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It’s Time We Had a Policy Framework to Deal with the India-Pakistan

Summary of the opinion:

  • The Jaish-e-Mohammed’s attack on an Indian air force base is a reminder that the factors underlying the rollercoaster nature of our relationship with Pakistan will not disappear overnight.

  • What is needed, therefore, is a policy framework that weathers the periodic storms of the relationship, enables us to sustain the peace process and obviates the extreme swings of the past in our responses.

Earlier breakthroughs in our relationship with Pakistan have run aground sooner or later, largely because of :

  • The inability of the dysfunctional Pakistani state to deliver on its promises, especially putting an end to terrorism against India.

  • The dominance of the army in the Pakistani polity.

  • The resulting stranglehold of the security state paradigm – that regards India as an enemy – over policymaking in Pakistan.

  • Pakistan’s description of Jammu and Kashmir as the core issue is not justified by the priorities of its people. 

  • Kashmir and India-baiting are no longer big vote getters in Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir is the core issue for proponents of the security state paradigm, who have no hope of changing the territorial status quo, but exploit it to sustain the India bogey.

Problems to tackle:

  • Cross border terrorism has been on top of our agenda.

  • A related problem is tension along the Line of Control and the International Boundary in the J&K sector.

  • Discussions on conventional and nuclear CBMs under the rubric ‘peace and security including CBMs’ have remained sterile in recent years because of Pakistan’s insistence on proposals that seek to tie us down to bilateral arrangements, while ignoring our larger security environment.

  • There is scope for significant progress in developing mutually advantageous linkages in the remaining two areas: trade and economic relations, and people to people exchanges.

By,

Sharat Sabharwal was India’s high commissioner to Pakistan, April 2009 to June 2013.

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Lahore: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is greeted at the residence of his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz at Raiwind in Lahore on Friday. PTI Photo (PTI12_25_2015_000230B)
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