India’s attitude towards Pakistan has changed from being patronising to apathetic. And it seems that Islamabad just can’t stomach that, writes Ashok Malik.
Advocates for greater civil society engagement between India and Pakistan have three essential arguments. First, they contend a vast majority of Pakistanis want friendship with India but are being thwarted by a small minority. Second, with Indian help Pakistani civil society and democracy can yet win the battle against Islamism. Third, a democratic and ‘mainstreamed’ Pakistan will guarantee amity.
To be fair, these ideas are not new. Till even the 1990s, it was fashionable to believe that once the Partition generation — or the children of the Partition generation, those with once-removed experiences of 1947 — moved on, India and Pakistan would be able to relate to one another as normal countries.
They would not necessarily love each other or always cooperate. The sense of competition would still be there, but not blind demonisation. In the media and in popular culture, at football matches and occasionally at diplomatic conferences, Britain and France still disparage each other. Neither side sees this, however, as a resurrection of Agincourt and Crecy.
How has this theory panned out? The past 10-odd years have changed Indian attitudes towards Pakistan. After the attack on Parliament in December 2001, India was livid and at one level ready for war. Troops were mobilised. For a whole host of reasons, India did not and could not go to war.
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Moderate Islamist here
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