Geopolitics

India’s options in dealing with Pakistan
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Issue Net Edition | Date : 07 Aug , 2013

When we consider our options, the first reality that we must accept is that we have no option but to deal with Pakistan irrespective of whether we have friendly or inimical relations with it, as it is our direct neighbour.

Pakistan is determined to confront us bilaterally, regionally and internationally. It inflicts wounds on us, through jihadi terrorism, for instance.

Some say that we pay excessive attention to Pakistan. At one level this may be true. At SAARC meetings or other forums the intensity of diplomatic attention we give to Pakistan stands out, to the chagrin of other countries in our neighbourhood. At another level, heightened attention is inescapable as our biggest and most intractable problems are with Pakistan.

For many reasons we cannot actually ignore Pakistan even if we wanted to. Those who want India to treat Pakistan with benign neglect miss some important compulsions. Pakistan is determined to confront us bilaterally, regionally and internationally. It inflicts wounds on us, through jihadi terrorism, for instance. The terrorist threat from Pakistan, therefore, becomes prominent in our internal and international discourse.

There is no other country that uses terrorism as an instrument of state policy towards us, or where jihadi groups openly exist and incite hatred towards India. Pakistan plays the religious card against us, targeting not only communal harmony inside India but also our relations with Islamic countries. We have also to be watchful of the rise of religious extremism in Pakistan as it has consequences for our multi-religious society.

Pakistan constantly seeks to internationalize bilateral issues with us, pressing the US and other western powers to intervene, which we have to resist. It raises human rights issues in J&K, and as such issues are sensitive for the international community, we are obliged to counter its propaganda.

Pakistan transfers responsibility for its nuclear ambitions on to our shoulders, creating a linkage between its programme and ours in the minds of other countries, forcing us to enter into the debate on the nuclear threat in the sub-continent.

Pakistan transfers responsibility for its nuclear ambitions on to our shoulders, creating a linkage between its programme and ours in the minds of other countries, forcing us to enter into the debate on the nuclear threat in the sub-continent.

Even in the case of Afghanistan, it justifies its policies there as necessary to counter India, a line that some in the West buy.

All issues in the forefront of international attention, whether religious extremism, terrorism or nuclear proliferation, figure in the India-Pakistan equation, which makes it impossible for us to behave as if Pakistan is a secondary problem for us.

The relevant question is whether we have dealt with the panoply of threats from Pakistan optimally in terms of available options.

On the face of it, given the lack of success in containing Pakistan one can say that this is not the case. One must, of course, concede that Pakistan is a unique case and no easy answers are available on how it can be successfully dealt with.

Whenever the government’s policy towards Pakistan is criticized, the critics are asked to propose a better policy, one that could have guaranteed, or will guarantee in the future, better results.

This presents a challenge as an alternative agenda of dealing with Pakistan cannot be invented at this stage. The failures of the past weigh on the choices of the present. So much ground has been lost over the years in dealing with Pakistan defensively, inconsistently, wishfully, unrealistically and opportunistically that retrieving it sufficiently is impossible.

The options that we have today are constrained by the options foregone in previous decades.

The Composite Dialogue and the so-called Comprehensive Dialogue that has succeeded it have gone on for years, but they have proved sterile. The dialogue option has not worked either.

I would need to make a couple of general points additionally. Some would say that we have exhausted all possible options in dealing with the challenge that we face from Pakistan since 1947. We have fought four wars, if we include Kargil, but the military option has not succeeded in subduing Pakistan.

Pakistan has now developed nuclear capability, which makes the use of any serious conventional military option untenable. Pakistan hyped up our so-called Cold Start doctrine not only to propagate internally and externally that it was Pakistan that was threatened by India rather than the reverse, but also to justify development of tactical nuclear weapons that, in turn, by stoking fears in the international community about a nuclear conflict in the sub-continent, also served Pakistan’s purpose in seeking to extort nuclear concessions of the kind made to India by the US and the NSG.

We have had numerous rounds of dialogue with Pakistan, but without resolution of differences. The Composite Dialogue and the so-called Comprehensive Dialogue that has succeeded it have gone on for years, but they have proved sterile. The dialogue option has not worked either.

We have also rejected dialogue after some particularly intolerable provocation from our neighbour, but that too has not worked to make Pakistan more amenable, as Pakistan sees the dialogue as a platform to keep pressing for concessions from India, not make ones of its own in order to genuinely move forward the process of normalisation.

The biggest problem in our dealing with Pakistan has been our defensive attitude, our unwillingness to retaliate against Pakistan so that a price is imposed on it for its infractions, our reluctance to assume risks accompanying a tougher policy, our concerns about the reaction of the international community if we acted against Pakistan, our fear that if we did that our policy of treating our differences with Pakistan bilaterally would be compromised as the issues would get internationalized.

In recent years we have also not wanted to be at odds with the US on Pakistan in view of US’s military involvement in the region because of Afghanistan.

Pakistan remains a perennial problem for us. It is a unique situation in which the animosity of sixty-five years has not been overcome despite vast changes in the international arena…

Beyond all this, Pakistan is a factor in our internal politics, with the political class believing that moderating our approach towards Pakistan, whatever the nature of its provocations, can deliver electoral benefits in view of the weight of our large Muslim population in our highly fractured electoral politics. A softer attitude towards Pakistan is meant to denote a more “secular” and less “anti-Muslim” bias internally.

More recently the view that rising India, on the cusp of becoming a global power, has far too much to lose in getting embroiled in tensions with Pakistan, which has far less to lose as a failing state. India does not want to be distracted from its primary objective of ensuring high economic growth, mobilize foreign direct investment to modernize our infrastructure and alleviate poverty by being involved in any wasteful and self-damaging confrontation with Pakistan.

Pakistan has used the arm of terrorism against us for almost three decades, first in Punjab, then in J&K and subsequently in other parts of India. There is no other instance in international relations of a smaller, weaker country using terrorism as an instrument to settle scores against a larger stronger country. We would be within our right to retaliate, but have not done so, leaving the initiative to Pakistan to calibrate the use of this instrument depending on circumstances of the moment.

Our restraint has not paid us any dividend either with Pakistan or the international community which, aware of Pakistan’s conduct, has chosen to overlook it as India’s high levels of tolerance have not obliged them to confront hard choices on the question.

We have shown restraint in reacting to Pakistan’s constant tirades against us in international forums, its use of Islamic platforms against us, its constant attempts to internationalize the Kashmir issue and the like, but this has not deterred Pakistan’s aggressive and antipathetic conduct.

The Pakistani mind-set has an organic linkage with the military’s domination of Pakistan’s polity. The Pakistani armed forces provide the physical and moral muscle to confront India.

Pakistan remains a perennial problem for us. It is a unique situation in which the animosity of sixty-five years has not been overcome despite vast changes in the international arena, with former implacable adversaries like the US and Russia moving, despite serious differences, towards fundamental reconciliation.

The fundamental problem is the unchanged mind-set of the ruling Pakistani elite towards India. The basic antipathy, distrust and sense of rivalry towards India conditions Pakistan’s policies towards us. The Islamic roots of Pakistan and differences with India rooted in religious ideology remain a huge obstacle. If Pakistan’s hostility is anchored in the “idea” of Pakistan, unless that “idea” evolves, burying of differences will not be possible.

The Pakistani mind-set has an organic linkage with the military’s domination of Pakistan’s polity. The Pakistani armed forces provide the physical and moral muscle to confront India. With Pakistan becoming nuclear, its capacity to confront India, despite other weaknesses of the country, can be sustained longer than might have been the case otherwise.

An important caveat would be that while the Pakistan armed forces are at the core of the country’s confrontationist policies towards us, the civilian class too has deep anti-Indian feelings.

Let us remember that Pakistan was created not by the Pakistani military but by its political class. The political sentiments rooted in the two-nation theory have not disappeared even if a section of the Pakistani polity can have a more pragmatic and cooperative view of relations with India.

India has been unable to craft a policy that through threats of retaliation, engagement and deterrence moves the relationship towards a form of normalization. In the last decade India has given priority to dialogue, overlooking serious Pakistani provocations, but without the expected results.

While we have strengthened border defences, our homeland security steps have been quite inadequate. We are unable to forge an appropriately stringent anti-terrorism law…

On the central issue of terrorism India has played for time, hoping that at some stage the problem may go away or become more manageable.

We may be reasoning that the most practical way to handle this highly complicated issue would be to strengthen our defences on the border as well as internally against terrorist attacks and simultaneously engage Pakistan in a dialogue, however frustrating, taking at face value the well-rehearsed postures of the Pakistani leadership on their sincerity in combating terrorism, which they project as a common threat.

While we have strengthened border defences, our homeland security steps have been quite inadequate. We are unable to forge an appropriately stringent anti-terrorism law, the proposal to set up an anti-terrorism body at the central level with the required authority has run into issues of state-centre rights under the constitution, while the number of personnel, the training and equipment required for securing our society remain inadequate.

I mentioned how past concessions have eroded our capacity to deal with firmness the challenges that continue. Let me take the last decade for examination.

In 2004 Pakistan committed itself to not allow terrorist attacks against India from territory under its control. In exchange, India agreed to restore the Composite Dialogue. A clear linkage was established between dialogue and terrorism. But we discarded this linkage later by continuing our dialogue despite a series of Pakistani abetted terrorist attacks against our people in city streets, religious places, economic targets and our science and technology centres, whether in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Benares or Mumbai.

Instead of interrupting the dialogue, India played along with the fiction that these attacks were by actors outside the control of the Pakistani government and therefore breaking the dialogue at the governmental level would not be justified.

We reinforced the perception that we had no choice but to tolerate these provocations by stating at the highest political level that there was no alternative to a dialogue. Our only mild remonstration, repeated periodically with no effect, was that terrorism had to be reined it to create conditions for a fruitful dialogue and build trust between the two countries.

Pakistan has exploited every procedural legal trick to delay the trial of those responsible for the Mumbai attack.

We agreed to formally delink dialogue and terrorism by proclaiming in a joint statement with Pakistan at Sharm el Sheikh in July 2009 that action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these two should not be bracketed.

This concession came a few months after the monstrous terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008, exhibiting once again our anxiety to talk to Pakistan. The consideration that the absence of a dialogue only invited pressure from outside- the US quite clearly- may have weighed with us, but if we thought that a chastened Pakistan confronted with rising domestic terrorism might actually have begun to see the issue differently, then we were wrong in our analysis.

If the assumption was that this delinking would give the Pakistan government political space to try those responsible for the Mumbai massacre as a first step towards the elimination of terrorism from its soil directed at India, then that assumption too has proved a mistaken one.

Pakistan has in fact used the mounting challenge of domestic terrorism to argue that it had no reason to abet terrorism outside and that domestic Indian groups were responsible for terrorist attacks within the country.

It has exploited every procedural legal trick to delay the trial of those responsible for the Mumbai attack.

Worse, the former Pakistani interior minister on a visit to India in December 2012 bracketed the Mumbai attack with Babri Masjid and imputed it to the handiwork of an Indian intelligence contact and non-state actors in Pakistan and India acting in league with a US national. He was conveying the “truth” to the Indian public hidden by the Indian government, he said. By arguing that our agencies had failed to prevent the Mumbai attack, he revealed how far Pakistan can go to reject any guilt for state-promoted terrorism and how much the sense of being a victim of conspiracies has got ingrained into Pakistani thinking.

The statements by our own Home Ministers about “saffron” terror, BJP run training camps and the internal threat from the Indian Mujaheddin being more important than external threats, have severely damaged our case against Pakistan…

The hypocrisy of the government of Pakistan is such that it has failed not only to dismantle the structures of terrorism on its territory by disbanding the terrorist groups and their training camps, it has singularly failed to put curbs on Hafiz Saeed, the master-mind of the Mumbai attacks, whom it allows to continue spouting venom against India.

By conceding that the main threat to both countries is terrorism and that both would cooperate with each other to fight it, India has absolved the Pakistani government of any complicity with terrorist groups.

We have allowed Pakistan to put us on the defensive on the terrorism issue by agreeing to be answerable to Pakistan for the Samjhauta Express attack in our joint documents. We have accepted the bracketing together of a single incident, however reprehensible, with sustained attacks over years by Pakistan based terrorists in India.

The statements by our own Home Ministers about “saffron” terror, BJP run training camps and the internal threat from the Indian Mujaheddin being more important than external threats, have severely damaged our case against Pakistan by handing it propaganda fodder against us.

The CBI-IB wrangle over the Ishrat Jehan incident is now feeding the Pakistani propaganda machine on 26/11, a clear case where domestic political battles are being fought unmindful of the deleterious consequences for our foreign policy interests.

While we claim that we have sovereignty over the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, our policies have contradicted that position.

In 2009 we seem to have agreed through the back-channel on a four-point solution which in fact conceded to Pakistan the right to determine our sovereign decisions on the quantum of autonomy we would give to J&K and the extent of demilitarization on our side. Some mechanisms to exercise joint oversight, if not sovereignty, over some aspects pertaining to the whole state were also agreed to, besides opening of trade and people’s movement across the LOC.

The opening of the LOC in J&K to allow movement of people and trade reflected the weakness of the Indian hand.

General Musharraf’s mounting internal problems that led ultimately to his eviction from the presidency apparently prevented the finalization of this agreement. The argument that there was corresponding flexibility by Pakistan is not convincing because the situation on both sides is altogether different. J&K has autonomy that POK does not have. POK is integrated with Pakistan, with profound demographic changes there since 1947. Most importantly, there is no separatist movement in POK.

The opening of the LOC in J&K to allow movement of people and trade reflected the weakness of the Indian hand.

The view that borders cannot be changed but can be made irrelevant has meaning only in a situation where recognized borders exist and not in the case of disputed borders as in J&K.

We took this decision to encourage linkages between J&K and POK to satisfy mainstream political parties in J&K and blunt the platform of the secessionists who either advocate a role for Pakistan in resolving our internal difficulties in J&K or lean politically towards it.

Our unwillingness to prevent the Pakistani leaders and bureaucrats to meet secessionist leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad also indicates the soft core of our policies on J&K. If we could have defeated Pakistan and the secessionists by giving them such political space one could have lauded the astuteness of this approach, but that has not happened.

On Siachen also we weakened our position by proposing at the highest political level to convert it into a mountain of peace, thereby emboldening Pakistan to believe that India could be persuaded to withdraw from the glacier, whatever the reservations of the Indian army.

Pakistan is Janus -faced with both friends and foes. It would seem that we are not impervious to Pakistani posturings despite evidence of their duplicity.

Because there could not be any corresponding concessions by Pakistan in Siachen as it is not under its control, the decision to include this as an agenda item undermines our position that we have sovereignty over the whole of J&K, besides providing Pakistan an opportunity to put us on the defensive on the issue by making us appear rigid, when the opposite is the case.

Siachen is supposed to be the low hanging fruit that Pakistan claims can be culled only if, in Pakistan’s self-serving narrative, India would reciprocate with some step the several concessions it has made to India.

In actual fact Pakistan has made no concessions to India. Its leaders have developed the art over the years to appear plausible in their protestations of friendship and peace, even when their intent and actual policies are quite different. Pakistan is Janus -faced with both friends and foes. It would seem that we are not impervious to Pakistani posturings despite evidence of their duplicity.

We should not give credit to Pakistan’s goodwill if the number of terrorist attacks against India have declined, as other factors are at play.

After the Mumbai attack Pakistan’s credibility at the international level has got eroded. The discovery of Osama bin Laden on its territory has reinforced Pakistan’s double-faced discourse on terrorism, with its friends now accusing it of double-dealing. Pakistan can no longer practice deniability as before.

Pakistan’s preoccupation with domestic terrorism, with local Taliban groups attacking the country’s armed forces, as well as the situation on its western borders, have combined to lessen the heat on India.

India’s policy of engaging Pakistan has also deprived the Pakistani armed forces of excuses to step up activity In Kashmir, especially with the US interest in ensuring that priority attention is given to the country’s western border across which NATO forces in Afghanistan are being threatened.

General Kayani has pronounced that Pakistan’s concerns remain India-centric. His policies in Afghanistan have also a strong component of check-mating India’s influence there.

The relative relief at reduced infiltration and terrorist incidents being experienced on our side should be seen as circumstantial rather than a change of heart.

General Kayani has pronounced that Pakistan’s concerns remain India-centric. His policies in Afghanistan have also a strong component of check-mating India’s influence there. The latest attack on our Consulate in Jalalabad points to Pakistani abetted terrorist attacks against us increasing in Afghanistan as 2014 nears.

On our side, it is not clear why when international pressure on Pakistan on the terrorism issue has increased in recent years, instead of exploiting this to our advantage, we have given clean chits to Pakistan on terrorism, lowering its salience in our dealings with that country and building its credibility as a negotiating partner.

If the country most affected by Pakistan based terrorism can take such a pragmatic view of Pakistan’s conduct, we have little to reproach others if they too overlook Pakistan’s deplorable linkages with terrorist activity.

If the composite dialogue has produced no result on political and security issues it is because of Pakistan’s unwillingness to cede ground.

On Sir Creek, they still insist on their position.

On Kashmir their parliament passed a resolution in April 2012 declaring that the issue had to be settled on the basis of self-determination under the relevant UN resolutions. Such statements have been made by Pakistan’s top leadership too without much reaction from us, except countering them in the UNGA.

Pakistan has added to existing differences by provocatively raising water issues and concocting the charge that India is diverting water in violation of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT).

On the issue of terrorism, it is highly doubtful if Nawaz Sharif can give us satisfaction.

It has dragged India into arbitration over water projects in J&K allowed by the IWT, with the intention to impede India to ease the power situation in J&K. We are unable to exploit this to promote anti-Pakistan sentiment in J&K as we have boxed ourselves into a situation in which we cannot adopt a hard posture towards Pakistan.

The only area of positive movement is trade.

Pakistan’s dire economic situation has made responsible sections of its polity open to more trading ties with India. Pakistan has moved from the positive to the negative list and although trade volumes have increased, the issue of imbalance in trade and Pakistani complaints about our non-tariff barriers could prove obstacles ahead.

Pakistan, however, has not yet delivered on its commitment to grant India MFN status.

Some progress has also been made in the area of people to people exchanges, with some liberalization of the visa regimes.

These are welcome steps but votaries of strong economic ties should not expect resolution of political and security differences as experience shows, whether in the case of our relations with China or China-Japan differences.

Now that Nawaz Sharif, with his declared intention to improve relations with India, has been elected, does this in way change the outlook on our relations with Pakistan and open up new options for us?

With religious extremist groups becoming stronger in the Punjab, it is unclear how Nawaz Sharif and his brother in Punjab will be able to politically handle any restrictions on Hafiz Saeed…

It would be wise to remain prudent in this regard.

We were prompt in sending Prime Minister’s special envoy to establish contact with Nawaz Sharif and he has in return sent his special envoy to Delhi to convey his readiness to move the relationship forward with the backing of all the stake-holders in Pakistan, meaning the armed forces.

These are useful steps in probing what the respective expectations are, but experience should tell us that the complexity of India-Pakistan relations transcends the thinking of individuals.

Our Prime Minister is wedded to good relations and a sustained dialogue with Pakistan. In Asif Zardari Pakistan had a president who was capable of making out-of-the-box statements on relations with India, but the sum of this positive thinking on both sides has been meagre.

On the issue of terrorism, it is highly doubtful if Nawaz Sharif can give us satisfaction.

Pakistan itself is ravaged by terrorism and the government will not find it easy to eliminate this internal phenomenon with all its external linkages, even beyond the region as in the case of the Lshkar-e-Toiba.

Even the Pakistani armed forces are now targeted.

It is significant that Kashmiri separatists visiting Pakistan have warned of stepped up violence in J&K after the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, which implies India-directed activity by groups like the TPP.

The Jamaat-ud-Dawa of Hafiz Saeed has links with political personalities in the PML(N); the Punjab government has been very complaisant with him, releasing funds to his so-called charitable foundation. So has been the local judiciary.

With religious extremist groups becoming stronger in the Punjab, it is unclear how Nawaz Sharif and his brother in Punjab will be able to politically handle any restrictions on Hafiz Saeed, a step he seems to have promised to take.

PML(N) has had long standing links with the radical India-baiting and Shia-baiting groups like Lashkar-e- Toiba, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Sipah-e-Sahiba. The TTP did not, tellingly, target electioneering by PML(N) and Imran Khan’s party in the recent elections.

Because of these dubious links, Nawaz Sharif will not be able to expedite the trial of those involved the Mumbai terrorist attack. All the arguments that the Pakistani side has given to us in the last four and a half years for failure to move forward, including the reluctance of judges to try the case, will not disappear.

It is significant that Kashmiri separatists visiting Pakistan have warned of stepped up violence in J&K after the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, which implies India-directed activity by groups like the TPP.

Nawaz Sharif announced his intention to re-start the dialogue on Kashmir soon after he took over. Now we hear of a strategy to focus on the issue internationally at non-official level in order to maintain the facade of goodwill towards India at the official level. The strong statement by the Pakistani Foreign Office on the recent firing in Kashmir was unnecessary if Nawaz Sharif wanted to turn a new page.

Nawaz Sharif seems eager to renew the Composite Dialogue with India, with the Pakistani side suggesting some dates for resumption.

There is talk of our Prime Minister meeting Nawaz Sharif on the margins of the UNGA. While a meeting of this kind would normally be unobjectionable as it would provide an opportunity to make personal contact with the new Pakistani leader, there are political dilemmas on both sides.

By talking of resumption of dialogue Nawaz Sharif has pre-empted what the result of the New York meeting should be. If no dialogue is announced, it will be a political set-back for Nawaz Sharif. If we are forced to announce the dialogue with no concrete action by Nawaz Sharif on moving forward the trial of those guilty of the Mumbai massacre, and, much more importantly, the grant of MFN status to India, promised by the previous government, we would have been diplomatically outmanoeuvred by Pakistan.

…our only option is to put our house in order, improve our internal security, stop playing politics with the issue of terrorism for electoral reasons, create conditions for sustained high growth, widen the gap between India and Pakistan, show no anxiety to have a dialogue with Pakistan…

We seem ready to resume the dialogue, starting with discussions on Sir Creek and Wullar Barrage. If we do, it would indicate our inability to get out of the rut of sterile discussions with Pakistan.

There is no reason for tardiness by Nawaz Sharif to grant MFN status as the subject has been a matter of examination and debate within Pakistan for a long period and views have been sufficiently crystallized on this move.

The bottom line is that Nawaz Sharif’s Prime Ministership does not affect the debate on our options towards Pakistan because we have chosen a soft and accommodating course in the last few years which cannot be reversed, especially without testing the intentions of the new government and giving it time.

The best one can hope for is that we will not compound the mistakes we have been making by being persuaded that we need to strengthen the hands of Nawaz Sharif by offering some concessions.

We should remember that Nawaz Sharif is the Prime minister of Pakistan and has Pakistan’s interests foremost in mind. He will use honey-tongued diplomacy to extract concessions from India, whether on Siachen or our Prime Minister’s visit to Pakistan.

Finally, Nawaz Sharif’s mutually suspicious relations with the military will limit his capacity to make any real concessions to India as he will not have a free hand in his India policy, however constructive he may intend it to be.

At the end of the day, our only option is to put our house in order, improve our internal security, stop playing politics with the issue of terrorism for electoral reasons, create conditions for sustained high growth, widen the gap between India and Pakistan, show no anxiety to have a dialogue with Pakistan, keep the focus on Pakistan sponsored terrorism in whatever conversations that take place, abjure language that equates Pakistan’s problem with terrorism with ours, prevent the Kashmiri separatists from meeting Pakistani politicians and diplomats in Delhi or Islamabad, cease discussions on Siachen in view of Chinese aggressive conduct in Ladakh and mounting presence in POK, respond if Pakistan makes genuine moves towards normalization, increase trade exchanges to the extent Pakistan wants, ease travel restrictions reciprocally keeping in mind security considerations but avoid romantic ideas about people to people contacts.

We will not, of course, do most of this.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Kanwal Sibal

is the former Indian Foreign Secretary. He was India’s Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia.

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2 thoughts on “India’s options in dealing with Pakistan

  1. in my opinion, our options are limited to two. First- Continue as we are, i.e., continue nullifying their option of the ‘proxy war’. The terrorist infiltrations and their subsequent neutralisation continues. Our security forces continue with their sacrifices in so doing and the danger of mass casualties to the general public lingers if terrorists manage to succeed in beating the security forces to their targets (the civil population). This is what is happening now. Second- we take the initiative to hit at the terrorist camps across the border. In this case there is every possibility that it might escalate into a full scale war. We have to be prepared for it with the attendant ramification of the nuclear fall out. It takes a lot of guts to take the second option. I do not foresee any of our leaders having that guts. Therefore, we have to perforce stick with the first option.

  2. The author himself confesses that strict attitude has not worked with Pakistan. there is need to go for conciliatory approach if we want India to move ahead. As a responsible nation, we must honor our commitment of plebiscite in Kashmir and should not restrict ourselves to bilateral-ism, which has not worked so far. Pakistan lives with after that we created in 1971 by supporting Bengalis, who have the guts to live as sovereign nation and look into our eyes. Let us understand that India can not undo Pakistan. Let us stop supporting Baloch and TTP, otherwise, LT may jack up its activities….Hope we understand the meaning of PEACE,,,,so let us change our image from hegemon to big brother,,

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