Daily Times

In his article titled ‘India and the peace process’ (Daily Times, June 20, 2011), Rizwan Zeb has correctly mentioned that the success of the peace process depends on the extent India is willing to move. In fact, the former Prime Minister of India, I K Gujral, too, firmly believed in this policy. His famous Gujral Doctrine says that for every single step taken by its neighbours, India should take two steps. There is also an adage that one cannot clap with one hand. Therefore, the onus to make the dialogue successful is also on Pakistan. Of course, India has to be a bit more accommodative to Pakistan’s demand in comparison to the latter’s acceptance of India’s jeremiad. This is because of the different status each one has.

Unfortunately, both India and Pakistan are still prisoners of history and they do not want to release themselves from this imprisoned cell. The present generation is carrying out this inbred legacy, which was injected by the partition-affected generation, of hatred against each other. Though people are trying to release themselves from it but their number is minuscule, whose opinions are constantly being sidelined under the pressure of the majority.

The India-Pakistan dialogue, whenever they get time to negotiate, is based on a zero-sum game, where one wants to gain at the cost of the other. This situation makes both mutual losers because it leads them nowhere and has always led to an abrupt end of the dialogue right in the middle, blaming each other for failure, while in reality both are equally guilty. Any problem solving dialogue must be based on a positive sum approach, where the two countries have to make — if not compromise — at least some sort of adjustment to each other’s concerns and demands. Through adjustments, the dialogue partners can stop the situation getting pregnant with war. Dialogue is also a process that takes time and in which continuity is a must so that problems can be focused upon and repeatedly discussed before reaching any conclusion. They must take the example of the Indus Water Treaty, the only successful treaty between them, which was negotiated and discussed for eight long years before it was signed in 1960.

Rizwan talks correctly about India’s intention to articulate its own ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in Southeast Asia and particularly in the Malacca and Hormuz Straits but this is the way actors in the international system behave. To play the big game they counter the other’s strength. China is doing the same thing by softly reducing India’s presence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. India is countering China on the high seas and other places. But still, Sino-India equations are entirely different from India-Pakistan equations. Despite being competitors, China and India are successfully cooperating on various issues. They have set up committees to look after their border disputes and have a reachable target of $ 100 billion bilateral trade by 2015. There is continuity in the dialogue between the two heads of state. Even at multilateral forums they do not shy away from supporting each other’s positions. The two countries have moved beyond 1962 and are seldom engaged in a war of words or daily cross-border firing.

Rizwan also talks about India’s insistence on conflict management rather than conflict resolution, which he finds problematic. The first step towards resolving any form of conflict is to manage it, yet this is impossible as the two countries have such a bad relationship. It is true that we have failed to even manage our problems, which has resulted in continuous tensions and disputes between the two countries. To resolve our problems, some bold decisions about persisting territorial and other disputes need to be taken by our policy makers but, frankly, our political institutions and public are not ready to accept any form of compromise with their constructed archenemy. Also, in the past, we missed the opportunities to resolve our disputes due to political and other reasons. Exchanging territories is impossible so, in that case, let a de facto border continue with being a de jure border. Steps should be taken to make progress in other areas where cooperation, or at least some sort of mutually beneficial relationship can be established between the two countries.

In conclusion, the onus is on both India and Pakistan to take positive steps to have at least more than a working relationship between them. It is better to start this upcoming dialogue with a fresh mind and without any sort of mud-slinging. Leaving aside who was responsible, the verbal duel in Islamabad in 2010 between the two foreign ministers in front of the international media was really shameful and a disgraceful form of diplomacy. Hopefully, that incident will not be repeated this time. In this upcoming bilateral meeting, they must ensure that they can at least prepare enough ground to maintain continuity in engagement, unlike in the past where those engagements, after high expectations, came to an abrupt end over some frivolous issues.

The writer is a PhD student at the South Asian Studies School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He can be reached at amitranjan.jnu@gmail.com