For many the recent blast in Pune created a stark choice between negotiating with Pakistan and taking a hard line on terrorism, but a new round of talks is beginning nonetheless. It is the right choice. India can no longer choose to demonise Pakistan instead of talking to it: the stakes are much too high.
India has worked hard to present itself as a credible regional power and global leader. And much of the country?s domestic politics now depends on an implicit promise of ever-increasing economic growth. In this context, India is even less able to afford a dysfunctional Pakistan as a neighbour. Without a stable Pakistan, India cannot be sure of energy security or water for its northwestern states, and it would risk losing investor confidence precisely when it most needs to secure growth.
Delaying a settlement with Pakistan will harm India. The costs of a security policy directed at the hostile western neighbour are unsustainable in the face of the urgent need for social programmes to tackle growing inequality and infrastructure investment to fuel faster growth.
Reputation will be very important in this year of Commonwealth Games, and will bulk even larger in investors? views of India as capital flows pick up . Over the longer term, there is much more at stake. As Indian influence grows, there will be greater scepticism over unsolved disputes and more calls to account for human rights abuses by security forces engaged in counter-insurgency. India still has a long way to go in its campaign to gain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and its image will be crucial to the outcome.
A new relationship with Pakistan will only be possible if both countries agree to a framework to resolve the Kashmir dispute. This does not mean condoning insurgent violence or legitimising Pakistan?s encouragement of proxy warfare or giving Kashmir away. It means accepting that Kashmiris cannot continue to pay the price for terrorist violence and that India cannot afford to continue to bear the socio-political costs of fighting a low-grade war on its own soil. Moreover, India cannot secure its reputation as a growing world power without an agreement on this issue. The world?s reactions to India?s cool-headed approach to the Kargil and Mumbai attacks are an indication of the kind of gains India stands to make if it acts in line with the expectations created by its global aspirations.
The realities of Pakistan?s domestic politics mean that it will be difficult for its political class to convince the public to accept a bilateral settlement that does not include some kind of solution for Kashmir. Pakistan has much further to go than India to create the internal conditions necessary for a peace agreement. But India too has much work to do in building the domestic consensus necessary to pave the way for a lasting solution.
Bilateral negotiations rarely succeed without compromise on both sides. India appears to have decided in 1966 and 1971 that winning a war against Pakistan was not insurance enough against the consequences of the country?s political collapse if India pressed to secure its interests in Kashmir. The same may be the case today. It is not likely that the borders of pre-1948 Kashmir will become the two countries? frontier in the near future.
Enough has not been done to prepare the Indian public for the likely results of a framework settlement?or to consider the real costs of continuing with the status quo. Indian and Pakistani negotiators appear to have reached an agreement on a framework for moving forward on Kashmir and a resolution of the Sir Creek dispute behind closed doors in 2007?but neither side seems to have been confident it could be implemented as Pervez Musharraf?s grip on power weakened. It is unclear whether the Pakistani public would have accepted the agreement, which would reportedly have seen free movement throughout Kashmir, limited autonomy for local regions and eventual de-militarisation.
At one level, building a domestic political consensus for a lasting settlement with Pakistan is a matter of evolving new ways for political parties to work together in the national interest. Successive British governments maintained political consensus during the Northern Ireland peace process by offering full and confidential briefings on negotiations and security issues to leaders of other Parliamentary parties on Privy Council terms; Indian political parties need to work out a structure for doing the same.
India can insist that the end of terrorist violence is an essential precursor to a settlement with Pakistan. But it cannot afford to refuse to talk?to Pakistan, or to itself.
The author has taught Indian history at Oxford and Cambridge Universities
