Untangling India and Pakistan

Article Review: Untangling India and Pakistan

By: K.Shankar Bajpai

Main theme of the article revolves around the tensions between India and Pakistan with Kashmir issue being the highlight of the article. Although other factors have been mentioned but greater stress has been put over Kashmir issue.

Mainly, Qualitative data has been used with little quantitative data such as population size etc. As mentioned above, Shankar's main focus has been the Kashmir issue but he tried to mention other factors as well. Factors which have led to the argument presented by Shankar. Shankar has presented a logical argument since he has mentioned different events and reasons which have led to the current situation of India and Pakistan.

Shankar's main argument is based on the stance of both the countries. Pakistan wants Kashmir issue to be settled down first before working towards the normalization of relations between the two neighbours. On the other hand, India says to normalize relations first and that would eventually lead to the solving of kashmir issue.

The author states that India is in an unsatisfied position which is due to the US support for Pakistan which makes Pakistan in a better position even though Pakistan has been responsible for causing unrest in India. The instability has been been caused by Pakistan based Islamist groups. Furthermore, India believes that violence in Kashmir has been caused and further encouraged by Pakistan. According to the author, Pakistan would not have been able to cause violence in Kashmir if indigenous people of Kashmir were already not opposing India. That is the main reason why Pakistan has been able to provoke dissatisfaction in India.

What disturbs India the most is Pakistan's position. Pakistan's main target is beyond Kashmir. It lies in the destabilization of India. Also, according to India, For fruitful talks to be held, Pakistan needs to make sincere efforts for decrease in terrorism.

While accusing Pakistan as the source of unrest in India, author gives example of the Gujarat rioting in which 2000 lives were lost. What author claims is that before Pakistan started importing terrorism in India, massacre of such type was unthinkable.

Author also tries to give a brief account of Pakistan's position. According to Shankar, Pakistan's position is of the person who helps the good one and also keeps his ties with the bad ones. Author presents this position of Pakistan because during the military rule of Pervez Musharraf, he had to face many obstacles in trying to wash out Islamist influence from Pakistani soil. On the other hand, army also thought of these groups as beneficial in their campaign against India, in Kashmir. Moreover, author has supported his argument with few example where terrorist activities have been carried out by Pakistan based Islamist groups. On October 1, 2001, Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed (groups trained and financed by Pakistan) were involved in an assault on Kashmir state Legislature. These groups have been declared as Terrorist groups by US. Further, on 13 December,