#2: Change, India and Pakistan's Security Policy
What transpired behind publishing of Pakistan's first Security Policy
"Pakistan releases its first Security Policy"
A headline that took me back to Swarna Jayanti Dwar at the Attari-Wagah where I stood in February of 2019. Cold winds were slowly subsidizing as spring saw flowers bloom at this heavily wired and guarded border.
After the ceremony, one of my European friends shared an observation from his neutral perspective "This looks less of a flag-lowering ceremony and more of a show of strength. Why can't it be, like erm, peaceful?"
"Nothing between India and Pakistan can be peaceful, for reasons which are hard to understand from the neutral perspective," I murmured.
On reading about this document that mentions India 16 times (most among all), I found myself repeating: "Nothing between India and Pakistan can be peaceful!"
However, this document underlines the need for peace with India. As there is this 'mention' from the hubristic Pakistani elite, at least on paper, India (and Indians) can't help but attend to the new echoes from Islamabad.
First thing first, what is the relevance of these voices seeking change? Can Pakistan ever change vis-à-vis India? A large number of Indian policymakers and masses will disagree. After all, we have reasons to rally behind the status quoist tendencies of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
At the same time, it is hard to ignore the lesson of Heraclitus:
"Change is the only constant," which prompts one to debate 'when' not 'if'!
So, what is needed to push for change?
The established norms of International Relations speak about ideological relevance in driving a country from one stance to other. Unsurprisingly, it comes with a burden of costs: political, military, social, and civilizational.
The Indian growth trajectory has already presented a successful example.
The country saw the ripening of divisive issues on lines of caste and religion (Mandal v/s Kamandal) and terror attacks topped with Pakistan sponsored proxy war. Away from India, USSR headed towards disintegration, the USA backed Pakistan's rise, China started strengthening the title of 'all-weather friend'; the country was losing out fast on both fronts: the friends and the market(s). Added to it were the Indian nuclear aspirations that became a discussion point in diplomatic circles of the western world.
PM Chandrashekhar's decision to sanction pledging gold to earn FOREX came as a rude shock to grand old Indian 'prestige' around gold. India was craving a new approach that came as an ideological shift that now saw capitalism less as an evil and more as an enabler. It came riding on the shoulders of a retired politician who returned to Delhi and steered India out of the historic economic crisis. He was Sh PV Narsimha Rao!
Today, it looks easy on paper to see how LPG reforms stood the test of Parliament but having experienced the fate of farm bills, the resistance that PVNR encountered can be only imagined!
Regardless, like an idea whose time has come, India did not just move beyond socialistic compulsions but registered unparalleled growth. 30 years later, some examples are listed below:
It is on its way to becoming 3rd largest economy
4th strongest army only behind China, USA, and Russia
Chinese rise faces strict resistance from Doklam to Galwan
Washington DC sees the best friend in New Delhi
One of the first countries to go from aid beneficiary to donor
How did this happen?
In short, ideological shift executed with great caution and tight fielding on and off the field.
Another example can be India's eastern neighbor. Bangladesh separated from (then) West Pakistan in 1971. In mere 50 years, it surpassed Pakistan in terms of GDP and economic rise.
The bottom line is that change is a vector. India and Bangladesh on this vector while Pakistan's saw its speed directed at the aim of "bleeding India with the thousand cuts."
The establishment made rigorous efforts in this direction in the form of
the hateful education system
high budget terror initiatives against India
denying the cultural, historical, and civilizational relationships
featuring false heroes from the Middle Eastern and Turkish world
While these efforts do trouble India in short term, their long term impacts leave Pakistan bankrupt, morally and financially.
Add to it the troubled relationships with Saudi and UAE, diminishing value of the currency, FATF infused hardships, predatory Chinese expansion and a debt-ridden society.
These complications shall make one wonder; how did Pakistan go from being the USA's favorite in the 1971 war to PM Imran Khan ranting about not receiving POTUS Joe Biden's call in 2021?
First, the extremist tendencies rose hand in glove with the establishment. So much so that open calls of expelling French Ambassador reached Parliament for a vote from the streets of Pakistan.
Second, asylum and financial support to the Taliban left Pak naked in front of the world. The deterioration is severe to a point where the Foreign Minister and ISI chief paid unannounced visit to Kabul after the fall of Ashraf Ghani's government.
However, the shreds of evidence from the Durand line hint at the Taliban's rise into an Achille's heel for the puppeteers of Rawalpindi.
Other than these, investments of Pakistan in terror outfits and other such tendencies provoking Islamic extremism will come back to bite its civilians.
This policy signals Pakistan's awareness of these issues clubbed with India's strength (surgical strikes, Balakot airstrike) and strategic superiority (August 5, 2019, parliament resolution on JnK)
Throw all these balls in one sack that returns you a document titled 'Security Policy' hinting at peace and economic revival with India.
How will extremist factions of Pak receive it?
We will eventually figure it out.
But how shall India react to Pakistan's extension of olive branches?
Learn from the past, stay 'intelligent', and value action over camouflage.