Will Indo-Pak relations ever be good (Part 4)

With the ground realities in Afghanistan changing and changing really fast in favour of Pakistan, the establishment need not be accommodating towards India any more. What is worse for India is that the US administration now seems to be at its most vulnerable vis-à-vis its relations with Pakistan and its involvement in the Afghan conflict. Is it any wonder that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed more than keen to humour her Pakistani hosts on her recent visit to that country? She even offered to help Pakistan sell its mangoes! Is it any wonder that the Americans reacted to the WikiLeaks controversy the way they have?

More than 92,000 classified documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan were suddenly placed in the public domain. What do these leaks reveal? Nothing new. Nothing that India and Afghanistan haven’t known all along. They expose the nexus between the Pakistani military establishment and the ISI on the one hand and terror groups on the other. However, what has now become abundantly clear is that the Americans knew this all along but chose to look the other way. This is something the Indian intelligence community had long suspected any way, but always stopped short of going public about to avoid embarrassing their political masters.

So, as things stand now, the dice is heavily loaded in favour of Pakistan. With Hamid Karzai at the helm of affairs in Afghanistan who is favourably predisposed towards India, our strategists had tried to influence the course of events in that country. But, with Karzai’s own writ not running beyond Kabul, and with Indian nationals engaged in diplomatic and humanitarian activity in Afghanistan being attacked and eliminated ruthlessly, India is very much on the back foot. Meanwhile, the US is far too preoccupied with its own troubles at present to be interested in furthering India’s strategic interests in the region. That is what makes Pakistan feel invincible as things stand now. That is what makes its leaders so belligerent and unreasonable in their interaction with India.

However, these are all relatively recent events in the sad saga of Indo-Pak relations, which is the topic of this and earlier posts. The question I have tried to consider is “Will Indo-Pak relations ever be good?” The answer is neither short nor simple. It is far too complex and has a long history to it. In fact, it goes all the way back to the creation of Pakistan itself. And, that is what we shall dwell on in my next post.

* To be continued...