Engaging Pakistan

This article, which was written in the summer of 2009, when India did not want to resume any sort of structured dialogue with Pakistan, until it got satisfaction on terrorism, argues that this played into the hands of the sponsors of terrorism and was self-defeating. It argues that the principal objective of the Pakistan Army is now not Kashmir, but to arrest India’s growth; it uses terrorism as a cost-effective brake. Growth is our highest national priority, but we cannot concentrate on it, while ignoring Pakistan, because its Army will not let us. Sanctions have not worked in the past, because they immediately ratchet up tensions, as they did in 2002 and lead to economic consequences that are far heavier on India than on Pakistan. We must therefore try to persuade the Pakistan Army that peace has something in it too, and we can only do it through a sustained dialogue and through practical measures of cooperation that prove that peace pays. In all this, we should not insist on a reciprocity that in fact concedes to Pakistan the parity that it craves but does not merit.