IT is nothing new for Pakistanis to be fed anti-India propaganda; it has, after all, been the staple diet in this country for the best part of 70 years. Still, the noticeable upsurge in inflammatory statements by government functionaries against the ‘traditional enemy’ in recent weeks demands interrogation. Especially when one considers that the PML-N talked up peace with Delhi in the lead-up to the 2013 general election, and for at least a few months afterwards.

The hawks will say that the government has been left with no choice given the recent ‘provocations’ of Indian military personnel. But even if one was to take at face value the claims that ‘they’ are causing all the mischief, border skirmishes have a long history, and getting overly worked up about them is a case of much ado about nothing.

The truth is that the Nawaz Sharif government has, on account of ‘dharna-gate’ and Peshawar, ceded virtually all policy space to the men in khaki. With this retreat has come a not altogether surprising memory recall about eternal enmity with our eastern neighbour.

Our default foreign policy position features suspicion.

Interestingly, things on the western border with Afghanistan appear to be going swimmingly. Functionaries on both sides, civilian as well as military, are issuing one feel-good statement after the other. Washington is, for once, satisfied with both Kabul and Islamabad (read: Rawalpindi), and ‘counterterrorism’ strategies are being mutually drawn up by all three sides.

I admit I am sceptical of Pakistani officialdom at the best of times, but the ‘love Afghanistan’ and ‘hate India’ policy of recent vintage is nothing short of exceptional. Our default foreign policy position features suspicion and rancour on both the western and eastern borders. The now notorious ‘strategic depth’ policy was based on the presumption that war with India was inevitable and that Afghanistan’s purported anti-Pakistani bias had to be overturned accordingly.

How, and why, has this straightforward conflict-laden worldview given way to the current scenario? My sense is that the powers-that-be, namely the US and China, have made clear that it is simply no longer acceptable to cultivate ‘strategic assets’ in Afghanistan. With regards to India, on the other hand, our uniformed guardians have been given slightly more leeway (by Beijing in particular).

Quite aside from the dictates of our foreign patrons, there is also the small matter of India being the security establishment’s raison d’être. The Pakistani state, since its inception, been dominated by the military under the guise that India poses an existential threat. Just the fact that this is not said so openly anymore — with ‘terrorism’ now invoked publicly instead — should not be taken to mean that the internal consensus within the military institution has dissipated. Aqil Shah’s recently published manuscript The Military and Democracy confirms as much.

India’s rulers have played as big a role in maintaining tensions between the two countries as their Pakistani counterparts. Some Indian regimes are more hawkish than other — the recent raising of temperatures between the two countries is explained in no small part by the hyper-nationalism of Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP.

The difference between the two neighbours is that political forces actually design and execute foreign policy in India — albeit in conjunction with the permanent state apparatus — whereas the military reigns supreme in Pakistan. More specifically, political regimes in this country that try and make policy autonomously of the men in khaki are almost inevitably cut down to size.

The most telling aspect of this entire calculus is so-called ‘public opinion’. Even today, as home-grown violence eats away at the body-politic, we Pakistanis can’t get enough of the tired explanation that foregrounds ‘India’s evil designs’. India’s ruling class also plays to the gallery, but the Pakistan factor in Indian politics is far less pronounced than in the opposite direction.

In the final analysis, we should be clear that peace at home, and in the neighbourhood at large, requires not a selective detente on our western border, but a renunciation of the policy of regional enmity in its entirety. In any case it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the current ‘friendship’ with Afghanistan is sponsored by imperialism — hardly the recipe for a sustainable peace.

Perhaps we do not want such a peace, and continue to believe that one or both of Afghanistan and India will eventually be wiped off the world’s map, pursuing whatever destructive policies we deem necessary to make this ‘dream’ of ours come true. How this wishful thinking can coexist alongside our supposed resolve to rid society of ‘terrorism’ is another matter altogether.

That India-enmity is the military’s raison d’être is old news — those of us who will be foaming at the mouth during Sunday’s World Cup match should bear in mind that we are equally responsible for sustaining permanent war with our neighbours, and, by extension, in our own backyard.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2015

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