India- Pakistan Relations

14 Maio 2018, 16:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

On May 12, 2018, the instructor electronically transmitted a reading on India’s relations with the Maldives. The next day he electronically transmitted his essay on India’s relations with Pakistan. On May 14, 2018 he electronically transmitted his essay on Prime Minister Modi’s foreign policy, and essays on the 1965 war with Pakistan and U.S. Pakistan relations, as well as the text of the Simla Agreement.

 

In a presentation on India- Pakistan Relations, Maria Beatriz Couto Lopes said that the ideology of Pakistan was based on a denial of Pakistan’s shared history and culture with India. The state of Pakistan had strayed from the idea of Pakistan. The creation of Bangladesh had been a blow to the two- nation theory. Pakistan is a state of paradoxes, the greatest paradox being its inability to give a safe space to all the Muslims of India, despite being a self- proclaimed homeland of Indian Muslims.

 

The instructor said that, to understand India- Pakistan relations, it is important to revisit history. A Pakistani is one who is not Indian. How did this come about? There are many explanations for India’s Partition. The inability to develop a power- sharing formula is one. Congress and the Muslim League were unable to form workable coalitions. Congress, in the belief that it was the party of all Indians, did not accommodate the Muslim League’s urging to share power. In the end, the rivalry between Congress and the Muslim League was a struggle for power. Jinnah began his political career as a nationalist leader, but became a leader of Muslims. He played on Muslim fears that Muslims would be denied rights in a democratic, Hindu- majority India.