How Do You Solve A Problem Like Pakistan?

As India prepares to celebrate the 75th anniversary of emancipation from colonialism, and confidently looks at a grand quarter century ahead, a sigh also rises. It reminds us that a decades-long struggle for independence ended in a bloody partition, the genesis of a hostile neighbour - now nuclear-armed - who will never let us be at peace, and the continued ensnaring of our traditional way of life, by ideologies devised by our former colonial masters.

In these long three quarters of a century, we’ve managed to pull the bulk of our people out of poverty, feed ourselves, clothe ourselves, modernise, industrialise, digitise, and are just a few short years away from putting an astronaut in space. Before the end of this decade, we will be the third largest economy in the world, by any metric, and one of the largest global markets. An era of prosperity finally beckons, after the darkness of centuries.

Nonetheless, a serious Hindu-Muslim problem remains a turbulent underbelly, with a two-nation mindset still deeply entrenched within, causing intense social strife and disrupting progress, long after that phrase ceased to mean anything in those lands which broke away at partition. Part of the reason is a sordid domestic practice of appeasement politics, but the bulk of the cause stems from Pakistan – Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s infamous policy of bleeding India with a thousand cuts.

Similarly, while we have decent relations with most nations of the world, our security and aims are threatened by two nuclear neighbours acting in tandem – Pakistan and China. As a result, we are mired in a flux of geopolitics. Our borders are a ring of fire. Afghanistan is now controlled by the Taliban: a barbaric medieval entity inimical to us, not least because it was spawned by Pakistan. And even though Pakistan’s economy is headed into a terminal tailspin, it continues to function as China’s proxy, fomenting active societal discord in India, presenting a constant military threat, and triggering violent instability in the region.

In one sense, an audit of partition returns a tally of two neighbouring failed states who will not let us be, controlled by a totalitarian third – a rising global giant which views our progress as a threat to its economic and strategic interests, and one which has no qualms about using the other two to limit our growth.

And yet, the refrain has been the same in the usual quarters for the past 75 years: ease tensions with Pakistan and China by talking, and talking, and talking, but don’t push too hard to achieve our interests since that could result in trouble at the border, or within. Oddly, very few mainstream commentators are ready to publicly discuss, or accept, a harsher reality, even after five major wars, serial insurgencies, and countless terrorist attacks: that a peaceful, friendly, and prosperous Pakistan is a pipedream.

Peace will not happen because Pakistan was founded on an execrable lie, that people of different faiths cannot live together in harmony. This lie has now turned rancid, and is not only consuming that state, but contaminating our vitals as well.

So, an apt question to ask at 75 is: Where do we go from here? In other words: How much longer are we to remain captive to Pakistan’s belligerent tendencies, the geo-political threat its military nexus with China poses to us, and an accursed mayhem it continues to successfully prosecute, both on our border, and within our society?

The first necessary step is a severing of the umbilical link between Indian secularism and Pakistan. That is happening now. It is a slow process, but secularism is being gradually purged from our body politic by the vote. Its excision is ugly, as are its death throes, and the process won’t be without pain, but it is progressing inexorably.

That leaves the second part: Pakistan.

While our political classes of the first few decades following partition may have been loath to admit it, the truth is that partition hasn’t worked. It has not brought us peace. So, if the original purpose of partition has not been served, then what is the logical end of subcontinental politics?

As we shall see, that is not an easy question to answer. There are multiple constraints, and the prevailing atmosphere makes it difficult to rise above binary arguments, or to go beyond being hawks or doves. But we must try.

Arguments against partition based on emotion, like a concept of sacred geography, won’t wash today because that fatal seed of a separatist creed sprouted long before India awoke; and because the physical deed of splintering was done with the approval of India’s non-Muslim elected representatives. Thus, ex post facto laments won’t hold water even if they mean a great deal to many Indians. At best, they might serve as a salve, or as a mollifying reason, when dealing with bewildered citizens of those lands which split away, who are trying to come to terms with India’s undoing of an enforced history.

A civilisational argument against partition, based on our ancient, traditional concept of vasudaiva kutumbakam, won’t work either, since one third of the subcontinent rejects it as kaffir bunk. On the contrary, any espousal of how holy Sharada Peeth is, or of how central it is to our sacred geography, would only fuel further paranoia in Pakistan, since it would be interpreted solely as a sinister, revanchist plot to undo partition.

Similarly, arguing that a reversal of partition is an antidote to cultural separatism, or radical Islamist terrorism, won’t be irrefutable, since the two-nation theory is not going anywhere anytime soon. This is a sad fact of life. This sentiment cannot be exorcised, but only contained. At best, one may expect some enfeeblement of its patrons, for a while, and the possible gravitation of a minor segment into the mainstream. But for the most part, and until overwhelmed by prosperity, it would still be a case of communities living together and apart, with whispers of ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ depressingly still doing the rounds in radical circles.

A fourth argument is every Indian’s secret wet dream – a case for war. It is a perfectly valid option, and there is no doubt that dismembering Pakistan’s Jihadi-military axis, de-nuclearizing that failed state, and regaining control of vital areas like the Makaran Coast and Gilgit-Baltistan, has immense benefits.

But, as the Sino-Indian border standoff during the Doklam crisis of 2017 showed, it would be extremely risky for India to attempt a military breakup of Pakistan as long as China underwrites Pakistan’s security. Also, we would have to do it on our own, since neither the West nor Russia would assist us politically or materially if China decided to intervene even more actively on Pakistan’s behalf than it already does. It's easier, safer and commercially more lucrative for these countries to ignore India’s concerns, than to address it.

Another allied issue is that even if partition is undone, you won’t be able to break the hold of the ulema over the ummah, or force an acceptance of the kafir into their midst. A Marxian sense of an ‘othered’ identity is too-strongly entrenched in Pakistan to permit that.

India is also further weighed down by a grimmer geopolitical reality: no great power sees profit in a resolution of the Pakistan problem, and the establishment of peace in the subcontinent, since such an eventuality would not just free India from regional constraints, but also allow her to swiftly become a decisive swing factor in global affairs – a factor largely impermeable to foreign pressure on account of geography (a high mountain range ringing it to the north, and a vast ocean to its south), and its sheer size (within a decade, we will be the most populous country in the world, irrespective of whether the Pakistan problem is solved or not).

(These geopolitical constraints, and India’s need for a new security architecture, will be elaborated upon in two forthcoming pieces)

And yet, the persistent reality is that partition has caused far more problems than its advocates envisaged in 1947, and will continue to create further strife, if left to fester. Even if partition is not physically undone, its ills will have to be exorcised, either by dint of mutual reason, or by a passage of arms. Either way, there is an unavoidable inevitability to what lies ahead, and from India’s standpoint, if imprudence will not permit a peace, then socio-economic necessity will force it.

If it was a civilisational folly to partition this land along religious lines in 1947, it will be a graver strategic folly if that fell past isn’t undone soon. And the sooner more Indians start talking about it, the swifter the subcontinent will prosper.