is such that for either country there are no solutions achievable by and through compensatory trade-offs with other rewards such as more trade or foreign investments, etc.. People of both countries are emotional about the Kashmir issue. Pakistanis refer to the issue as the “unfinished agenda of Partition” of the Indian subcontinent and crucial to the raison d’etre of their nationhood itself. Indians treat it as an Islamic conspiracy to destabilize, to further partition and balkanize the Hindu country. Wasted decades since 1947 have fortified these hard emotions. It is within India’s capability today to unravel the residual Pakistan into four separate countries of Baluchistan, Sindh, Pakhtoonistan, and West Punjab.

Pakistan has been unable to keep its national integrity. In 1971, it broke up, and 55 per cent of Pakistan seceded to form Bangladesh. It could easily with Indian assistance break into four, as Yugoslavia did on ethnic grounds.

A further legal dimension arises in the Constitution of India adopted by Indian Parliament in 1950. It does not provide for ceding any territory under any circumstances. Merger into India is a one-way ticket.


To be continued.....