INDIA MUST ADOPT A PUNITIVE POLICY TOWARDS PAKISTAN

The following has been extracted from the book, ‘A Life Well Spent’ by former diplomat and Deputy National Security Adviser, Satish Chandra.

- SATISH CHANDRA

As someone who belongs to what is now Pakistan and who has invested so much of himself in working for improved India-Pakistan ties, I cannot but be saddened by the fact that despite their shared heritage and innumerable commonalities, India-Pakistan relations have been troubled since inception. After much reflection and my dealings with Pakistan over the decades, I am of the view that this is in the main due to Pakistan’s visceral antipathy towards India, which regrettably animates all its actions.

Pakistan’s antipathy towards India is rooted in its failure at having established a sense of identity for itself and in using anti-Indianism as a glue to hold the country together. This has, over the years, metamorphosed into Pakistan’s search for parity with India. The fact that this is impossible because of India’s vastly greater comprehensive national power has added to Pakistan’s frustrations and animus against the former.

Pakistan has, of course, over time, sought to make up for its power differential with India by entering into opportunistic linkages with foreign players, by adopting a focussed policy of militarization and by creating an infrastructure of terror for use against India. These policies, instead of helping Pakistan, have hurt its evolution as a stable, economically prosperous and progressive nation. Opportunistic alliances have undermined its independence of action, militarization has come at the cost of democracy and development, and the use of terror has had a horrific blowback impact, making the country a hotbed of fundamentalism and extremist violence.