>>d) evangelize linking aid to an enlightened education curriculum in Pakistan (Malaysia is a good example of a modern Muslim state)

This is not sufficient — aid must be linked to Pakistan signing up the NPT or otherwise giving up its offensive nuclear weapons. Pakistan is an existential threat to India as long as China finds it a workable strategy to give working nuke weapons designs to Pakistan (as it has done in the past) to undercut India at every step by arming Pakistan.

>>
(e) outspend Pakistan on defence (something we can do with far lesser pain given the difference in our sizes – delinking our defence spending from Pakistan’s would remove motivation for arms exporters to “donate” offensive power to Pakistan!)
>>
That is wrong too. Arms are being provided to Pakistan by USA, and China, oil and money are funded by Japan and Saudi Arabia not because they care about Pakistan’s defense, but it is a deliberate ploy by USA and China to keep India struggling with Pakistan issues in the subcontinent instead of carving a larger role for itself. Indian defence spending already focusses on Indian defense needs with a more dangerous enemy, China, not Pakistan.

>>(g) play down anti Pakistanism in India. Not our league really.

Why? Why should India play down any acts of terrorism or hostility by the Pakistanis against India? Okay, there is no need to go on “Pakistan muradabad” rallies in India, but the Indian press and media need to shine a bright light on the behaviour of the Pakistanis and the Pakistani establishment towards India without “filtering the news” as you are recommending.

Thank you.

We do not need a Pakistan that legitimizes Islamic struggle against India. (We need to be prepared to deal with that though).

We need to understand that anti-Indianism is a stronger uniting force in Pakistan than Islam (consider Bangladesh, Ahmediyas, Shias, dilution in practice of Zia laws etc). The two disproportionate benefeciaries in Pakistan’s polity – the army and the Islamists – would lose their rations if anti Indianism reduces.

Anti Indianism can come down only if curriculum in normal schools (not just the Madarassas) de-emphasizes military values and jehad and democracy gets depth in Pakistan.

Currently democracy does not have political depth. Civil leaders do not have the stature to bring in change; and try to be more royal than the king in playing the anti Indianism card.

Our strategy should be to:
(a) recognize that peace means end of hostilities and not beginning of friendship; and build crisis handling processes.
(b) let economic disparity take its course (the Soviets lost because of differential economic growth than differential military strengths to the US)
(c) apply pressure on Pakistan army through international donors (the only constituency they reluctantly listen to)
(d) evangelize linking aid to an enlightened education curriculum in Pakistan (Malaysia is a good example of a modern Muslim state)
(e) outspend Pakistan on defence (something we can do with far lesser pain given the difference in our sizes – delinking our defence spending from Pakistan’s would remove motivation for arms exporters to “donate” offensive power to Pakistan!)
(g) play down anti Pakistanism in India. Not our league really.

You speak as if the Pakistani military is all reasonable, when it is not.
Before joint exercises, let the Pakistan army take down all the terrorist camps operating on the other side of the LoC and the International border. Pakistan’s army has no intention of taking down any of those camps, and are in fact starting to line up the entire border with trees so that they can provide cover for terrorists across the border. This kind of Pakistani behaviour is not going to engender trust even conduct a joint indo-pakistani cooking operation, leave alone a military operation with the Indian army.

http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/web1/09aug09/news.htm#3

First of all, quoting that Ahsan Butt fellow is foolish

Hmm.. I thought “you” were Ahsan Butt of the five-rupees blog. If not, then who are you ?

Or is this some self-referential joke ? In which case, sorry for not getting it

Nitin,

Instead of cribbing about the shitty situation we find ourselves with our neighbours, can’t we actually take the lead in setting calm and resolving tensions ? I don’t really care “how” the tensions are resolved and what type of sacrifices each country needs to make. But the task is to resolve tensions and set up a sort of bonhomie between the Indian and Pakistani armies, culminating in something like joint military exercises against terrorism.

Are we taking any active steps to that end ? Are we being aggressive in conveying our point to the Paki political leadership and people ?

The current strategy (as it looks to me) is to just sit tight and enjoy the show as Pakistan gets engulfed in flames. I would like to disagree that this “non-action” will somehow solve the problems to our advantage.

>>I’ve yet to see compelling evidence that India thinks in any other way than the “Why should strong states concede anything to weak states” logic

Actually, the logic is not that. The logic is: why should a party drawn into a violent conflict of not its making concede anything to the aggressor?

Pakistanis perhaps are acutely conscious of the fact that they are a “weaker” state, but I don’t think that’s a factor in ordinary Indians’ views of Pakistan at all.

The realist discussion is interesting as there is a baseline.

1. If being intransigent on Pakistan leaves it in eternal torment (and the latter is in India’s interests) then it is not a bad strategy.

2. Ahsan says then don’t complain if the price for this strategy is proxy war using jihadis.

This leads us to:

3. Pakistan itself suffers more because the proxy war has a backdraft.

4. In turn, Pakistan shouldn’t complain if it, in turn, has to pay the price for instigating proxy war.

Clearly, this cycle hurts Pakistan more than it hurts India. Of course, Pakistan can do another Kargil…but not when the Americans are crawling over the country and are doling out the money needed to keep the lights on.

So why does anyone think India should do anything else?

The way out is obvious: Pakistan does all the compromising it has to to, signals that it doesn’t serve India’s interests to leave Pak to eternal torment. The Zardari dude seems to be saying it. But we watch what their hands, not their lips. The hands, they do something else.

“I truly hate being pigeonholed by people who do not know me or my views and base their opinions of me and my views on my nationality.”

My unsolicited advice would be to simply not respond to comments that appear to be from trolls (entirely up to you to judge who a troll is).

This is the internet, and on discussions like this one, there will be plenty of passionate people singing all sorts of tunes. There is nothing anyone can do about that.

And quite frankly, nobody would care about your nationality if you’d simply post your opinion and not bring nationalities into the discussion yourself (Ref: your first comment about jingoistic Indians). You don’t add to civil discussions by calling people “bloody traitors” and saying “I hear he’s on the payroll of RAW and the CIA” etc. either. I don’t know whose payroll you are on, and couldn’t care less. All that matters for the purpose of discussion are our opinions, not our employers.

Back on the substantive issue, I posted a link to a rediff article that does a reasonable job of summarizing India’s rejected offers to Pakistan (as recorded in Gundevia’s book). A short quote:

* Decision about offering Pakistan a new international border in J&K was approved at a full-dress Cabinet meeting without anyone asking for maps or wanting to see where the new line would be! When someone asked, vaguely, “What about sovereignty?” the prime minister said he did not understand the question — sovereignty over what?
* The new international line should be “in favour of Pakistan”, giving something east and north of the Kashmir Valley, conceding some 1,500 more miles.
* To avoid border clashes, the withdrawal of troops from the Cease-Fire Line to a substantial distance of a mile or two miles or five miles — the distance to be named by Pakistan! Nehru approved this at an impromptu meeting with his foreign secretary after the latter had already made the spur-of-the-moment proposal to Pakistan despite knowing that Srinagar was just some 15 miles from the Cease-Fire Line.

In fact, the problem in India is that most Indians could care less if Pakistan existed or not. Just surviving in India is hard enough without such diversions. This is the very reason Indian politicians have refused to be proactive about Pakistan…it buys them nothing. So the Indian government just builds bigger barricades and more intrusive internal security measures, and the leaders make speeches praising “the courage and bravery of the Indian people to explode in public places for no fault of their own”. This round-and-round circus has gone on in India for so long, people have stopped caring.

If you write nonsense, you will be responded to. Your premise that India is doing anything proactive is false, so the rest of your arguments are false too.
Pakistan is doing a fine job of being in eternal turmoil mostly because of their India policy — being Pakistan’s primary victim, India has no interest in assisting Pakistan in being able to hurt India better.

The cost India bears due to Pakistan has nothing to do with India’s actions — the pakistanis pretend India is in Balochistan when India is doing nothing of that sort. All of that cost Pakistan bears is because of its penchant to be a rentier state willing to work for the highest bidder.

You pretending that India has any part to play for Pakistan’s sorry state today is plain nonsense and a complete lie.

I don’t appreciate my words being twisted, nor do I appreciate being quoted out of context so that you can make it seem that I am saying something I am not, only so that I fit your preconceived notion of what I would be saying. I am here for a civil discussion; if would prefer not to have one, then please by all means do not address me.

To recap: it was Nitin, not me, that suggested that India would/could be happy paying the price of interstate tensions to keep Pakistan in eternal turmoil. My exhortation to Nitin was to make this cost-benefit analysis explicit in his writings when the cost is actually paid. I also think Nitin is wrong on the substantive point here, because to keep Pakistan in “eternal turmoil” is actually costly to India, even if Indians don’t realize it. In effect, there are two sets of costs and no benefits.

My own view on this is that Pakistan tried the non-state actor route for close to 20 years, and it is time to shut up shop. It didn’t work, and in fact proved counterproductive, and the state needs to move on. I have in fact been arguing for those since I started writing semi-professionally close to a decade ago. But just because I want it doesn’t mean it will happen. It will most likely happen when India actually gives some concessions on some issues, short of “handing over J&K”.

I truly hate being pigeonholed by people who do not know me or my views and base their opinions of me and my views on my nationality. It is why I avoid commenting on this blog, even though I read it every day (or every second day), because invariably something like this happens. Perhaps in the future, I should only email Nitin and keep clear of these boards.