Indian policymakers are again discussing if a stable Pakistan is a good thing. Pakistan’s internal politics hold the key.
In the aftermath of yet another abortive attempt to reach a rapprochement with Pakistan this July, a time-honored debate has again been resurrected in New Delhi’s foreign and security policy circles.
The debate revolves around the question of whether or not it’s in India’s interests to have a stable, secure and prosperous Pakistan. Yet the question in its present form misses the point. The real issue isn’t whether or not such an outcome is desirable. Instead, the more pertinent issue for India’s policymakers is to establish how such a Pakistani state would behave toward India. Would it be a benign and fair-minded neighbor willing to cooperate on a host of outstanding differences? Or would it remain truculent as ever, determined to remain at odds with its neighbor?
Much depends on how things unfold on the domestic political scene. As long as the Pakistani state remains under the firm thumb of the military, even a civilian regime will maintain its implacable hostility toward India. Under those circumstances, it would be almost pointless to discuss whether or not a stable, secure and prosperous Pakistan would serve India’s national interests. After all, a state that enjoys prosperity and order, but refuses to countenance an end to terror against India—and one that continues to exploit India’s internal ethnic and religious fissures and nurtures an age-old claim on Kashmir—is obviously not in India’s interest.
Indeed, far from alleviating Indo-Pakistani tensions, such a stable but military-dominated state would be more prone to undertaking risky ventures against India, and would also likely be tempted to resort to asymmetric warfare, given India’s greater conventional military capabilities.
In effect then, such a stable, secure and prosperous state could turn out to be quite hubristic and could even conclude that it was in a position to unravel India’s troubled social fabric, to hobble its steady economic growth and to stultify its basic democratic ethos through small-scale but constant provocations. Such a state, far from being at peace with itself and its neighbors, could easily prove to be inimical to the prospects of regional and even global security.
But would the opposite, as some of the more hawkish members of India’s strategic community are inclined to argue, be any better? For example, is an increasingly unstable, erratic, weak and insecure Pakistan really in India’s national interest?
Photo Credit: Al Jazeera
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Does India want a stable Pakistan? My answer would be “NO”…. India can not afford a stable Pakistan…Why?
My Answer is : Anyone ever wondered that since the terrorists have started going Kaboom in Pakistan …..things have become amazingly quiet on India side…..it would be worthwhile for Indian Intelligence agencies to make some efforts and make sure that Pakistan continues to simmer on the same fire that it has ignited for India for almost 6 decades.
Ahmed Quraishi
Way before there was an uprising of any sort in Kashmir against Indian occupation, and way before Pakistan had a strong intelligence setup, and way before any lashkar existed, India proved beyond doubt it would seize every opportunity to hurt Pakistan.
In 1971, India launched a full fledged military invasion of Pakistan, across international border, when Pakistanis where busy in post-election bickering, the military was in its barracks and there was no tension between the two countries.
It turned out later India was preparing for the invasion by recruiting politically disgruntled Pakistanis from the border areas and organizing them into a proxy force. This force joined the Indian army in spreading mayhem and death in East Pakistan.
Kashmir was peaceful, no lashkar existed and there was no mumbai attacks, so why did India invade Pakistan while Pakistanis were fresh from a democratic exercise?
Ill intent. India repeated the same thing a few years later, sending intelligence agents to a Soviet-proxy Afghanistan with the intent of exporting terrorism to Pakistani cities from Afghan soil.
Why did India do that?
And here we have a propagandist piece portraying India as a peaceful country waiting for Pakistan to ‘accept’ making peace with India.
Alex Thomas
@ Ahmed 1947,1965 Wars were started by Pakistan and the reason for 1971 war was started due to unimaginable atrocities committed and Punjabi pakistani soldiers to poor Bengalis. Millions were murdered and raped there. Your General Tikka Khan was notoriously called “Butcher of Bengal”. Millions of refugees poured into India to save their lives creating huge social, political and financial crunch for us. India had to intervene and your Airforce launched a pre-emptive strike on airfields of India and thus the war started.
And you also forgot Kargil war of 1999? Who started it? Your army and trained millitants illegaly occupied Indian terroritory and started the war. SAINTS OF PAKISTAN ! ROTFL
Amitk
Your interpretation of history of 1971 war is so distant from reality. Your views are result of gross history distortion that has happened in Pakistan history books. The massacre of Bengali people was next to holocaust. India showed its real intent by returning 90k prisoners of war in East Pakistan and returning won territory of Punjab to west Pakistan. On Baluchistan, India always had the opportunity to defame Pakistan but it never exercised it even when Pakistan had used war as means to internationalize Kashmir issue.
Jindal
The million dollar question is “Does Pakistan want a stable Pakistan?” The Chinese ploy is clear that it wants to have its feet in the warm waters of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. For that, it would want a weak Pakistan to push around the way it likes throughout the 21st century. And if that is the choice Pakistan makes, India can do nothing more than plan for vigilant policing an unstable neighbor. If Pakistan sees that China is merely playing it as a pawn against other players in the great game, and realizes that it doesn’t want to end up being used as another Xinjiang in the long run, then it is likely that diplomatic ties between India and Pakistan would improve and help stave off nefarious Chinese designs in the region and limit Chinese strategic depth to Burmese ports. Also if it is true that India has less diplomats than Israel, then India needs to rethink the soft power bravado it has been trying to project. That obviously goes without question if India truly intends to see beyond Pakistan.
daulat ram
Does the Indian ruling elite ceven want a stable INDIA?
Their actions indicate the opposite.
They have allowed, out of sheer indifference and negligence, a huge part of India to be taken over my Maoist insurgents. They fail to take even minimal steps to combat Islamist terrorists.
India fools itself that it is on the road to successs.
In fact, with the Muslim population becoming hundreds of millions and the Indian Army unable to control even a few thousand armed insurgents, India will be very lucky to exist in 15 years.
amitk
@daulat ram
You are right in saying that Maoist problem was neglected in past two decades. However, Moists can never ever openly challenge state or central government. They fight in dark jungles and hence difficult to handle for police force or CRPF. The day military takes over this problem, this problem will cease to exists in mere couple of months.
Islamic terrorist problem is not unique to India. Even US and UK don’t have fool proof method to fight terrorism without jeopardizing civil rights of its Muslim citizens. India is at least not causing Muslim civilians trouble under name of fighting terrorism.
Sardar
Pakistan needs India as a bogeyman to keep its people united, or they may suddely remember that they are punjabis, sindhis, baluchs and pathans and that they hate each other and that they were never ever ‘One Country’ through out History. Bengalis remembered that they hate Punjabis more than the Indians and so they demanded and formed bangladesh.
Therefore even if Pakistan ever becomes a stable and secure country, it will continue to exhibit hatred towards India because such hatred towards India is the bond that binds it as nation and wihout such hatred towards India, it will break into pieces in no time.
Pakistan needs to hate India for its survival.
Ashi
your observation is the most precise and summarizes everything between Indo-Pak relations. Period.