Book Review | India's Pakistan conundrum: Managing a complex relationship

Pages: 228 | Rs 995

India and Pakistan have had a fractious relationship since their independence. Mutual perceptions of the events of 1947 and 1971 created schisms in the historical memory of their peoples that bedevil relations to this day. Sabharwal, who served as India’s Ambassador in Islamabad from April 2009 until June 2013, in a well-structured, cogently presented, and must-read book, describes the context of India-Pakistan ties in a matter-of-fact, accessible way.

The book is indispensable for anyone who wants to learn about India-Pakistan relations. It is a welcome departure from both the scholarly studies by analysts and the anecdotal narrations of practitioners. It is a thorough account of Pakistan’s current state, the most troublesome bilateral issues between India and Pakistan, and suggestions on managing them, inspired by his observation and experiences.

The first six chapters of the book describe the internal setting of Pakistan: the way it got mired in religious extremism, became dependent on external crutches, the power equation between the security establishment and political system, the roots of Pakistan’s antipathy toward India, and the likely future direction of the country.

Sabharwal provides an authentic report on the backchannel negotiation conducted between Indian and Pakistani interlocutors from 2003 to 2007 and its outcome (pp. 100-102). These began under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when Brajesh Mishra, his National Security Advisor (NSA), represented India, followed by NSA J.N. Dixit and Special Envoy Satinder Lambah. Pakistan was represented all along by its NSA Tariq Aziz.

Pakistan is not a failed state, writes Sabharwal, nor one about to break down in the foreseeable future but a “highly dysfunctional state” with “widespread lawlessness” (p. 88). Sabharwal points out that nuclear weapons have made it impossible for India to impose its will militarily on Pakistan. He then logically argues that any policy toward Pakistan premised on its disintegration would be flawed and that it would be best to engage with Pakistan.

Sabharwal reasons that even if the ascendancy of the Pakistan Army over the civilian authority will stay, Pakistan has a significant constituency desiring a normal relationship, which Indian policy should factor in. He perceives that “rational thinking” is “widely prevalent among the leadership of mainstream political parties” and “a large segment of the trade and business community and media” (p. 201). The Indian policy-makers dilemma is that the military establishment’s stranglehold over Pakistan’s foreign and security policies continues, as also control over its two strategic assets — nuclear weapons and terrorist groups nurtured as instruments of statecraft.

Pakistan is the boolean opposite of India — it represents everything India is not. In conceiving any possible initiatives, India will have to account for the three fault lines of Pakistan: the role of Islam in its public policy (Muslim identity versus Islamism), its unitary structure and assertive ethno-linguistic movements, and democracy and authoritarianism (elected civilian authority versus the military establishment). In recent decades, Pakistan’s slowing growth rates, burgeoning population, fractious politics, galloping debt and inflation, spreading Islamist sentiment, and the recent devastating floods and shortages of essential supplies have added to its friability.

Since Pakistan’s break-up, its military establishment, with its unabated propaganda has furthered the ever-present paranoia of India. The Pakistan Army has fomented the myth that India desires the destruction of Pakistan to entrench hatred for India in the Pakistani imagination. A mirror image is developing in India.

Sabharwal correctly suggests that while Pakistan remains an abnormal state normalisation of its relations with India might prove difficult, there is room for diplomacy. He is right that no single-shot reconciliation is feasible between India and Pakistan. A beginning is possible with increasing social and economic exchanges (more trade and visits). India’s least bad option is to restart the oft-disrupted conversation with Pakistan, conscious that it may again not succeed. Ideally, India and Pakistan should address the issue of cultural memory related to history teaching and school pedagogy. Since this will be difficult, the two countries could seek to overlook the past, howsoever challenging that might prove to be.

On Kashmir, Pakistan’s unwavering official view has been that the Indian ‘occupation’ of Jammu and Kashmir is ‘illegal’ and that the Kashmiri people must be allowed to exercise their legitimate right of self-determination without which neither the dispute can be resolved peacefully nor can there be durable peace between India and Pakistan. Both, former Prime Minister, Imran Khan, and the present one, Shehbaz Sharif, have sought to reverse the August 2019 Indian action of converting the state of Jammu and Kashmir into a union territory and abrogating Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. Articles that appeared in the vernacular Pakistan newspapers on the occasion of the diamond jubilee of Pakistan’s Independence Day on August 14, 2022, reinforced the popular feeling in Pakistan that its freedom is incomplete without Kashmir.

The Kashmir issue, in the opinion of the reviewer, can only be settled as a function of improved India-Pakistan relations, not the other way around. If Pakistan is ready for this, India and Pakistan could indeed have normal relations.