It’s possible, however, that one of the region’s major flashpoints could ultimately act to calm tensions between the two.
So far, India and Pakistan have competed for influence over Afghanistan, with India backing the former Northern Alliance and Pakistan the Taliban and other predominantly Pashtun Islamist groups. This rivalry has, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States has said, been costly for the country’s stability.
But analysts say there are signs that both sides may be re-thinking their approach to Afghanistan. ‘I think there’s been a gradual realisation that they [India and Pakistan] must stop competing in Afghanistan,’ says Shuja Nawaz, an analyst with the Atlantic Council in Washington DC.
There’s no doubting that realism has quietly permeated Indo-Pak diplomacy. The strong calls for unilateral attacks on Pakistan following Mumbai have been followed not with military posturing but quiet diplomacy. ‘Everything else India has tried,’ says Bajpai, including the threat of war following the 2001 Indian parliament attack, ‘has failed to change the dynamic.’ India has accepted that Mumbai could not have occurred without involvement from Indian nationals and that Pakistan can’t be entirely blamed for an Islamist menace that it has also fallen victim to. And while Pakistan has not arrested Lashkar-e-Tayaba leader Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, many of his cadres are facing prosecution in its courts.
The difference now, says Nawaz, ‘is that Pakistan is now facing the spectre of [Islamist terrorism] at home. The immediate enemy is internal now, not India.’ In the past 2 years, about 5000 civilians and 1700 soldiers have been killed.
‘A destabilised Pakistan is not good for India,’ says Shafi, who points to the strong informal trade and social links that have survived despite the tensions. Indeed, normalising relations would be a boon for business. When Pakistan recently signed a gas pipeline deal with Iran, the world’s second largest supplier, India was notable by its absence. India was originally part of the venture, only to withdraw owing to its present frosty relationship with Pakistan. But if trade links can be improved, access to each other’s huge consumer base and faster, easier access to the rich prize of Central Asian and Middle Eastern resources awaits.
Yet despite the signs of hope, observers on both sides of the border are virtually unanimous in their pessimism over whether there’ll be a breakthrough soon. And the reason for that remains Kashmir.
It’s not clear who can ‘sell’ peace in Kashmir, says Pant. Only an Indian government led by the rightwing BJP, Pant argues, could accept the kind of overture from Pakistan that in 2007 nearly saw the commencement of concrete steps toward resolving the dispute because voters trust it more on national security issues. In opposition, however, the BJP has been happy to score political points against the current Congress-led government, claiming its overtures to Pakistan represent appeasement of the enemy.
In politics as with everything else, however, the benefits of cooperation may end up compelling India and Pakistan to normalise relations.
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Marc
No nation has ever risen to super power status while entangled in petty border disputes/quibbles. US cajoled,traded, and aided its two major and immediate neighbors into friendship. Russia absorbed weak ones and reached a workable detente with major ones like China, Finland. By dragging its feet over conflict resolution with Pakistan, India is denying itself a pliant and useful muslim neighbor that can be a gateway to riches of central asia and caucasia and beyond. Any such expansion of two-way overland trade and energy pipelines, railways will enhance India’s credentials as an Asian superpower with a far wider reach from East Asia to Central Asia, Caucases/Caspain basin even Eastern Europe. Relinquishing/bartering a small vale (kashmir) full of angry muslims for such an over-arching role would show other big powerful nations that India has arrived to the table with smarts and foresight. Insisting on occupying a small valley full of hostile inhabitants while expending enormous military and diplomatic resources portrays India as a petty, obsessed regional suzerain with no strategic plans beyond anti-pakistan posture. So what will it be India?
Ram Sharma
That Hindustan is “denying itself a pliant and useful Muslim neighbor that can be a gateway to riches of central Asia and caucasia and beyond” is just some one’s pipe dream. Even if these two nations were performing bhangra together,Pakis would always be a thorn for Hindustan. Pakis have sold their arse to China. America and West have kept this failed state afloat by generous financial and military aid. Under the circumstance, Pakis have no incentive for economic development. If Pakis were economically progressive, what has kept them from that “pie in the sky” riches of Central Asia ? Also Paki ruling thugs have ensured their throne by being rabid anti Hindustan and at the same time feeding crap about Hindus to the brain dead populace. Same story is being played out in the Middle Easy between Arabs and Israel.
Daulat Ram
Pakistan can shout as long as it likes, but it is NOT going to get Kashmir.
Period.
Dev Kumar Dutta
No, Kashmir is not the main issue or the “core” issue. It never was. The main issue is sectarian which is as simple as the eternal differences between the subcontinent’s native Hinduism and alien Islam. No Indian except the likes of Manmohan Singh, Kanti Bajpai and some other so-called neo-liberals believe that Pakistan will stop its terrorists from attacking targets in India. Solution to the dispute in Kashmir? What dispute? The UNSC recommendation for plebicite? Well, India has dumped it into the dustbin of history and the only dispute that remains is the return of POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) to India. The ethnic cleansing of over half a million native Hindus from the Kashmir valley by Pakistan-backed Islamic terrorists. The return of this entire population to their homes is the main issue in Kashmir as far as India is concerned. Trade between India and Pakistan? That’s a laughable matter under the present circumstances.
Ashoka Chakra
Solutions are:
1. Convert the LOC into an international boundary. This would make both countries equally unhappy, and won’t solve the problem of Jihadis in Pakistan since both countries have sworn to its citizens to hold onto the whole of J and K, and especially for Pakistan, its enmity with India is its sole rationale for existence.
2. Convert J and K into a mutually administered territory. This concept, steeped in Nehruvian idealism and ironically propounded by Benazir Bhutto before the Jihadis killed her, is just as impractical as the first one. Both countries will try everything in their power to take over J and K by stealth, ultimately leading to a full out war.
3. Complete the partition. Accept the fact that the countries were divided along religious lines. Divide J and K into its three regions, with Kashmir going to Pakistan and Ladakh and Jammu staying with India. And with the countries now completely divided along religious lines, Muslims in India would have the choice of converting to any Indian religion (Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism) or migrating to Pakistan.
4. Revoke the partition, and accept that it was a British blunder for which both countries have paid a dear price. This is unlikely, given the brainwashing that has gone on for 60 years with very deep hatreds.