KARACHI: “Relations between neighbouring countries are always difficult. And ties between India and Pakistan are no exception. But things can improve, depending on the kind of policies we craft in future.”

This was the point that High Commissioner of India Dr T.C.A. Raghavan laid stress on in his lecture titled “History and Diplomacy: Contextualising India-Pakistan Relations” at the Habib University here on Wednesday.

He said there was no dearth of ‘angles’ on Indo-Pak relations and he would focus on two sets of frames. The first one, in which there were clear disagreements, was to do with issues like Jammu and Kashmir, water aggression, Indian consulates’ role in Afghanistan and ceasefire violations along the Line of Control.

The second provided an alternative view emphasising commonalities such as popular culture, music, cinema and fashion.

Instead of discussing the present, Dr Raghavan said, he would step back because “history heavily weighs on Indo-Pak relations”.

He gave a few examples to give credence to his point of view that relations between neighbouring countries were always difficult.

He touched on Turkey-Armenia relations and mentioned a US official’s recent statement that many Polish people had been involved in the genocide of Jews in World War II. Then he talked about opposing interpretations of the war in Ukraine. In Asia, relations between Japan and South Korea and Japan and China were difficult, he said.

The diplomat, however, suggested that there was a wide spectrum available from which India and Pakistan could choose — on one end of the spectrum there were Canada and the US and on the other North and South Korea. “In terms of policy, the choice is ours,” he said.

On the partition, he said, there were different views — one of which was that it was a traumatic experience because of which two or three generations had to bear the burden of history.

Then there was the pragmatic approach that people of the subcontinent could not live together and quickly adjusted to difficult issues such as evacuee property, minorities, currency and banking and new trends in trade.

In a similar vein, he referred to the first Indo-Pakistan cricket series that took place in 1951 and the fact that in 1955 Pakistan’s governor-general was chief guest at the Republic Day ceremony in New Delhi.

He termed the Indus Waters Treaty “a significant achievement” and “a great triumph of diplomacy” despite the polemical discourse now surrounding it.

Dr Raghavan said the year 1979 brought about a “momentous change” in South Asia. “There was an Islamic revolution in Iran which had no prior model, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and we saw the consequences of the forces unleashed as a result of it; democracy in Pakistan received a setback, globalisation transformed markets in the UK and the US, China began it modernisation programme and Asean evolved.” All these things, he said, cast a profound impact on the region.

He claimed that there were signs that the cycle (of events) which had started then, was now ending as there was a post-sanction regime in Iran, Afghanistan’s political forces were free from foreign intervention and democratic forces were consolidating in Pakistan. “Perhaps in that cluster of changes that cycle is ending,” he said but warned that it was not going to be easy.

Dr Raghavan said things might change but much would depend on the policies crafted by India and Pakistan. He said technology had changed the landscape in which diplomacy was once conducted, which was why governments had a diminishing role on how people thought about each other.

He told the audience, largely comprising faculty members and students of the Habib University, that there was a new government in India and its prime minister attached great importance to neighbouring countries. He said India needed high rates of growth to deal with poverty and a peaceful environment to achieve that objective.

The Indian prime minister would soon be visiting Bangladesh to sign the India-Bangladesh land boundary agreement. Last year Pakistan’s prime minister was invited to India to participate in the oath-taking ceremony of the new Indian premier and attempts were made to resume foreign secretary-level talks but they ran into roadblocks because an accused in the Mumbai attacks was released on bail, he said.

Speaking on how to move forward, Dr Raghavan said the issue of terrorism was a “central feature” which was holding back bilateral ties. He said there were building blocks such as the Simla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration of 1998 along with factors like the new economy and the world of entertainment, but all that would depend upon policies to be made by the two countries.

Answering a question, Dr Raghavan said people had the power to change, and insisted that “human agency” was involved in the partition.

Answering another query, he said nationalism might have run its course in the West but in “our region, it is a liberating and forward-looking force”.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play