Skip to main content

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.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE COMPLETE OPINION


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)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

SWACHH BHARAT MISSION

SWACHH BHARAT MISSION Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) on October 2, 2014, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The ambitious programme aims to make the streets, roads and infrastructure across the country clean by October 02, 2019, the 150 th  birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation. It is India’s biggest ever cleanliness drive. The relevance of the Swachh Bharat Mission Sanitation has emerged as a key issue since the 2011 Census highlighted e glaring data on lack of toilets in the country by stating that over 26 million people in India defecate in the open. Launched with an estimated cost of around Rs 62,009 crore, Swachh Bharat Mission aims to achieve the elimination of open defecation in the country. Among its other objectives are conversion of insanitary toilets to pour flush toilets, putting an end to the inhuman practice of manual scavenging and carrying out Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM). Involvem...

India Tech Vision-2035

India Tech Vision-2035 India's technology thinktank under the ministry of science & technology has come out with `Technology Vision 2035' here at the ongoing Indian Science Congress, identifying the challenges ahead and how they can be dealt with through technological interventions while realising the dream of a developed India by the year 2035. The thinktank -Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) -in the vision document lists a technology roadmap for India, giving details of 12 sectors and technologies that in some cases exist but need to be deployed, some in the pilot stage that must be scaled up and technologies in R&D stage. It, in fact, talks about many future technologies, ranging from flying cars, real time translation software, personalised medicine, wearable devices, e-sensing (e-nose and e-tongue) to 100% recyclable materials among others which may be used in different areas to solve day-to-day problems “The trajectories del...

Civil Service Bytes News Analysis January 2016

Morning News Analysis with Mind Map   Odd-even scheme for cars rolls out in the National Capital to curb vehicular pollution.  Centre invites Gorkha Janmukti Morcha for tripartite talks on the Gorkhaland Territorial        Administration agreement.  In Bangladesh, two students sentenced to death for killing of a blogger in 2013.  The World welcomes New year 2016 with pomp and show.  In Sports; Indian Test Captain Virat Kohli is BCCI's 'Cricketer of the Year' 2015; Mithali Raj picked for women's top award.  And, India to meet Afghanistan in the final of the South Asian Football Federation Cup.