Lecture on Indo-Pak Relations by Amb. K. Sibal at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar
22Oct 2010
India’s relations with Pakistan are exceedingly complex. The problems are multi-dimensional, stretching across politics, security, territory, religion, history, geography, psychology etc. It is not merely a foreign policy issue, and therefore the normal tools of diplomacy are not enough to resolve them.
Pakistan has no historical basis; it has only a political one. If it was the case that two distinct people, with their own clear sense of history and identity, had been forced to cohabit against their will, and at an opportune moment separated as independent entities, reconciliation would be easier in principle. But if division is made because of political expediency, distorted narratives and geo-political reasons, and the cut and paste separation remains incomplete, then the wounds of partition will fester.
The “two nation theory”, the basis of Pakistan’s creation, lost meaning with millions of Muslims staying on in India in 1947, and, later, Pakistan itself getting divided into two separate Muslim nations. The integrative role of India’s democracy and secularism vis a vis our Muslims is a continuing challenge to the asumptions on which Pakistan was created. This accounts for Pakistan’s Islamization drive, its attempts to delink itself from its Indian moorings and orient itself toward the Arab world, and its emphasis on differences with India. Pakistan has, for the same reason, striven to excite communal passions in India so as to weaken India’s secular fabric.
