At an international conference soon after Partition, a European delegate asked a Pakistani delegate “Which country are you from, sir?” Somewhat flustered, the Pakistani delegate responded, “I am from Pakistan.” The European looked puzzled and said “Pakistan? Where is that?” The Pakistani delegate was flummoxed; there was no time for a long discussion so he briefly explained West Pakistan’s location. “Oh! Oh! Yes, of course,” the European responded, “but we call it Afghanistan.”

Within a year, however, Pakistan had achieved a place in international relations and affairs where it could not be taken for anything except what it had proceeded to become: a proactive Muslim state effectively representing Muslim causes more eloquently and persuasively than they had been in the past. Pakistan’s foray into foreign affairs and diplomacy was led by the country’s first foreign minister, Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, ably backed by a group of competent senior Foreign Service officers who held senior positions in India and at Partition had opted for service in Pakistan.

The first issues Pakistan had to cope with in the UN were independence of North African Muslim states from French and other European colonialists, and the creation of Israel out of Palestine.

Within a year of its birth, Pakistan forayed into foreign affairs and diplomacy as a proactive Muslim state with an eloquent and persuasive stance — why are we struggling now?

Khan’s profound perspectives and brilliant reasoning left the world awed. In the North African states hundreds of newborns were named ‘Zafarullah’ by parents out of admiration and affection for the foreign minister.

Pakistan came to be recognised as leader of the Muslim bloc. This status of Pakistan enhanced the country’s influence in the ‘neutral’ bloc well beyond its size, making it a sticking point for India, whose Prime Minister Nehru was recognised as the leader of the ‘neutral’ bloc, with presidents Sukarno of Indonesia and Tito of Yugoslavia as ‘teammates.’

Pakistan came into being at a time when the ebb and flow in international relationships and transactions was perhaps at its peak. World War II had just ended, the Cold War had just begun, China was on the verge of revolution, Korea was divided with a war brewing, Palestine was in ferment, as were states under colonial rule in north Africa and in south east Asia such as Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia. To all these issues in Pakistan’s first year as a state was added Kashmir.

There are differing versions on why Kashmir became the intractable problem it did between India and Pakistan, as well as the cause of wars between the two nations. One version is that as a Kashmiri Pandit, Nehru was emotionally inflexible on Kashmir and spared no efforts to hold on to as much Kashmir as he could. This resulted in defiance of UN resolutions on Kashmir and reneging on India’s commitments to the world body and to the world.

Nehru was given to hastiness and emotionalism.After the Muslim League and Congress had an initial agreement on India keeping India whole with powers devolved to the provinces, Nehru came up with the statement that the parliament of independent India could overrule this, forcing the Muslim League to revert to a demand for Partition.

India’s relations with China were more than merely cordial. Slogans Hindi Chini bhai bhai (Indians and Chinese are brothers) rang loudly until a territorial issue came up between the two in 1962, and Nehru impulsively ordered the Indian army to “throw the Chinese out of Indian territory.” The slogans were buried in the Himalayan snow as the Chinese made the Indian army pay heavily for its offensive.

Nehru’s bravado was doubtless fed by an exaggerated sense of the Indian army’s power after the army’s earlier successes in occupying the small princely states with special status such as Junagadh, Manavadar, Mangrol and the coastal French and Portuguese enclaves Diu, Goa, Pondicherry and few others without waiting for the special status issue to be resolved diplomatically.

Another version is that Liaquat Ali Khan erred in not accepting the offer of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel for Pakistan to not interfere with Hyderabad becoming a part of India, and India would not interfere with Kashmir joining Pakistan. Patel, as minister of interior and deputy prime minister, was hugely popular with the extensive hardcore Hindu segment of population, and only marginally less powerful than Nehru.

It is also said that if the tribesmen from NWFP (now Khyber Pakh­tunkhwa), who intervened to help Kashmiri Muslims against the Kashmir Maharaja’s Dogra forces — who were terrorising Kashmiri Muslims forcing thousands to flee to Pakistan — and who reached Srinagar after making short work of the Maharaja’s forces, were strategically better directed and better led, their first action should have been to seize and occupy the Srinagar airport. They wasted time and opportunity by joining the Kashmiris in celebrations thereby enabling India to land troops by air, which was the only way Indian troops could reach Srinagar.

The Indian troops’ rapid advance towards Pakistan border led to intervention by the Pakistan army, the halting of the Indian advance and increasing military pressure on India, at which point India took the Kashmir issue to the United Nations. A ceasefire was arranged and holds to this day making Kashmir one of oldest issues on the UN agenda.

Pakistan is still struggling on all these counts, its first Constitution was completed a decade after independence. ... It failed to remain one, with East Pakistan separating as Bangladesh in 1971; it failed to end feudalism or the feudals exploitive hold on the country’s politics.

India was debated to the ground in the UN by the Pakistani delegation led by Khan. The UN over the years approved over a dozen resolutions on Kashmir, all accepted by Pakistan and rejected by India. All processes that could help in resolving the issue have been made use of by the UN without success, such as the appointment of a UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), which spent a long time in India and Pakistan to help in negotiations, and nomination as mediators of persons of world stature and acceptable to both.

Some UNCIP members and mediators on Kashmir subsequently wrote of their experiences in books; in all of them their failure can be read to have been the result of India’s intransigent position.

India being able to sustain its untenable position in Kashmir and retain its hold on the main part of Kashmir, and Pakistan failing to dislodge India despite favourable UN resolutions and world opinion, is entirely a result of India’s well-nourished stature and standing as a state versus Pakistan’s much diminished one.

Within three years of independence by 1950, India had completed its constitution, held the first general elections, abolished feudalism, created new provinces and re-demarcated provincial boundaries becoming a cohesive single nation. All this gave India a domestic strength enabling it to strongly rein in divisiveness; it put down the Sikh rebellion, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu and movements in other places.

Pakistan is still struggling on all these counts. Its first Constitution was completed a decade after independence, followed by two more constitutions. All three were violated by martial laws. It failed to remain one, with East Pakistan separating as Bangladesh in 1971. It failed to end feudalism or the feudals’ exploitive hold on the country’s politics. It has failed to develop into a cohesive state with separatist tendencies still abounding in Balochistan and KP. It has failed to control centres preaching religious bigotry and hatred and eliminate terrorists they helped create.

All these factors and more, in the eyes of the world have reduced Pakistan to almost a failed state, incapable of overcoming India’s untenable position by the justness of its own cause.

The writer is a former corporate executive husainsk1933@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 24th, 2016