Pervez Musharraf and India Pakistan Rapproachment

Dost Mittar Sahib,

I took your advice to tahmed32 and read your article and posts multiple times.

I think your article is more a reflection of what you would like to see as opposed to what is reality. That is, it is an idealism disconnected from reality.

Just take the posts for this article. It shatters genisis of your article to smittereens.

If you think more interactions could lead to us hugging hamiddumdum or tahmed32 or vice versa, then at least the posts would have indicate some desire for it. In fact, the posts validate that TNT was wise, Jinnah screwed up by not taking the rest of his kin with him, etc, etc.

Secondly, the factual aspect of Mush being a good boy and wanting to kiss and make up, I think when you have a Big brother sitting on your doorstep, feeding you and fattening your wallet, anything he wants - you will do.

Thirdly, this big brother would rather have the Indians focus more on new bully arriving on the scene - china. Since the big brother cannot handle this new bully by himself. So he prevents the distractions by managing the leash, while pushing the indians to focus more on the strategic ie the new big bully.

I hope you get my drift. Indians and pakistanis whether rightly or wrongly shall not co mingle in a friendly manner in the foreseeable future. Maybe for another 50 to 100 generations. There are too many grievious wrongs in the recent past for any friendship other than superficial to happen. SO this idea of more interactions is a good thing, well, I always believed in distance lending more enchanment to the view.

The only concession i am willing to make is in their own way both sides are right.

with lots of respect and admiration

giani

Giani sounds like a usual extremist from the wrong side of the border but the gist of the whole issue as I understand it from his post is that Pak-India relations carry so much baggage that it is hard to even weigh them properly, what to talk of rapprochement.

The Indians have falsely assumed that Kashmir is the core issue and often Pakistan officials, especially the military analysts and negotiators encourage this approach to hoodwink the Pakistani as well as the Indian politicians.

This Kashmir bogey has been kept up afloat for so many years that often the naive political analysts spend their whole existence in proving Indian pov or the Pakistani pov wrong or right.

The real issue and which the Indians attempt to always ignore/avoid is the territorial claims that India has over Pakistan. Which some Pakistani commentators bring up for discussion but they are shot down by not only their own government but are ignored by the Indian government too.

Until that issue is resolved the Indian-Pak relations cannot go beyond some feel good measures.

ABV made a half hearted attempt to deal with that issue in 1999 and then again Advani made another attempt to deal with that in his typical round about way. Both were roundly criticized and punished for making those gestures. ABV by the Pak army in Kargil and Advani by the Indian media.

Until Indians finally come to grips with the Pakistan’s existence, the Pak-India relations would never proceed in a smooth manner. Indians in the last 60 years have failed to assure the Pakistanis that India has no claim over any part of Pakistan in any manner, cultural, social and geographical.

Every time some progress is made in relations, even some well-meaning Indians start talking about the similarities between the people or how meaningless the partition was. The minute this talk starts from the Indian side, things began to cool up quickly.

We can witness this behavior on this site too. Most of the Pakistan haters are such not because Pakistan interferes in Kashmir. They hate Pakistan because Pakistan is in a territory which was formerly called India! It is the partition syndrome which drives these nutcases crazier every day!

I am not going to go any further on this as I have no intention to derail this simplistic article and even more simplistic discussion that is taking place here. I wrote this only to endorse what Giani said. Though I doubt, he was clear in his head as to what he is writing. It would take couple of more Indian generations to reconcile with the reality that Pakistan does not sit on some Indian territory.

Pakistan exists in areas where the current Pakistanis have always lived and they exercised their right of self determination in 1947!

HP: Agreed that too many Indians see Pakistan as being "their" territory and thus harbor resentments. Certainly obvious on chowk. But I think at the policy level things are different - the nuclear capability has forced Indian leadership to shelve thoughts of overrunning Pakistan. And as proof, I present to you the BJP government that within an year of the demonstration of Pakistani nuclear capability did a 180 degree volte face from bullying to talking peace (with AVP making what must have seemed to him to be a major statement when he said that Pakistan was here to stay before the Pakistan memorial). Whenever I have brought up this bit of reality, the reactions of our indian cousins on chowk have varied from disbelief (in case of the more respected gentlemen) to severe mental anguish.. :-)

HP, tahmedi, that's why we shouldn't spend so much time discussing 'history,' and focus as much as possible, if possible, on the future. Think of it this way. Rightly or wrongly, India will ALWAYS have the kind of territorial claim that HP highlighted, which understandably and quite rightly, upsets him in a 'national sense.'

Even so, Tahmedji is right. With Pakistan acquiring the bomb, fears of being run over by India should have subsided.

#146 Posted by HP on February 27, 2008 3:24:31 pm

nice try...but the answer is still NO...you can't have indian kashmir...

get over it..

yes prophetboy..kashmir isn't the core issue..

which is why you'll never find musharraf, shaukat aziz or any other paki government official say it is..

right...

#148 Eklavya: I dont have a problem studying history on chowk - but we need to do that as friends trying to understand the picture. Too many posters end up merely sticking to their respective government "party lines". Example:

You mention in your post that "With Pakistan acquiring the bomb, fears of being run over by India should have subsided."
I wrote, e.g., in #147 below on the same issue "I present to you the BJP government that within an year of the demonstration of Pakistani nuclear capability did a 180 degree volte face from bullying to talking peace (with AVP making what must have seemed to him to be a major statement when he said that Pakistan was here to stay before the Pakistan memorial). "

There is no doubt truth to what you say, but there is also truth to what I say (unless you see something incorrect in the basis i provide above). We can still be proud of our identities as Indians and Pakistanis while acknowledging that we may may be looking at a partial (as in this case) picture only.

#150 yes prophet-foetus. (yawn).

Kaal, Tahmed,
That is where you two make mistakes. The nuke issue is a balance of power issue so it is more a tactical thing than something to augment better relations.

Nations develop relations when they come to terms with each others existences in every which way. Territorial claims whether real or imaginary, always hinder progress in any relations.

As I said the basic issue between India and Pakistan is Indians inability to come to grips with Pakistan now. They had the opportunity in 1947 to deal with the issue and accepted the deal that was offered to them. The honorable thing now is to live with the deal and then perhaps find ways to work towards better relations!

Re: # 146

HP,

You are correct. I am one of those "a usual extremist from the wrong side of the border ". As a matter of fact, I am pretty proud of it too.

But you and tahmed are wrong about the bomb. The bombs have been there for while. It only became public in 1998. The idea to make it all public was good one. It is debatable as to who benefited.

I wonder what Salim would say about

"Pakistan exists in areas where the current Pakistanis have always lived and they exercised their right of self determination in 1947!"

However, you do have one misconception. I do not think that other than a negligble minority, Indians want Pakistan or Pakistanis back. The Indians have enough problems of their own.

Belonging to the Jammu region, my individual position on Kashmir is that it should go to Pakistan and the Kashmiris should enjoy the life as the rest of Pakistanis.

However, of late, this desire on their part seems to have dimmed.

Eklavya, if you look to the future without digesting the history, as someone wise once said that you are bound to repeat it.

Cheers

Giani

HP/Giani ji, agreed that we have to come to terms with history and accept each other. But how? What can the two countries do, except let the other believe what they believe (as tahmed suggests, but that contradicts what HP has posited)?

Our history is a mess, I would love to know how we can resolve its "contradictions" without either side feeling cheated!

Really, all ideas should be explored.

#153 HP: Time has shown that a nuclear standoff is a strategic, not tactical, situation.

Thus, it prevented the US and Soviets from going to full-scale war in the four decades after WWII. And we are well on our way to four decades without a full-scale war between India and Pakistan.

While no doubt historical animosities and resentments are there, but so are historical ties and cultural aspects and (now) even political ideologies (the latest elections in Pakistan show people voting overwhelmingly for a political structure a la western-style democracies rather than the bs that mush was giving out in Davos e.g.

giani: it is good that indians dont want pakistan "back". joining india has never been an issue in Pakistan - including in the current elections - in Pakistan. so you need to move beyond this issue.

Eklavya #155 i think the elephant in the room we need to consider when discussing india-pakistan relations is globalization. until we do that, we would merely be living in a mid-20th century world that is long gone even today.

# 158 agreed.

Kaal,
"Our history is a mess, I would love to know how we can resolve its "contradictions" without either side feeling cheated!"

I knew some one would ask this question. Do I have the answer? Yes, I think I do but would you agree with that? Your reply could go either way yes or no. That is the reason countries have negotiations and diplomats resolving issues.
The baggage we carry is enormous and 60 years are not long in history.

Imo, the best way is at this time to let the history take its course. Couple of generations later, things would cool down. In the meantime just let the people to people contact flourish. Non political people, just curious tourists, historians and scholars who would worry less about the political issues than the curiosity issue. I wanna see Taj, you wanna see Ketas or perhaps Kaghan and that should be good enough!

The more political people try to resolve the issues, the less chances we have in resolving the issues!