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India – Pakistan - South
Asia’s Zero Sum Game
Much
of South Asia’s travails are blamed on the zero sum game between India and
Pakistan. Thus when leaders of South Asia, led by the Prime Minister of
Bangladesh Sheikh Haseena asked the Indian Prime Minister Dr Man Mohan Singh
and then Pakistani Prime Minister Mr Yusaf Raza Gillani to take a quiet walk in
the garden in Thimpu during the SAARC summit in 2010 and resolve the
differences fresh hopes evoked optimism. This was sustained through the years
with the high point being possibility of Most Favoured Nation status accorded
by Pakistan to India by the end of 2012 and liberalization of trade including
energy as well as the visa regime. Events during June however seem to indicate
likelihood of return to the zero sum game, here is why?
Status quo on two crucial engagements on long
standing disputes over alignment of the line of control/international boundary
at Siachen and Sir Creek is the first set of events that denoted stalemate in
the relations. With over 100 soldiers killed in a snow slide in Siachen,
Pakistan had raised the stakes with a flurry of articles indicating necessity
for a pull back of troops from eyeball to eyeball confrontation at over 18,000
feet in the Glacier. Pak Army Chief General Kayani seemed to suggest that progress
in Indo Pak relations would be based on a breakthrough in Siachen. For India side without any change in the
basic premise, of demarcation, disengagement was not a practical option.
Devoid of a
breakthrough in Siachen, Sir Creek remained in the cold freeze. Evidently both
sides were not prepared to step up the rapprochement to the next level by
resolving the vexatious boundary issue. Opinion makers in Pakistan as Maleeha
Lodhi, wrote in the News International, a Jang group newspaper, that given lack
of progress in talks at Siachen and Sir Creek, there was no point in continuing
the trade track. Ironically the Jang group and the Times of India have launched
a joint initiative to improve people to people relations, “Aman ki Asha”.
Meanwhile there were
serious violations of cease fire in the Poonch region of Jammu and Kashmir with
mortar firing spilling over for a week. This resulted in blocking cross border
movement of people and goods a CBM which had gained much traction.
During the same
period, there was political upheaval as Mr Yousaf Raza Gillani was disqualified
from the National Assembly by the Supreme Court overturning the ruling of the
Speaker of the august legislative body over his indictment in the Swiss
reference case. This has reopened the contest between the institutions and
political parties with the Army possibly playing a referee or waiting in the
wings as per knowledgeable observers. Thus initiatives taken by Mr Gillani and
the Pakistan People’s Party President Mr Zardari to improve relations with
India are now on the back burner as there is more judicial activism in store
for the ruling party.
The severest
blow however came with interrogation of the Indian terrorist Abu Jundal alias Sayeed
Zabiuddin Ansari who had been operating for the Lashkar e Taiyyaba in Pakistan.
Jundal reconfirmed involvement of state actors in that country in the 26/11
Mumbai terror attack. The ghosts of
terrorism thus again haunt Indo Pakistan relations and unless there is a
fundamental shift in strategic discourse between the two major states in South
Asia, the zero sum game is likely to continue
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