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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This essay reviews the current state of India-Pakistan relations and examines the prospects for bilateral and regional cooperation between the two South Asian neighbors. MAIN ARGUMENT India and Pakistan have considerable scope to build on the various confidence-building measures that have been negotiated in the past decade and a half, especially in the areas of trade and economic cooperation. Greater economic engagement has the potential to generate interdependence that could help promote the normalization of relations. However, policymakers in both countries face familiar obstacles to a normal relationship— cross-border terrorism originating from Pakistan, differences over Kashmir, and entrenched domestic opposition to broadening engagement on both sides of the border. The inability of policymakers to separate progress in one field from differences in other areas has rendered it difficult to expand and sustain cooperation. More immediately, India-Pakistan relations are further complicated by the turbulent regional dynamic centered on Afghanistan. The drawdown of foreign troops ater over a decade-long international presence in Afghanistan and the challenges of producing internal stability there will make the construction of a shared vision for regional cooperation elusive. POLICY IMPLICATIONS This essay offers the following policy recommendations for limiting conflict between India and Pakistan and expanding the scope for cooperation: • India and Pakistan need to find ways to sustain their resumed dialogue. • Trade and commercial relations, where quick advances are possible, should be isolated from differences in other fields. • An early restoration of the ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control and the international border in Kashmir will help arrest the further deterioration of the security environment and create the space for progress elsewhere. • India should take unilateral steps, wherever possible, to improve relations. It has taken such initiatives in the past—for example, in granting most-favored-nation status to Pakistan in 1996. • India and Pakistan should begin a dialogue on the future of Afghanistan.
The trauma of partition in 1947 embittered India-Pakistan relations from the start. Since then, each side has accumulated many grievances against the other. Four wars, territorial disputes, differences over transboundary water sharing, and cross-border terrorism originating from Pakistan have served to create an enduring hostility between the two neighbors. 1 Over time, mutual demonization and mistrust have been institutionalized, strengthening domestic constituencies in both countries that are opposed to sustained engagement and cooperation. The election of two strong leaders in Pakistan and India—Nawaz Sharif in 2013 and Narendra Modi in 2014, respectively—raised hopes for a revival of the peace process that has stumbled since the terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008. This optimism was based on the positive tone adopted by both leaders. But as has happened so oten in the past, both Sharif and Modi have found it difficult to move forward. The initial bonhomie was followed by Modi’s suspension in August 2014 of planned foreign secretary–level talks in protest of the meeting between Pakistan’s high commissioner to India and Hurriyat leaders. The proposed meeting in India between the national security advisers of the two countries was also called off in August 2015 on similar grounds. 2 Meanwhile, the numerous ceasefire violations and clashes along the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border in Kashmir also heightened tensions between the two countries. Both Modi and Sharif, however, have persisted in finding a way to engage with each other despite all the difficulties. By the end of 2015, both India and Pakistan had agreed to resume their formal dialogue following the visit of India’s foreign minister Sushma Swaraj to Islamabad in December. Modi’s surprise stopover in Lahore subsequently on December 25, while returning to New Delhi from a visit to Kabul on the same day, reflected his desire to accelerate the process of engagement with Pakistan and raised expectations once again about the prospects of the bilateral relations. Despite the resumption of the on-again, off-again dialogue, New Delhi and Islamabad will continue to encounter familiar challenges: cross-border terrorism, differences over the question of Jammu and Kashmir, and domestic opposition in both countries to closer ties still cast a shadow over the relationship. Developments in Afghanistan, as the country adjusts to a new leadership in Kabul and deals with fresh security challenges following the drawdown of foreign troops from the region, could also trigger events and policies that reinforce mutual distrust. 3 The lack of consensus between India and Pakistan on Afghanistan, in addition to their bilateral problems, also makes the prospects for stabilizing their South Asian neighbor difficult. This essay is divided into five parts. The first will assess the efforts by India and Pakistan to improve bilateral relations over the past decade and a half. The second section will identify potential avenues for cooperation, while the third part will explore some of the issues that could derail the relationship. The fourth part will analyze the implications of the developments in Afghanistan for India-Pakistan relations, and the final section will examine the impact of tensions between the two countries on regional stability. 1 Sumit Ganguly, Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); Stephen P. Cohen, Shooting for a Century: The India-Pakistan Conundrum (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2013); and T.V. Paul, The India- Pakistan Conflict: An Enduring Rivalry (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 2 The proposed meeting was an outcome of the meeting between Modi and Sharif at Ufa, Russia, on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in July 2015. The omission of Kashmir from the joint statement, the Ufa Declaration, and Sharif ’s condemnation of terrorism and promise to expedite the trials of the militants accused of carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attacks provoked a lot of criticism in Pakistan. As such, the run-up to this meeting was marred by accusations and hostile exchanges between the two governments. Moreover, India insisted that the Pakistani envoy Sartaj Aziz could not meet the Hurriyat leaders and that the agenda of the talks be restricted to terrorism as per the Ufa Declaration. This was not acceptable to Pakistan, which did not want any preconditions for this meeting. 3 Aryaman Bhatnagar and Wilson John, “Afghanistan: A Regional Flashpoint,” Seminar, December 2014. INDIA-PAKISTAN RELATIONS u BHATNAGAR AND MOHAN 81
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the national bureau of asian resear
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nbr special report #55 | february 2
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nbr special report #55 | february 2
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Yet Pakistan’s instability is not
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prosecute its leaders for war crime
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efforts toward real security—both
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to both U.S. and regional interests
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Few countries in the developing wor
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provinces from 47.5% to 56.0% in 20
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the local level. Provincial governm
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asking the U.S. government to inter
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to abolish the National Security Co
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parties, the resulting plan gives e
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the novel idea to reserve quotas fo
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many of them in their teens, 38 who
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Page 44 and 45: f i g u r e 1 All political violenc
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Page 50 and 51: Figure 1 depicts all political viol
Page 52 and 53: (Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkat-ul-Jihadi
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and other regional countries. Yet i
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ater Ghani’s outreach to Pakistan
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latter’s ability to regroup, resu
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United States will succeed in stabi
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But like many other diplomatic even
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All of Afghanistan’s neighbors, a
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This essay traces
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foreign funding, and policy choices
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South Asia Terrorism Portal, in Pak
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people with an unstable polity, num
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In recent years, however, there has
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dangerous repercussions for Pakista
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In an interview in 2006, Robert Gal
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states. This or a similar network c
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Intelligence (ISI) over the last th
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would be its impact on the Iranian
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The volatile security environment i
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Civil Society Pakistan’s civil so
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Civil-Military Relations The Pakist
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The majority of judges were also no
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What is not in doubt, however, is t
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Outlook Pakistan is a deeply troubl
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