Pakistan-India ties

Human civilisation has been growing in knowledge, understanding and compassion. It has been prizing peace and prosperity over wars and fighting. Look at the continent of Europe, it had been a bedrock of violent wars some of them would go on for centuries on end. Even though the physical factors would change in their history but the rancour and animosity in the hearts of the belligerent would grow worse. The times have fortunately changed for the better. The Europeans have realised the futility of the continental conflicts and have instead undone the history of divisiveness and created a future of integration into a single Union.
Look at the history of religious wars of the medieval times like the Crusades. The religious bellicosity has been contained and the scale of the violent wars in the name of God have greatly reduced by comparison. Look at the independence of India in the middle of last century. Before the East India Company started the process of colonising the Sub-continent, it was under the Mogul rulers. Even though a minority in numbers the Muslim invaders of one or other dynasty ruled India for over a millennium. When the British finally convinced to hand back the sovereignty to the people of India they decided in favour of discarding the power base that predated their occupation but they had to respect the erstwhile ruling Muslim sovereigns and the majority non-Muslin Indians. The Independence of India Act passed by the British Parliament on 18th July 1947 laid the legal and constitutional base for the two dominions that would emerge on the independence of India. Prior to that the constituent assembly elections held at state and union levels in 1945 had clearly brought out the finality of a separate dominion of Pakistan. The state and union elected members of the Muslim League constituent assembly resolved to sit only in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan that forced the British to divide India into two natural nations based on all canons of sovereignty. It was decided by the process of universal suffrage of one person one vote in the provinces of Bengal, Sindh and Punjab which is the strongest basis for sovereignty. In the province of NWFP, now KPK, Muslim League had won only 17 out of 38 seats and therefore it had to go through a process of redetermination through a province-wide referendum that was held on 18th July 1947, the same day that Independence of India Act was passed by the Parliament in London, and only after the majority of the valid votes cast were found to be in favour of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, which was in line with the Independence Act, that NWFP was to be admitted to Pakistan. The case of Balochistan was different as no constituent assembly elections were held in the so-called non-settled province and the British constitutionalists found an instrument that they had earlier been using as the representative voice of Balochistan called the Shahi Jirga which was an assembly of 54 heads of tribes. It was decided to hold a referendum of the Shahi Jirga to determine the fate of the province, even though on the basis of the criterion of land contiguity it had to be part of Pakistan. The hair splitting for the representative voice of non-tribal character of Quetta city led to including the elected members of the Quetta Municipal Corporation in the Shahi Jirga referendum and it was only after the unanimous vote of the Shahi Jirga and Muslim elected members of the Municipal Corporation that Balochistan was accepted to be admitted to Pakistan.
Sovereign will of the people expressed through the adult suffrage became the basis for the sovereignty of Pakistan, which is the most fundamental universal ideology for an independent country. The Independence Act had determined that there would be only two independent dominions and all princely states, about 543 in number, had to choose which way to join on the basis of a given criteria of, 1) aspiration of the people of the state, 2) the contiguity of the land mass. The independence of Pakistan thus admitted into the comity of nations a very sovereign entity lending strength to the legitimate rights of the sovereign people in the comity of nations. It was at that time that one serious violation of the independence criteria in terms of the people of Jammu and Kashmir was forced by India that despite the highly interdependent and interlocked land contiguity with Pakistan and the overriding character of the majority Muslim population of the Princely State who were most fervent to join Pakistan that the fundamental issue remained unsettled to date creating a territorial ground of continuing differences amounting to open hostilities between the two neighbours. It is a case of intransigence versus the constitutional right created under the Act that became the basis of the creation of Pakistan and India. Muslim population of the state is a cultural entity and a historic reality and they continue to struggle for the right that was also the basis of independent India. The right of self determination in the disputed state has been duly recognised by the United Nations. Despite all kinds of oppressive tactics and massive military deployment employing brutal force against innocent civilians the people continue to pay sacrifices with life and property against the illegal occupation of their land by India. Does India not realise that if time of occupation was the effective instrument of denial of rights to the Kashmiris, it would have worked in 69 years. Contrary to their intentions the struggle for freedom by the Kashmiris is not only holding unabated but strengthening by the day.
There is an ongoing history of conflicts between the two countries but there has come about a new frenzy in the already bitter relationship. This is a new phenomenon caused by hard core Hindu extremism against all non-Hindu minorities in India and is cantered with special focus on Pakistan. There is no denying the fact that the two neighbours could not bury the legacy and usher in an era of beneficial co-operation aiming at attacking the endemic poverty that afflicts both countries while the open wound of the Kashmir dispute remains unattended and unresolved.
69 years is a long time to bring in the learning curve. India remained hostile to Pakistan from day one and continued to pose existential threat to her sovereignty to this day. Pakistan was forced to remain focused on its security that enabled it to grow in strategic defensive capability. Pakistan has always been led to suspect the hostile Indian intentions. It is her capability that Pakistan had to worry about and be on the watch. It has never been easy for Pakistan to maintain strategic military balance with a neighbour 7 times its size, but necessity has remained the mother of inventing ways of safeguarding its sovereignty.
Take for example the Indian nuclear explosion of the 1974, the people in Pakistan had no doubt about the would-be policies of nuclear India towards Pakistan and what followed in its wake, the nuclear Pakistan, was a dire necessity. It has time and again been seen in the recent times that some countries that took covert or overt route to nuclear weapons capability had to give it up for insurmountable quagmires, but it has been revealed that Pakistan had developed credible capability of testing a nuclear device only ten years after the 1974 explosion. It might indicate some strength of the Pakistani scientists but it was driven mostly by the motivation to protect itself against the hegemony of India.
Every threat that was posed by India, Pakistan had to find its counter to survive and the process of growing Indian threats forcing existential counter measures made Pakistan a formidable strategic force. India should realise that its new tirade against Pakistan, its new cobwebs around Pakistan, its new attempts at alliances against Pakistan, its new propaganda of insinuations against Pakistan will only force Pakistan to strengthen itself to survive in the face of growing Indian animosity. Prudence should suggest to India the futility of the policy they perpetrated against Pakistan for 69 years. This is what is expected from a wiser and sharper Indian leadership and as a peoples' leader Modi could get India from the perpetual Pakistan bashing psyche enabling a more interactive relationship leading to the solution of core issues for a co-operative diplomacy in the Subcontinent. Although the history defies the hope of change in India's Pakistan centric negative diplomacy, there can still be a hope of a new era. Other countries could play moderating influence and not adding further to the legacy of bitterness.