From 50 Years Ago: A Relevant Pakistan Policy

A Relevant Pakistan Policy

It is obvious that Indo Pakistani relations is one of the problems of world politics which are greatly influenced by internal political developments in the concerned countries. The salience of internal politics in the determination of the nature of Indo-Pakistani relations can be attri­buted to a number of factors. The most significant of these factors is the reality that in many ways the conflict between India and Pakistan has been a civil war — a conflict the nature and shape and contours of which are fundamentally derived from the politics of undivided India of the late thirties and early forties. What was an intercommunal problem in pre-partition India became an international problem afterwards and though the Indo-Pak conflict rapidly acquired complex dimensions in terms of Great Power rivalries and conflicts in the region, it was primarily sustained by the deep communal loyalties in the two countries. Apart from the fact these loyalties were manipulated by the respective ruling elites to bring about a measure of consolidation of the two states, it is not improbable that the events leading to the partition of India had left a deep impression on the minds of policy-makers on both sides of the border, which influenced their decisions and policies even if they were apparently determined to keep themselves immune from the communal virus.