The latest Pakistan-India Foreign Ministers' talks ended with an agreement only on the need to talk again. You may question the need for this meeting if it was only to reach this conclusion, but there was a positive outcome too. With a far more threatening insurgency (compared to Kashmir) now raging in its eastern provinces, and to help the US exit Afghanistan, India wants to reduce tension on its western borders.
The massacre of Sikhs after Indira Gandhi's assassination triggered the Khalistan movement, but India portrayed it as a Pakistan-backed revolt. Since then, and without ever looking inside their own shirts, all Indian regimes blamed Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism on India's eastern borders. But things have changed; a truly destructive insurgency is now on in eastern India and the one in Kashmir can no more be blamed on outsiders.
In line with its character since 1947 and with Pakistan going through the worst phase in its history (courtesy the fallout from the US-sponsored war-on-terror), India thought it was just the time to squeeze concessions out of Pakistan entirely on its terms, but ignored the fact that even the US-backed regime in Islamabad can't concede much ground because of increased public awareness in Pakistan.
In the post-colonial era, diplomatic honesty underwent a horrible change. Diplomats, who squeezed the most unfair concessions out of their troubled adversaries, were elevated to the highest pedestal in statecraft. As India prepares to step into the shoes of a colonial power, its visionless diplomats too are falling into that trap - squeezing unfair concessions from India's neighbours.
The fact that India and Pakistan, who share a common landmass, can't survive without peaceful co-operation, is a reality that politicians in both the countries refuse to accept at a heavy cost to their people. This has led people in both the countries to one conclusion: politicians (with few exceptions) are a curse; the vast majority of Indians and Pakistanis hold no grudge against each other, only their diplomats and politicians do.
In both the countries, flawed state governance forced larger chunks of their population to fall below the poverty line, which provided extremist groups an ever-growing number of angry youth that they now proudly call their 'Sipah' or 'Senas', ably assisted by diplomats-turned politicians like BJP's Sushma Sawaraj. Result: population of India's poorest 8 states now exceeds that of 26 African states. Pakistan is slightly better on this count.
The clout of extremist groups kept expanding because the state (India a democracy since 1946) never showed requisite concern for progressively more equitable distribution of wealth to fulfil the ever-increasing need for social justice and enforcement of the law. In Bihar with a population of 100 million, the policemen to civilians ratio is just 50 vs. 100,000. Pakistan's ratio is higher, but lawlessness is rampant.
Intoxicated by its deceptive economic growth, India's current priority is designing a symbol for its currency, although in February, based on the findings of India's Institute for Conflict Management, The Economist reported that Naxalite guerrillas (primarily a poverty-fuelled movement) are now active in over a third of India's 626 districts, with 90 seeing "consistent violence." To India's Prime Minister, this is the biggest threat ever.
Yet the present Indian regime wants to convey to its people that Pakistan (not their own government) is behind India's troubles. Accepting failures isn't the Indian regimes' style, though the present Army Chief is more realistic, and accepts them. There is no dearth of Indians and Pakistanis, who see huge economic benefits of Indo-Pak co-operation but, tragically, they, like the rest of the Indians and Pakistanis, don't matter.
Hoping that cornering Pakistan from all sides - security threats, diverting to India virtually all of the Himalayan waters, damaging the image of Pakistani exports, and encouraging the world to view Pakistan as a terrorist state - will ensure a prosperous future for India is a dumb idea because it could lead only to unmanageable chaos in the sub-continent. All India needs is a look at the sub-continent's geographical map.
Yet, India is pursuing this policy. The assumption that chaos in Pakistan won't cross the porous borders India shares with Pakistan is the lethal blindness any self-styled visionary can suffer from. It is baffling how many such visionaries adore India's corridors of power, led by the minister of interior P. Chidambaram. How his ministry used the inquest into the 26/11 tragedy to cover up its own failure, is an open book.
Chidambaram refuses to let Pakistani authorities interrogate the culprits, which erodes the credibility of India's claims. He insists that Pakistan must accept his version of the 26/11 tragedy, although accepting Pakistan's demand for cross-interrogation of the culprits may give credibility to his claims; denying Pakistan this right only makes the affair seem a cover up for India's own security failure.
With this track record of co-operation, the Indian Foreign Minister hoped to achieve his one-sided agenda. It is no surprise that he achieved nothing. Nor did his Pakistani counterpart; he failed to convince India about the need for a visible balance in concessions to assure a credible and visible improvement in Indo-Pak relations.
Rather than citing the independence of Pakistan's judiciary, he could highlight to the Indian side the need for transparency in whatever action is taken against the culprits of the 26/11 tragedy, and that India must initiate action against the perpetrators of the Samjhota Express tragedy. But the real shocker was that Pakistan had provided no proof of Indian involvement in Balochistan or terrorist acts elsewhere in Pakistan.
Whatever India's stand on terrorism, it is unfair on Pakistan's part to accuse India of involvement in these affairs without providing proof thereof. The commonly held view in Pakistan is that India' RAW is involved not just in Balochistan, but also in many terror incidents in Muslim places of worship because no Muslim would commit such sacrilegious acts and, surely, credible proof thereof also exists.
Together Pakistan and India constitute a fifth of the planet's population. Both must shed the hangover of the past hate-based politics to honestly share the common resources. Confrontation and chaos has already taken its toll on the people. Clever-by-half politics and diplomacy won't work; the people can't stand it anymore.