india pakistan relations essay

India-Pakistan Relations: Evolution, Challenges & Recent Developments

From Current Affairs Notes for UPSC » Editorials & In-depths » This topic

* Updates: at the bottom

The India-Pakistan relations has often afflicted by cross-border terrorism, ceasefire violations, territorial disputes, etc. In 2019, the bilateral relationship was rocked by several tense events like the Pulwama terror attack, Balakot airstrike, scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, etc. Improving bilateral ties is vital for both sides, as it would mean stabilisation of South Asia and the improvement of economies of both the nations. However, the political will to mend the relationship in the current juncture seems to be absent on both sides.

This topic of “India-Pakistan Relations: Evolution, Challenges & Recent Developments” is important from the perspective of the UPSC IAS Examination , which falls under General Studies Portion.

Background:

• Following the partition of British India, two separate nations, India (dominated by Hindus) and Pakistan (dominated by Muslims) was formed.
• Despite the establishment of diplomatic relations after their independence, the immediate violent partition, wars, terrorist attacks and numerous territorial disputes overshadowed the relationship.
• Since independence in 1947, both countries have fought three major wars, one undeclared war and have been involved in armed skirmishes and military standoffs.
• The dispute over Kashmir is the main centre-point of all these conflicts except for the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, which resulted in the secession of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh ).
• Several efforts were made to improve the bilateral ties, which were successful in de-escalating tensions to a certain extent.
• However, these efforts were hampered by frequent terrorist attacks and ceasefire violations.

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What are the wars and conflicts that were fought between India and Pakistan?

Indo-Pakistani War of 1947-48

• It was the first of the four Indo-Pakistan Wars fought between the two newly independent nations.
• This war was fought between the two nations over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir that was under the control of Maharaja Hari Singh.
• Fearing a revolt within the state and invasion from Pakistan, Maharaja Hari Singh made a plea to India for assistance. Assistance was offered by the Indian government in return to his signing an Instrument of Accession to India.
• The war resulted in India securing two-thirds of Kashmir, including Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Ladakh .
• Pakistan controls roughly one-third of the state, referring to it as Azad (free) Kashmir.

Indo-Pakistan War of 1965:

• The Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 initiated following the culmination of skirmishes that took place since April 1965.
• Pakistan’s Operation Gibraltar was launched to infiltrate forces into Jammu and Kashmir to hasten insurgency against India.
• India retaliated by launching a full-scale military attack on West Pakistan.
• This war resulted in thousands of causalities on both sides and witnessed the largest engagement of armoured vehicles and the largest tank battle since World War II.
• The war ended after an UN-mandated ceasefire was declared following diplomatic intervention by the USSR and the US, and the subsequent issuance of the Tashkent Declaration.

Indo-Pakistan War 1971:

• Since independence, Pakistan was geopolitically divided into two major regions, West Pakistan and East Pakistan, which is dominated by Bengali people.
• Following the launch of Pakistan’s military operation (Operation Searchlight), a genocide on Bengalis in December 1971 and the political crisis in East Pakistan, the situation went out of control in East Pakistan.
• India intervened in favour of the rebelling Bengalis population.
• Indian army invaded East Pakistan from three sides and the Indian Navy imposed a naval blockade of East Pakistan, leading to the destruction of a significant portion of Pakistan’s naval strength.
• After the surrender of Pakistani forces, East Pakistan became an independent nation of Bangladesh.

Kargil Conflict:

• During the winter of 1998-99, the Indian army vacated its posts at high peaks in Kargil Sector in Kashmir as it used to do every year.
• Pakistan Army made use of this opportunity to move across the line of control and occupied the vacant posts.
• The Indian army discovered this in May 1999, when the snow thawed.
• This led to intense fighting between Indian and Pakistani forces.
• Backed by the Indian Air Force, the Indian Army regained many of the posts that Pakistan had earlier occupied.
• Pakistan later withdrew from the remaining portion because of the international pressure and high causalities.

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What are the territorial disputes between India and Pakistan?

• Due to political differences between the two countries, the territorial claim of Kashmir has been the subject of wars in 1947, 1965 and a limited conflict in 1999 and frequent ceasefire violations and promotion of rebellion within the Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir.
• The then princely state remains an area of contention and is divided between the two countries by the Line of Control (LoC), which demarcates the ceasefire line agreed post-1947 conflict.

Siachen Glacier:

• Siachen Glacier is located in Northern Ladakh in the Karakoram Range.
• It is the 5 th largest glacier in Karakoram Range and the 2 nd largest glacier in the world.
• Most of the Siachen Glacier is disputed between India and Pakistan.
• Before 1984, neither of the two countries had any permanent presence on the glacier.
• Under the Shimla Agreement of 1972, the Siachen was called a barren and useless.
• This Agreement also did not specify the boundary between India and Pakistan.
• When India got intelligence that Pakistan was going occupy Siachen Glacier, it launched Operation Meghdoot to reach the glacier first.
• Following the success of Operation Meghdoot, the Indian Army obtained the area at a higher altitude and Pakistan army getting a much lower altitude.
• Thus, India has a strategic advantage in this region.
• Following the 2003 armistice treaty between the two countries, firing and bombardment have ceased in this area, though both the sides have stationed their armies in the region.

Sir Creek Dispute:

• Sir Creek is a 96 km estuary in the Rann of Kutch.
• Rann of Kutch lies between Gujarat (India) and Sindh (Pakistan).
• The dispute lies in the interpretation of the maritime boundary line between the two countries.
• Pakistan claims the entire Sir Creek in accordance with a 1914 agreement that was signed between the Government of Sindh and Rulers of Kutch.
• India, on the other hand, claims that the boundary lies mid-channel as per a 1925 map.
• If one country agrees to the other’s position, the former will lose a vast amount of Exclusive Economic Zone that is rich with gas and mineral deposits.

Water disputes:

• The waters of the Indus Rivers begin mainly in Tibet and the Himalayan Mountains in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir (Indian side).
• They flow through the states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Sindh etc., before draining into the Arabian Sea through the Pakistani side.
• The partition led to conflict over waters of the Indus basin as it was in such a way that the source rivers of the Indus Basin were in India.
• Both sides were at odds over how to manage and share these rivers
• Until the signing of the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960, the arrangement to share east and west-flowing rivers were ad hoc.
• The Indus Waters Treaty is the water distribution treaty signed between India and Pakistan, brokered by World Bank (then the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development).
• According to the treaty, three rivers, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas were given to India for exclusive use and the other three rivers, Sindh, Jhelum and Chenab were given to Pakistan.
• This treaty failed to address the dispute since source rivers of Indus Basin were in India, having the potential to create drought and famines in Pakistan.
• Last year, Modi Government had stated that India would no longer allow its share of river waters to flow into Pakistan in response to the Pulwama terror attack.
• According to the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, India can exploit rivers under its control without disturbing the flow or quantum.
• India plans to divert its three rivers to the Yamuna.

What are the other areas of contentions?

Cross-Border terrorism and ceasefire violations:

• Cross-border terrorism has been an issue since independence.
• Despite the 2003 Ceasefire Agreement post-Kargil Conflict, there have been regular ceasefire violations from the Pakistan side of the border since 2009, leading to the death and injury of security forces and civilians on both sides.
• The Modi Government’s massive armed retaliation to Pakistan’s ceasefire violations led to a rise in the number of infiltrations of terrorists from across the LoC.
• Subsequent incidents of 2016 Pathankot attack and Uri attack resulted in the ceasing of any effort to undertake bilateral talks between the two countries, with Indian Prime Minister declaring that “talks and terrorism cannot go hand in hand”.
• This was followed by surgical strikes by Indian Army across the LoC to target the terror infrastructure in PoK.
• India’s current stand is that it will not undertake talks until Pakistan tackle cross-border terrorism.
• Pakistan, in contrast, is ready for talks but with the inclusion of Kashmir issue.

Kulbushan Jadhav case:

• Kulbushan Jadhav, a retired Naval Officer was arrested near the Iran-Pakistan border in Baluchistan region by Pakistan.
• Pakistan accused him of espionage and spying. He was sentenced to death by Pakistan’s military court.
• India states that Jadhav was a retired Naval Officer who was in Iran on a business trip and was falsely framed by Pakistan.
• India, for many times, demanded consular access of Jadhav, which was rejected by Pakistan, citing national security.
• This led to India approaching International Court of Justice (ICJ) and stating that Pakistan was violating Vienna Convention by denying Consular Access.
• The ICJ asked Pakistan to review Jadhav’s death sentence and allow consular access.

Were the past Confidence Building Measures between India and Pakistan successful?

• Since the Partition, India and Pakistan have signed many agreements to generate confidence and reduce tensions.
• Perhaps the most notable among them are Liaquat- Nehru Pact (1951), Indus Waters Treaty (1960), Tashkent Agreement (1966), Rann of Kutch Agreement (1969), Shimla Accord (1972), Salal Dam Agreement (1978), and the establishment of the Joint Commission.
• Except for the Joint Commission, all the others were the products of either a crisis or a war that necessitated a logical end to the preceding developments.
• Though CBMs are efficient tools to improve inter-state relations, trust between the two sides is vital for its success.
• CBMs are difficult to establish but easy to disrupt and abandon.
• Some continue to be successful while others are abandoned.

Major Achievements:

Some of the confidence-building measures taken to improve Indo-Pakistan relations are as follows:

Military CBMs:

• Agreement on the Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations and Facilities was signed in 1988 and ratified in 1990. The first exchange took place on January 1, 1992. As per the Agreement, India and Pakistan exchange the list of their nuclear installations to prevent attacking each other’s atomic facilities. This practise has been followed to date.
• Agreement on Advance Notification on Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troop Movements were brought into effect in 1991. This agreement played a crucial role in deescalating the tensions on both the sides of the LoC.
• A communication link between Pakistan Maritime Security Agency and the Indian Coast Guard was established in 2005 to facilitate the early exchange of information regarding anglers who are apprehended for straying into each other’s waters.
• A hotline between Directors-General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of both the countries have been in effect since 1965 and was used in an unscheduled exchange to discuss troop movements and allay tensions in the aftermath of the 26/11 attacks.

Non-military CBMs:

Most of these CBMs focused on improving people-to-people interaction. Some of the significant ones that more or less withstood the test of times are as follows:

• Delhi-Lahore Bus Service was initiated in 1999. It was suspended in the aftermath of the 2001 Indian Parliament Attack. The bus service was later resumed in 2003 when bilateral relations had improved. This service was recently suspended in 2019 in the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution .
• Samjhauta Express that was launched following the signing of the Shimla Agreement connects Pakistani city of Lahore and the Indian town of Attari. It had been suspended frequently, but due to negotiations, it was restarted. In 2019, it was suspended after the revocation of the special status of Kashmir.
• Weekly Bus Service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad  was initiated in 2005. It has withstood the test of times and still operational.
• India extended humanitarian aid to Pakistan in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake. Pakistan too had earlier provided relief in the aftermath 2001 Gujarat Earthquake.

Failures in the CBM process:

• Although there are hotlines connecting both military and political leaders in both countries, they have been scarcely used when required the most. The absence of communications has led to suspicions and accusations of misinformation.
• There is a disproportionate emphasis on military CBMs and inadequate recognition of several momentous non-military CBMs.
• Governments of both sides often use CBMs as political tools to win over specific constituencies, which can be very damaging in the long-run. Public conciliatory statements, which are meant to be CBMs, can have the opposite effect if they are insincere.

What was the progress made in 2019?

• The year 2019 has in many ways, set the tone, tenor and tempo of how 2020 will pan out between India and Pakistan.
• Early last year, the Pulwama suicide bombing carried out by the Pakistani terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) led to the death of 40 CRPF personnel. This was the starting point of the steep decline in relations.
• Within a few days after the incident, India’s fighter jets targeted a JeM terrorist camp, not in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), but in Balakot in the Pakistani Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This led to retaliation from Pakistan.
• This incident led to a paradigm shift to the traditional India-Pakistan tensions.
• Later that year, the amendment and hollowing out of Article 370 , scrapping of Article 35A, the bifurcation of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories stunned Pakistan.
• This move effectively killed whatever remained of the bilateral ties post-Balakot airstrike.
• Pakistan responded by expelling the Indian High Commissioner and suspending all trade between the two countries.
• Trade had already fallen steeply after India withdrew Pakistan’s Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status and imposed a 200% import duty on Pakistani goods earlier that year post-Pulwama.
• However, within days, Pakistan was forced to allow the import of medicines from Indian to provide relief to its patients who were affected due to its suspension of bilateral trade with India.
• Amid the post Article 370 breakdown, Pakistan went ahead with the Kartarpur Corridor. Even this move is seen with mistrust by many due to Pakistan’s support to the Khalistani movement.
• Furthermore, any progress in the diplomatic ties in the political front is going to be difficult because of Pakistan military’s dominance in the country’s foreign policy. Any progress made has often led to a terror attack or ceasefire violation.
• In the current situation, the prospects for meaningful engagement between the two nations remain bleak and the best that can happen is that the diplomatic relations are fully restored, trade is opened up and easing of travel between the two nations.

What can be the way forward?

Reforming Pakistan’s political structure:

• Despite the democratic elections in Pakistan, the military wields the real power in the country. This holds true especially on matters of defence, national security and foreign policy.
• Pakistan’s military is the most dominant national political institution, the primary decision-maker and the chief overseer of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal.
• People’s needs on the aspects of health, employment and education are not prioritised while the military decides on its foreign policies with other nations, leading to the Pakistani economy feeling the brunt of the radical decisions by the military.
• Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), consisting for personnel from Pakistan Armed Forces, is often accused of supporting and training separatist militant groups operating in Kashmir and other parts of the country like North-East India .
• This makes it highly difficult for India to undertake diplomatic relations with Pakistani government since it is not the decision-maker in the country.
• Thus, a strong political reform in Pakistan, the one that focuses on the welfare of the Pakistani nationals is vital to improving its relations with India.

People-to-people relations:

• Propaganda is currently being used by both sides through the media to justify each other’s stand on conflicting issues.
• This is creating misconception, hatred and stereotyping among the people of both countries.
• This method is also used for political gains of both nations, with least consideration towards people’s welfare and the need for peace.
• Steps must be taken to facilitate travel between the two countries, ease up visa regimes, provide security for tourists, set up student and faculty exchanges, and invite professionals, intellectuals and artists to events to promote the bilateral ties.

Promote trade:

Steps that can be undertaken to improve bilateral trade include:

• Remove non-tariff barriers and bureaucratic hurdles that are currently impeding trade.
• Cut down duties
• Improve customs clearance procedures
• Proportionate trade is beneficial for both sides and is possible through the right government policies.

Promoting soft diplomacy:

It is the ability of the country to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction towards its political values, culture and favourable foreign policy. Measures that can be taken to promote soft diplomacy include:

• Use of Indus Waters Treaty to promote hydro diplomacy. Both nations can come together to construct Water Grid between their territories to address the water problems in the region.
• Cultural diplomacy can be used through the exchange of ideas, values, traditions and other cultural aspects to strengthen bilateral ties, enhance the socio-cultural cooperation and promote the individual national interest.
• Promotion of Cricket diplomacy i.e., the use of cricket as a diplomatic tool to overcome differences between the two countries.

To a certain extent, soft diplomacy improved the people-to-people relations between the two countries and eased the tensions on both sides.

Cooperation to address common issues:

• Being neighbours, both India and Pakistan face similar problems that are currently plaguing the region.
• For instance, recently, Pakistan has sought to import chemicals from India to fight the imminent locust attack.
• India too is a victim to locust attack.
• Thus, such similar problems like climate change and natural disasters can be dealt with through cooperation from both sides.
• This can significantly improve the bilateral relations between India and Pakistan.
• Social issues like child marriage, illiteracy, disease, discrimination, exploitation, unemployment and poverty are also an issue of common importance for both the nations, which the countries can use to improve their relations and coexist with each other.

Conclusion:

South Asia has not yet progressed despite it having the potential to ensure fast-paced economic growth and development. This is mostly because of the differences and tensions between India and Pakistan. Improved India-Pakistan relations can ensure the addressing of any threat the subcontinent may face in the future. Cooperation and coexistence through trust can ensure an establishment of peaceful and prosperous South Asia.

Practice Question

Terrorism and decisive military response have plagued the India-Pakistan bilateral ties. What can be done to improve diplomatic relations? (250 words)

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Review: Why the India-Pakistan Rivalry Endures

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Why the India-Pakistan Rivalry Endures

A recent book emphasizes domestic politics in the conflict but doesn’t account for the depth of the impasse..

• Geopolitics
• Sumit Ganguly

India and Pakistan have mostly been at odds since 1947, when both emerged as independent countries after decades of British rule. The two states fought a war in that year—and three more in the years since, in 1965, 1971, and 1999. (Their fleeting cooperation was largely confined to the 1950s.) The most recent crisis between New Delhi and Islamabad took place three years ago, following a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir; India followed with an aerial attack in Pakistan, leading to retaliation from Islamabad.

As that crisis underscored, the India-Pakistan relationship has deteriorated significantly in the last decade, especially following the election of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014. This decline stems in part from Pakistan’s continued dalliance with anti-Indian terrorist organizations, an unstated component of its national security strategy . In response, the Modi government has adopted an unyielding stance. India’s decision in 2019 to unilaterally rescind the special autonomous status of the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir further undermined bilateral ties. Any recent progress in the relationship—such as India’s humanitarian gestures in the wake of devastating floods in Pakistan this year—has been largely cosmetic.

Complex Rivalry: The Dynamics of India-Pakistan Conflict , Surinder Mohan, University of Michigan Press, 420 pp., $39.95, October 2022

A new book by Indian scholar Surinder Mohan takes a multilayered approach to the India-Pakistan relationship, eschewing well-worn explanations—including those based in the tradition of realism, which emphasizes material power. Complex Rivalry: The Dynamics of India-Pakistan Conflict argues that the enmity between the two countries traces to a unique jumble of factors, beginning with the shock of the Partition of India; tensions have been further intensified by ideology, a shared border, and disputed territory. However, the book has a few shortcomings that limit its insights into the future of the India-Pakistan rivalry, most notably its failure to directly acknowledge the primacy of the Pakistani military establishment in the country’s politics.

Mohan acknowledges that India and Pakistan each embraced power politics, accepting the utility of force—or the threat of force—to settle their bilateral relations as independent states. However, unlike realist scholars, who focus almost exclusively on power asymmetries, he argues that domestic politics also contributed to the start of the rivalry—and have sustained it. The terrible fallout of Partition, with more than 1 million people dead and 10 million displaced, became closely intertwined with the domestic politics of both India and Pakistan. Because the status of Kashmir remains unreconciled for both parties, political leaders fixated on the territorial dispute.

Early on, the Pakistani leadership’s obsession with the Kashmir dispute led it to draw in the United States to balance India’s power. In 1954, the Eisenhower administration gave in to these entreaties and signed a defense pact with Pakistan. Emboldened by these new military capabilities acquired from the United States, Pakistan initiated a war with India in 1965. During these years, the dispute over Kashmir and the involvement of great powers deepened the rivalry—which became more salient in domestic politics, culminating in another war in 1971. Here, Mohan doesn’t offer much new analysis, covering familiar ground for regional specialists.

Mohan’s discussions of the role of both internal and external shocks in sustaining the India-Pakistan rivalry are more illuminating. After the 1971 war, India’s preponderant military role in the subcontinent contributed to ragged regional stability: No Pakistani regime considered provoking India for nearly two decades, largely due to asymmetries of power. However, Mohan argues that India’s attempts to meddle in Kashmir’s internal politics contributed to an insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir in 1989—a shock that gave Pakistan a window of opportunity. As Islamabad entered the fray through covert backing for the rebels, the insurgency was transformed from a domestic uprising into a civil war with religious inspiration and external support.

From this perspective, Pakistan’s ongoing political and economic crisis might have some effect on the rivalry with India. In April, the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan threw the country’s politics into turmoil, making a renewal of dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad even more unlikely. The country’s opposition leader seems intent on harassing—and distracting—the civilian government through public rallies and street protests. There is little reason to believe that the appointment of Pakistan’s new Army chief, former spymaster Asim Munir, will pacify the fraught relationship. Meanwhile, the economy is buckling under the weight of heavy debt and massive inflation.

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However, Mohan does not offer a fresh approach to the India-Pakistan rivalry or to reducing tensions that accounts for the fraught domestic politics in both states at the moment. He draws on theoretical literature to outline a possible pathway for the countries to end their dispute, but his suggestions are diffuse and somewhat didactic. Mohan suggests that as a first step, Indian and Pakistani elites could take risks in promoting de-escalation—moves that could lead to an eventual end to the rivalry. But he fails to spell out what incentives either side has to undertake such risky ventures or what those risky ventures might look like in the first place.

Finally, the principal drawback of Complex Rivalry is that it fails to forthrightly confront two related issues that still play a crucial role in India-Pakistan tensions. Mohan alludes to the appropriate literature—most notably, Maya Tudor’s scholarship on the subject—but he does not adequately address the initial weakness of Pakistan’s civilian political institutions. Their anemic features and inability to maintain order from the outset led to the second issue: the authoritarian bureaucratic-military nexus that came to the fore in the absence of robust civilian institutions.

Forged in the late 1950s, this alliance between the military and an elitist bureaucracy has remained a constant in Pakistan’s domestic politics. Even after the Pakistan Army was morally discredited by its egregious role in the 1971 war—a genocidal campaign against Bengali dissidents in East Pakistan—it managed to regroup and restore its central role in domestic politics. More to the point, Pakistan’s military has consistently exaggerated the security threat from India, largely to bolster its own interests. The military has aggrandized so much power that it has become a first among equals within Pakistan’s domestic political sphere.

This military establishment now confronts an intransigent adversary in New Delhi. Modi, an unabashed exponent of Hindu nationalism, sees the conflict through the prism of his own domestic politics: An unyielding stance toward Pakistan plays well with key constituencies at home. Perhaps more than ever, the two sides face a near impasse. Furthermore, the continuing political uncertainty in Pakistan provides Modi a ready-made excuse to avoid taking the initiative to improve ties. As the politics of Hindu nationalism become entrenched in Modi’s India, the possibilities of any meaningful dialogue look increasingly like a mirage.

Books are independently selected by FP editors. FP earns an affiliate commission on anything purchased through links to Amazon.com on this page.

Sumit Ganguly is a columnist at  Foreign Policy and visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is a distinguished professor of political science and the Rabindranath Tagore chair in Indian cultures and civilizations at Indiana University Bloomington.

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India - Pakistan Relations

India pakistan relations upsc.

In this article, you can read about several issues concerned with India’s relations with its neighbour Pakistan.

The India Pakistan relations are one of the most complex associations that India shares with any of its neighbouring countries. In spite of the many contentious issues, India and Pakistan have made major strides in reducing the “trust deficit” over the past few years.

India desires peaceful, friendly and cooperative relations with Pakistan, which  requires an environment free from violence and terror. The two countries share linguistic, cultural, geographical and economic links but due to political and historical reasons, the two share a complex relation. 

India – Pakistan Relations [UPSC Notes]:- Download PDF Here

From the IAS Exam perspective, the relation between India and Pakistan is an important topic and aspirants must be aware of the latest bilateral development between the two countries. 

India-Pakistan Relations – Latest Developments

In February 2021, India and Pakistan issued a joint statement for the first time in years, announcing that they would observe the 2003 ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC). The countries have agreed to a strict observance of all agreements, understandings and cease firing along the Line of Control (LoC) and all other sectors with effect from the midnight of February 24-25, 2021. In the interest of achieving mutually beneficial and sustainable peace along the borders, the two Directors General of Military Operations agreed to address each other’s core issues and concerns which have the propensity to disturb peace and lead to violence.

• In the latest bilateral brief between India and Pakistan (February 2020) India stands by its “Neighbourhood First Policy” and desires normal relations with Pakistan in an environment which is free of terror and violence. 
• In 2019, Article 370 of India’s Constitution, was scrapped off, which gave a special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Following which, the bilateral relations faced a severe blow. It was followed by Pakistan expelling the Indian Hgh Commissioner in Islamabad and suspension of air and land links, and trade and railway services. 
• There was no forward movement in bilateral ties in 2020 due to the mistrust between the two countries, especially on the Kashmir issue.
• India, on February 15, 2019, withdrew Most Favoured Nation Status to Pakistan

Aspirants can go through the details regarding India Pakistan Cease Fire on the video provided below-

A Brief Background of India-Pakistan Relations

Ever since India’s independence and the partition of the two countries, India and Pakistan have had sour relations. Discussed below is a brief timeline of the relations between the two countries:

• The Composite Dialogue between India and Pakistan from 2004 to 2008 addressed all outstanding issues. It had completed four rounds and the fifth round was in progress when it was paused in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attack in November 2008.
• Then again in April 2010, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gillani on the margins of the SAARC Summit, spoke about the willingness to resolve the issue and resume the bilateral dialogue. 
• Counterterrorism & Humanitarian issues 
• Economic issues at Commerce 
• Tulbul Navigation Project at Water Resources Secretary-level
• Siachen at Defence Secretary-level
• Peace & Security including Confidence Building Measures (CBMs)
• Jammu & Kashmir
• Promotion of Friendly Exchanges at the level of the Foreign Secretaries. 
• Cross LoC travel was started in 2005 and trade across J&K was initiated in 2009
• India and Pakistan signed a visa agreement in 2012 leading to liberalization of bilateral visa regimes between the two countries

Aspirants can also get details about the Indian-International relations in the links given below:

Conflict Zones between India and Pakistan

There have been a few constant factors which have led to the complex bilateral ties between the two countries. Discussed below are these factors as per the latest developments released by the Government authorities, as of February 2020:

Cross-border Terrorism 

• Terrorism emanating from territories under Pakistan’s control remains a core concern in bilateral relations
• India has consistently stressed the need for Pakistan to take credible, irreversible and verifiable action to end cross border terrorism against India
• Pakistan has yet not brought the perpetrators of Mumbai terror attacks 2008 to justice in the ongoing trials, even after all the evidence have been provided to them
• India has firmly stated that it will not tolerate and comprise on issues regarding the national security 
• Based on attacks in India and involvement of the neighbouring country, the Indian Army had conducted surgical strike at various terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control, as an answer to the attack at the army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir
• India had again hit back over the cross border terror attack on the convey of Indian security forces in Pulwama by carrying out a successful air strike at a training camp of JeM in Balakot, Pakistan

Cross border terrorism is one of the biggest factors for the disrupted relations between India and Pakistan. 

Trade and Commerce

The figures for India Pakistan bilateral trade in the last 6 years is as follows:

The trade agreement has also faced a downfall when it comes to the relations between India and Pakistan. In 2019, after the Pulwama terror attack, India hiked customs duty on exports from Pakistan to 200% and subsequently, Pakistan suspended bilateral trade with India on August 7, 2019. 

There are two major routes via which trade is commenced between the two countries:

• Sea Route – Mumbai to Karachi
• Land Route – via Wagah Border through trucks

Indus Waters Treaty

The 115th meeting of Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) was held on August 29 and 30, 2018 in Lahore. The Indian delegation was led by the Indian Commissioner for Indus Water (ICIW), while the Pakistan delegation was led by Pakistan Commissioner of Indus Water (PCIW). 

In the two days meeting both sides discussed Pakal Dul Hydroelectric Power Project (HEP), Lower Kalnai HEP and reciprocal tours of Inspection to both sides of the Indus basin. Subsequently, a delegation led by PCIW inspected Pakal Dul, Lower Kalnai, Ratle and other hydropower projects in the Chenab Basin between January 28 and 31, 2019.

Read in detail about the Indus Water Treaty at the linked article.

People to People Relations

• Since 2014, India has been successful in the repatriation of 2133 Indians from Pakistan’s custody (including fishermen), and still, about 275 Indians are believed to be in their custody
• In October 2017, the revival of Joint Judicial Committee was proposed by India and accepted by Pakistan, wherein, the humanitarian issues of custody of fishermen and prisoners, especially the ones who are mentally not sound in each other’s custody need to be followed
• The Bilateral Protocol on Visits to Religious Shrines was signed between the two countries in 1974. The protocol provides for three Hindu pilgrimage and four Sikh pilgrimage every year to visit 15 shrines in Pakistan while five Pakistan pilgrimage visit shrines in India.

Kartarpur Corridor

• An agreement between India and Pakistan for the facilitation of pilgrims to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur, Pakistan, was signed on 24 October 2019 in order to fulfil the long-standing demand of the pilgrims to have easy and smooth access to the holy Gurudwara
• The Kartarpur Sahib Corridor Agreement, inter alia, provides for visa-free travel of Indian pilgrims as well as Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholders, from India to the holy Gurudwara in Pakistan on a daily basis, throughout the year.
• On November 9, 2019, on the occasion of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev ji, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the corridor

Aspirants can know in detail about the Kartarpur Corridor at the linked article and know its religious and social importance.

Kashmir Issue

This is one of the most sensitive issues between India and Pakistan and has been a major cause of the sour relations the two countries share.  Article 370 gave Jammu and Kashmir a special right to have its own constitution, a separate flag and have their own rules, but in August 2019,  the Article was scrapped off and J&K now abides by the Indian Constitution common for all. It was given the status of a Union Territory and this move of the Indian Government was highly objected by Pakistan due to their longing of owning Kashmir entirely.

Trade Agreement between India and Pakistan

The two countries had signed a Trade agreement which was mutually beneficial for both. Discussed below are the ten Articles of the Trade Agreement:

Article I – exchange of products shall be done based on the mutual requirement of both the countries, ensuring common advantages

Article II – With regard to the commodities/goods mentioned in Schedules ‘A’ and ‘B’ attached to this Agreement, the two Governments shall facilitate imports from and exports to each other’s territories to the extent permitted by their respective laws, regulations and procedures

Article III – The import/export shall take place only through commercial means approved by both side

Article IV – With respect to commodities/goods not included in Schedules ‘A’ and ‘B’ export or import shall also be permitted in accordance with the laws, regulations and procedures in force in either country from time to time

Article V – Each Government shall accord to the commerce of the country

Article VI – There are a few exceptions for Article V

Article VII – The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade must be followed

Article VIII – Border trade shall be allowed for the day-to-day requirement of commodities

Article IX – For proper implementation of the agreement, meetings can be done every six months

Article X – The Trade Agreement between the two countries waa effective from February 1, 1957

List of Products India Imports from Pakistan

List of Products India Exports to Pakistan

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Frequently Asked Questions on India-Pakistan Relations

Q 1. what is the biggest cause of concern between india and pakistan relations, q 2. what was the indus water treaty and between who was it signed.

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India-Pakistan Relations and Regional Stability

India and Pakistan have considerable scope to build on the various confidence-building measures that have been negotiated in the past decade and a half, especially in the areas of trade and economic cooperation.

Source: National Bureau of Asian Research

This essay reviews the current state of India-Pakistan relations and examines the prospects for bilateral and regional cooperation between the two South Asian neighbors.

MAIN ARGUMENT

India and Pakistan have considerable scope to build on the various confidence-building measures that have been negotiated in the past decade and a half, especially in the areas of trade and economic cooperation. Greater economic engagement has the potential to generate interdependence that could help promote the normalization of relations. However, policymakers in both countries face familiar obstacles to a normal relationship—cross-border terrorism originating from Pakistan, differences over Kashmir, and entrenched domestic opposition to broadening engagement on both sides of the border. The inability of policymakers to separate progress in one field from differences in other areas has rendered it difficult to expand and sustain cooperation. More immediately, India-Pakistan relations are further complicated by the turbulent regional dynamic centered on Afghanistan. The drawdown of foreign troops after over a decade-long international presence in Afghanistan and the challenges of producing internal stability there will make the construction of a shared vision for regional cooperation elusive.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

This essay offers the following policy recommendations for limiting conflict between India and Pakistan and expanding the scope for cooperation:

• India and Pakistan need to find ways to sustain their resumed dialogue.  
• Trade and commercial relations, where quick advances are possible, should be isolated from differences in other fields.  
• An early restoration of the ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control and the international border in Kashmir will help arrest the further deterioration of the security environment and create the space for progress elsewhere.  
• India should take unilateral steps, wherever possible, to improve relations. It has taken such initiatives in the past—for example, in granting most-favored-nation status to Pakistan in 1996.  
• India and Pakistan should begin a dialogue on the future of Afghanistan.

This chapter is available on the National Bureau of Asian Research website.

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India-Pakistan Relations – Terrorism, Kashmir, and Recent Issues

Last updated on September 21, 2023 by ClearIAS Team

Kashmir has been the bedrock issue between both the nations and has been an unresolved boundary dispute.

Terrorism , particularly targeting India which is bred on Pakistani soil is yet another major issue which has mired the relationship.

Despite many positive initiatives taken, the India-Pakistan relationship in recent times has reached an all-time low with some sore issues sticking out. Here we are analysing the core issues in the India-Pakistan relationship.

Table of Contents

Present Context and the Issues in India-Pakistan Relationship

• With the regime change in India, there was a perception that a hard line and staunch policy towards Pakistan would be followed. However, the current Prime Minister (PM) of India put forward the idea of ‘Neighborhood First’, which was particularly aimed at improving relationships within the Indian Subcontinent.
• There were initiatives taken by the government, for example, inviting the Prime Minister of Pakistan for the swearing-in ceremony of the new PM of India, an unscheduled visit to Lahore by the Indian PM to the residence of the PM of Pakistan, which showed some signs of positive development.
• However, with the attack on the Indian Air Force Base in 2016 (Pathankot) January, just a few days after Indian PM visited the Pakistani counterpart, events thereafter haven’t been really encouraging. There has been a complete stoppage of talks at all levels in between the nations. Speculations, however, run that back-channel talks exist.
• With rising discontent and a volatile situation once again in Kashmir from mid-2016, India has accused Pakistan of adding fuel to the unrest and glorifying terrorists by declaring them, martyrs.
• Terrorist attacks on security forces since have increased and the attack on the Uri Army base camp in September 2016, where 19 Indian soldiers were killed, was also carried by an organization, which has its roots in Pakistan. (Lashkar-e-Toiba, also responsible for 26/11 attacks)
• The case of Kulbushan Jadhav , a retired Indian Naval officer arrested nears the Iran-Pakistan border in Baluchistan region by the Pakistani establishment and accused of espionage by Pakistan.
• On 14 February 2019, a convoy of vehicles carrying security personnel on the Jammu Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber in the Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir. The attack resulted in the deaths of 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel and the attacker.

Changing Political Scenario in Pakistan

• For quite a while, the Panama Papers issue was being raked up in Pakistan and the then PM Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan was alleged to have received unaccounted money from abroad. The Supreme Court of Pakistan recently disqualified the PM from office, making him the second PM in the history of Pakistan to be disqualified from office.
• This backdrop comes at a time when the already existing India-Pakistan relations are at a low and with the disqualified PM being perceived as someone who has always wanted to improve the relationship with India, it is not good news for India in a way.
• In the ouster, surprisingly, the Pakistani Army has remained silent publicly on the issue. However, in the Joint Investigation Team created by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, there was the presence of a Military Intelligence Official and an Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Official, which shows that the influence the military establishment still continues to have a stronghold in Pakistan.
• Some people perceive the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, as being politically motivated, with some saying there was a judicial overreach by the Court. Also, the court has directed the National Accountability Bureau to further investigate into cases related to Panama papers.
• However, there are also reports that the developments are a sort of deepening the roots of democracy in Pakistan because the due process of law was followed.

Pakistan Politics and the Impact on India-Pakistan relationship

• The disqualified PM was seen as someone who tried to pursue a better relationship with India. Thus, his ouster can have implications with the incoming new PM of Pakistan.
• This can be a cause of concern because of the background scenario with the relationship between both countries already fraught and the Pakistan Army indirectly flexing its muscle in the process of the ouster of the PM. The future thus remains uncertain.

Terrorism and Kashmir – The never-ending issues

• Cross border terrorism has always been an issue.
• Some analysts go to the extent of saying that both nations are always in a perpetual state of war.
• Despite the fact the after the Kargil conflict, there was a Ceasefire Agreement signed in 2003, there have been regular cross border ceasefire violations from the Pakistan side of the border with the trend being as such that since 2009 onwards, there has been a rise in the violations (with the exception of 2014). It has killed and injured security forces as well as civilians on both sides.

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• With the regime change in India, there has been a different approach to the violations. With the hardline policy of the new government, there has been massive retaliation to the unprovoked firing.
• Thus, out of desperation, there has been a rise in the number of infiltrations of terrorists from across the Line of Control (LOC), which has been routine for quite a while now.
• With the void in between the Kashmiri people and the establishment increasing after the devastating floods of 2014 , there was rising discontent again in the valley. The trigger to the events was the killing of the militant commander of the terrorist organization Hizb-ul-Mujahideen Burhan Wani , which led to widespread protests in the valley and the situation has been highly volatile ever since with almost daily scenes of protests and stone pelting in the valley.
• Pakistan has taken advantage of the situation and has fuelled the protests by providing the elements fighting against the Indian establishment and Forces in the state with all sorts of possible support. The PM of Pakistan, in fact, went a step ahead and during the United Nations General Assembly meeting of 2016, declared Wani as a martyr and the struggle of the people of Kashmir as an Intifada .
• This is in sync with the stand Pakistan holds on Kashmir i.e., to internationalize the issue of Kashmir and asking for holding a plebiscite in Kashmir under Indian administration to decide the fate of Kashmiri people. The stand has been rejected by India as it says it is in direct violation of the Shimla Agreement of 1972 , which clearly mentions that peaceful resolution to all issues will be through bilateral approach .
• After the attack at the Pathankot base in 2016 January, there was again a thaw in the relationship, especially when seen in the context that the Indian PM paid an unscheduled visit to Pakistan to meet his Pakistani counterpart. With Kashmir already on the boil and Pakistan adding fuel to fire to the situation, the attack on Uri Army camp in September 2016 in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed made the Indian PM declare the statement that ‘talks and terrorism’ cannot go hand in hand .
• This was followed by surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army across the LOC targeting the terror infrastructure in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). They were carried out at the end of September.
• In a first, India tinkered with the Indus Water Treaty , a Treaty which has stood the test of time and the bitter sour relationship for more than 55 years and was pondering with the fact to fully exploit the water potential of the West flowing rivers over which Pakistan has control.
• Thus, the fact trickles down to the point that India has its stand that until Pakistan doesn’t do enough to tackle the terrorism menace, there can be no talks held in between the nations.
• On the other hand, Pakistan is ready for a dialogue with India but it wants the inclusion and discussion of the Kashmir issue which it keeps raking up every time.

The Curious Case of Kulbushan Jadhav

• The case of Kulbushan Jadhav, a retired Naval officer arrested nears the Iran-Pakistan border in Baluchistan region by the Pakistani establishment.
• He has been accused by Pakistan of espionage and spying and has been sentenced to death by a military court in Pakistan.
• India, on many previous occasions, demanded consular access of Jadhav, a demand consistently rejected by Pakistan citing national security issues.
• India says that Jadhav was a retired Naval officer who was a businessman working in Iran and has been falsely framed by the Pakistani establishment.
• As there were repeated denials of the Consular Access , India approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at Hague where it put forward the argument that Vienna Convention was being violated as the Consular Access was denied.
• The ICJ has asked Pakistan to stay the execution of Jadhav and the matter is sub judice.

Future of India-Pakistan relationship

• India and Pakistan are neighbours. Neighbours can’t be changed . Thus, it is in the better of interest of both the nations that they bring all the issues on the drawing board and resolve them amicably.
• India wants Pakistan to act more strongly on the terrorism being sponsored from its soil .
• Also, India wants Pakistan to conclude the trial of 26/11 sooner so that the victims are brought to justice and the conspirers meted out proper punishment.
• India has genuine concerns, as there are internationally declared terrorists roaming freely in Pakistan and preaching hate sermons as well as instigating terror attacks.
• With the international community accusing Pakistan of breeding terrorism on its soil, Pakistan cannot remain in denial state and thus, needs to act tougher on terrorism-related issues.
• In 2018, Imran Khan became the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan. PM Imran Khan received a lot of praise for releasing the IAF pilot Abhinandan who was captured in Pakistan during the counter-terrorism operations (after the Pulwama attack) in 2019.

India-Pakistan Relations: Positive initiatives which were taken in the past

• Composite Dialogue Framework , which was started from 2004 onwards, excluded, some of the contentious issues between the two sides had resulted in good progress on a number of issues.
• Delhi-Lahore Bus service was successful in de-escalating tensions for some time.
• Recently, the ‘ Ufa ‘Agreement ’ was made during the meeting of the National Security Advisors of both nations at Ufa, Russia.

A couple of important points agreed upon in Ufa were:

• Early meetings of DG BSF and DG Pakistan Rangers followed by the DGMOs.
• Discussing ways and means to expedite the Mumbai case trial, including additional information needed to supplement the trial.

Ufa Agreement has now become a new starting point of any future India-Pakistan dialogue, which is a major gain for India.

However, despite all the initiatives, there is always a breakdown in talks. Thus, more needs to be done for developing peaceful relations. With India and Pakistan both being two Nuclear States , any conflict can lead to a question mark on the existence of the subcontinent as well as the entire planet, especially with the border being ‘live’ almost all the time.

Benefits, which can be accrued from a good India-Pakistan Relationship

• If there is peace at the border and a solution of Kashmir is arrived upon, then the China Pakistan Economic Corridor , which is passing through Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) can certainly benefit Kashmir, its people and the economy. Kashmir can act as a gateway to Central Asia .
• Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline which originates in Turkmenistan and passes through Afghanistan, Pakistan before reaching and terminating in India can also get huge benefits as it can help secure the National Energy needs of both Pakistan and India, which are potentially growing nations with increasing needs of energy.
• Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline is another project, which is currently stalled. If relations are cordial, then this pipeline can also supply the energy needs of both nations.
• A stable Afghanistan is in the best interest of both Pakistan as well as India. Terrorism is affecting both India as well as Pakistan and the porous boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan provides a safe haven for terrorists. Also, a better relationship with Pakistan can give direct road access to Afghanistan . Currently, India has to go via Iran to Afghanistan to send any trade goods and vice versa.
• South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the initiatives taken by the association will start to hold more relevance as the same hasn’t lived up to its expected potential as the elephant in the room during any summit is sour in the India-Pakistan relationship.

Article by: Aadarsh Clerk

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Reader Interactions

August 14, 2017 at 9:16 pm

Sharif is not the first PM to be disqualified. Raza Gilani was disqualified in 2012.

August 15, 2017 at 12:21 am

Apologies for the mistake. Point taken into consideration and corrected.

August 16, 2017 at 10:22 am

GIVE me Links Of All Important GS News For 2018 prepartion

October 8, 2017 at 3:48 pm

Sir can I get a notes on India – China relation

December 11, 2017 at 6:49 am

What’s the problem with TAPI pipeline such that it can be improved after cordial relations with Pakistan? I have checked on google there is nothing showing other than the amount of investment needs to be enhanced

June 30, 2018 at 1:19 pm

Nice one article thanku sir .. shall v hv a WhatsApp group for updating of current topics

April 10, 2019 at 7:10 pm

Sir how can we know abt ur latest updates…is there nd whts grp. Or.. Smthing else.. For keep connecting with u

September 28, 2019 at 3:15 pm

How we make a project on the topic Indo-pak relation according this information

March 5, 2021 at 10:36 am

You did not cite Kashmir in the Future of India-Pakistan relationship as this is main bone of contention between Pakistan and India relations since 1948. This issue should be resolved for the betterment poor people of the region. India and Pakistan are neighbours. Neighbours can’t be changed. Thus, it is in the better of interest of both the nations that they bring all the issues on the drawing board and resolve them amicably. In this article you mentioned terrorism but terrorism is matter of last two to three decades but enmity between both nuclear armed countries prevailed from 70 years . Both countries should resolve their mutual issues amicably.

March 5, 2021 at 10:37 am

You did not cite Kashmir in the Future of India-Pakistan relationship as this is main bone of contention between Pakistan and India relations since 1948. This issue should be resolved for the betterment poor people of the region. India and Pakistan are neighbours. Neighbours can’t be changed. . In this article you mentioned terrorism but terrorism is matter of last two to three decades but enmity between both nuclear armed countries prevailed from 70 years . Both countries should resolve their mutual issues amicably.

March 16, 2021 at 3:49 pm

It is quite simple. Let india create work towards creating its own narrative in kashmir, through development. Even if Rederrendum happens in future, it will go in favour of INDIA. Pakistan will not change, unless the political re-structuring takes place in Pakistan. For now Pakistan is a rogue state. we cannot expect a rational behaviour from rogue states like Pakistan or North-Korea.

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Timeline: India-Pakistan relations

A timeline of the rocky relationship between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours.

1947 – Britain, as part of its pullout from the Indian subcontinent, divides it into secular (but mainly Hindu) India and Muslim Pakistan on August 15 and 14 respectively. The partition causes one of the largest human migrations ever seen and sparks riots and violence across the region.

1947/48 – The first India-Pakistan war over Kashmir is fought, after armed tribesmen (lashkars) from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (now called Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) invade the disputed territory in October 1947. The Maharaja, faced with an internal revolt as well an external invasion, requests the assistance of the Indian armed forces, in return for acceding to India. He hands over control of his defence, communications and foreign affairs to the Indian government.

Both sides agree that the instrument of accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh be ratified by a referendum, to be held after hostilities have ceased. Historians on either side of the dispute remain undecided as to whether the Maharaja signed the document after Indian troops had entered Kashmir (i.e. under duress) or if he did so under no direct military pressure.

Fighting continues through the second half of 1948, with the regular Pakistani army called upon to protect Pakistan’s borders.

The war officially ends on January 1, 1949, when the United Nations arranges a ceasefire, with an established ceasefire line, a UN peacekeeping force and a recommendation that the referendum on the accession of Kashmir to India be held as agreed earlier. That referendum has yet to be held.

Pakistan controls roughly one-third of the state, referring to it as Azad (free) Kashmir. It is semi-autonomous. A larger area, including the former kingdoms of Hunza and Nagar, is controlled directly by the central Pakistani government.

The Indian (eastern) side of the ceasefire line is referred to as Jammu and Kashmir state.

Both countries refer to the other side of the ceasefire line as “occupied” territory.

1954 – The accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India is ratified by the state’s constituent assembly.

1957 – The Jammu and Kashmir constituent assembly approves a constitution. India, from the point of the 1954 ratification and 1957 constitution, begins to refer to Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of the Indian union.

1963 – Following the 1962 Sino-Indian war, the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan – Swaran Singh and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto – hold talks under the auspices of the British and Americans regarding the Kashmir dispute. The specific contents of those talks have not yet been declassified, but no agreement was reached. In the talks, “Pakistan signified willingness to consider approaches other than a plebiscite and India recognised that the status of Kashmir was in dispute and territorial adjustments might be necessary,” according to a declassified US state department memo (dated January 27, 1964).

1964 – Following the failure of the 1963 talks, Pakistan refers the Kashmir case to the UN Security Council.

1965 – India and Pakistan fight their second war. The conflict begins after a clash between border patrols in April in the Rann of Kutch (in the Indian state of Gujarat), but escalates on August 5, when between 26,000 and 33,000 Pakistani soldiers cross the ceasefire line dressed as Kashmiri locals, crossing into Indian-administered Kashmir.

Infantry, armour and air force units are involved in the conflict while it remains localised to the Kashmir theatre, but as the war expands, Indian troops cross the international border at Lahore on September 6. The largest engagement of the war takes place in the Sialkot sector, where between 400 and 600 tanks square off in an inconclusive battle.

By September 22, both sides agree to a UN-mandated ceasefire, ending the war that had by that point reached a stalemate, with both sides holding some of the other’s territory.

1966 – On January 10, 1966, Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistani President Ayub Khan sign an agreement at Tashkent (now in Uzbekistan), agreeing to withdraw to pre-August lines and that economic and diplomatic relations would be restored.

1971 – India and Pakistan go to war a third time, this time over East Pakistan. The conflict begins when the central Pakistani government in West Pakistan, led by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, refuses to allow Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a Bengali whose party won the majority of seats in the 1970 parliamentary elections, to assume the premiership.

A Pakistani military crackdown on Dhaka begins in March, but India becomes involved in the conflict in December, after the Pakistani air force launches a pre-emptive attack on airfields in India’s northwest.

India then launches a coordinated land, air and sea assault on East Pakistan. The Pakistani army surrenders at Dhaka, and its army of more than 90,000 become prisoners of war. Hostilities lasted 13 days, making this one of the shortest wars in modern history.

East Pakistan becomes the independent country of Bangladesh on December 6, 1971.

1972 – Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sign an agreement in the Indian town of Simla, in which both countries agree to “put an end to the conflict and confrontation that have hitherto marred their relations and work for the promotion of a friendly and harmonious relationship and the establishment of a durable peace in the subcontinent”. Both sides agree to settle any disputes “by peaceful means”.

The Simla Agreement designates the ceasefire line of December 17, 1971, as being the new “Line-of-Control (LoC)” between the two countries, which neither side is to seek to alter unilaterally, and which “shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognised position of either side”.

1974 – The Kashmiri state government affirms that the state “is a constituent unit of the Union of India”. Pakistan rejects the accord with the Indian government.

On May 18, India detonates a nuclear device at Pokhran, in an operation codenamed “Smiling Buddha”. India refers to the device as a “peaceful nuclear explosive”.

1988 – The two countries sign an agreement that neither side will attack the other’s nuclear installations or facilities. These include “nuclear power and research reactors, fuel fabrication, uranium enrichment, isotopes separation and reprocessing facilities as well as any other installations with fresh or irradiated nuclear fuel and materials in any form and establishments storing significant quantities of radio-active materials”.

Both sides agree to share information on the latitudes and longitudes of all nuclear installations. This agreement is later ratified, and the two countries share information on January 1 each year since then.

1989 – Armed resistance to Indian rule in the Kashmir valley begins. Muslim political parties, after accusing the state government of rigging the 1987 state legislative elections, form activist wings.

Pakistan says that it gives its “moral and diplomatic” support to the movement, reiterating its call for the earlier UN-sponsored referendum.

India says that Pakistan is supporting the resistance by providing weapons and training to fighters, terming attacks against it in Kashmir “cross-border terrorism”. Pakistan denies this.

Activist groups taking part in the fight in Kashmir continue to emerge through the 1990s, in part fuelled by a large influx of “mujahideen” who took part in the Afghan war against the Soviets in the 1980s.

1991 – The two countries sign agreements on providing advance notification of military exercises, manoeuvres and troop movements, as well as on preventing airspace violations and establishing overflight rules.

1992 – A joint declaration prohibiting the use of chemical weapons is signed in New Delhi.

1996 – Following a series of clashes, military officers from both countries meet at the LoC in order to ease tensions.

1998 – India detonates five nuclear devices at Pokhran. Pakistan responds by detonating six nuclear devices of its own in the Chaghai Hills. The tests result in international sanctions being placed on both countries. In the same year, both countries carry out tests of long-range missiles.

1999 – Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee meets with Nawaz Sharif, his Pakistani counterpart, in Lahore. The two sign the Lahore Declaration, the first major agreement between the two countries since the 1972 Simla Accord. Both countries reaffirm their commitment to the Simla Accord, and agree to undertake a number of ‘Confidence Building Measures’ (CBMs).

Some of the diplomatic gains are eroded, however, after the Kargil conflict breaks out in May. Pakistani forces and Kashmiri fighters occupy strategic positions on the Indian side of the LoC, prompting an Indian counter-offensive in which they are pushed back to the other side of the original LoC.

Kargil is the first armed conflict between the two neighbours since they officially conducted nuclear weapons tests.

In October 1999, General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani chief of army staff, leads a military coup, deposing Nawaz Sharif, the then prime minister, and installing himself as the head of the government.

2001 – Tensions along the Line of Control remain high, with 38 people killed in an attack on the Kashmiri assembly in Srinagar. Following that attack, Farooq Abdullah, the chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir, calls on the Indian government to launch a full-scale military operation against alleged training camps in Pakistan.

In July, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee meet for a two-day summit in the Indian city of Agra. That summit collapses after two days, with both sides unable to reach agreement on the core issue of Kashmir.

On December 13, an armed attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi leaves 14 people dead. India blames Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad for the attacks.

The attacks lead to a massing of India’s and Pakistan’s militaries along the LoC. The standoff only ends in October 2002, after international mediation.

2002 – President Musharraf pledges that Pakistan will combat extremism on its own soil, but affirms that the country has a right to Kashmir.

2003 – After Musharraf calls for a ceasefire along the LoC during a UN General Assembly meeting in September, the two countries reach an agreement to cool tensions and cease hostilities across the de facto border.

2004 – Vajpayee and Musharraf hold direct talks at the 12th SAARC summit in Islamabad in January, and the two countries’ foreign secretaries meet later in the year. This year marks the beginning of the Composite Dialogue Process, in which bilateral meetings are held between officials at various levels of government (including foreign ministers, foreign secretaries, military officers, border security officials, anti-narcotics officials and nuclear experts). In November, on the eve of a visit to Indian-administered Kashmir, the new Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, announces that India will be reducing its deployment of troops there.

2006 – India redeploys 5,000 troops from Jammu and Kashmir, citing an “improvement” in the situation there, but the two countries are unable to reach an agreement on withdrawing forces from the Siachen glacier.

In September, President Musharraf and Prime Minister Singh agree to put into place an India-Pakistan institutional anti-terrorism mechanism.

2007 – On February 18, the train service between India and Pakistan (the Samjhauta Express) is bombed near Panipat, north of New Delhi. Sixty-eight people are killed, and dozens injured.

The fifth round of talks regarding the review of nuclear and ballistic missile-related CBMs is held as part of the Composite Dialogue Process. The second round of the Joint Anti-Terrorism Mechanism (JATM) is also held.

2008 – India joins a framework agreement between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan on a $7.6bn gas pipeline project. A series of Kashmir-specific CBMs are also agreed to (including the approval of a triple-entry permit facility).

In July, India blames Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate for a bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, which kills 58 and injures another 141.

In September, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Singh formally announce the opening of several trade routes between the two countries.

In October, cross-LoC trade commences, though it is limited to 21 items and can take place on only two days a week.

On November 26, armed gunmen open fire on civilians at several sites in Mumbai, India. The attacks on the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, the Oberoi Trident Hotel, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Leopold Cafe, Cama Hospital, Nariman House Jewish community centre, Metro Cinema, St Xavier’s College and in a lane near the Times of India office, prompt an almost three-day siege of the Taj, where gunmen remain holed up until all but one of them are killed in an Indian security forces operation. More than 160 people are killed in the attacks.

Ajmal Kasab, the only attacker captured alive, says the attackers were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In the wake of the attacks, India breaks off talks with Pakistan.

2009 – The Pakistani government admits that the Mumbai attacks may have been partly planned on Pakistani soil, while vigorously denying allegations that the plotters were sanctioned or aided by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Indian Prime Minister Singh meet on the sidelines of a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, issuing a joint statement charting future talks. Singh rules out, however, the resumption of the Composite Dialogue Process at the present time.

The Indian government continues to take a stern line with Pakistan, however, with its coalition government saying that it is up to Pakistan to take the first step towards the resumption of substantive talks by cracking down on activist groups on its soil.

In August, India gives Pakistan a new dossier of evidence regarding the Mumbai attacks, asking it to prosecute Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an Islamic charity with ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba.

2010 – In January, Pakistani and Indian forces exchange fire across the LoC in Kashmir, the latest in a string of such incidents that have led to rising tension in the area.

In February, India and Pakistan’s foreign secretaries meet in New Delhi for talks. This meeting is followed by the two countries’ foreign ministers meeting in Islamabad in July.

In May, Ajmal Kasab is found guilty of murder, conspiracy and of waging war against India in the Mumbai attacks case. He is sentenced to death.

2011 – In January, Indian Home Secretary GK Pillai says India will share information with Pakistan regarding the 2001 Samjhauta Express bombing. The two countries’ foreign secretaries meet in Thimpu, Bhutan, in February, and agree to resume peace talks “on all issues”.

2012 – In November,  India executes Pakistani national Kasab, the lone survivor of a fighter squad that killed 166 people in a rampage through the financial capital Mumbai in 2008, hanging him just days before the fourth anniversary of the attack.

2013 – In January, India and Pakistan trade accusations of violating the ceasefire in Kashmir, with Islamabad accusing Indian troops of a cross-border raid that killed a soldier and India charging that Pakistani shelling destroyed a home on its side.

2013 – In September, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan meet in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Both the leaders agree to end tension between armies of both sides in the disputed Kashmir.

2014 – On February 12, India and Pakistan agree to release trucks held in their respective territories, ending a three-week impasse triggered by the seizure of a truck in India-administered Kashmir coming from across the de facto Line of Control for allegedly carrying brown sugar.

2014 – On May 1, Pakistan’s Army chief General Raheel Sharif calls Kashmir the “jugular vein” of Pakistan, and that the dispute should be resolved in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of Kashmiris and in line with UNSC resolutions for lasting peace in the region.

2014 – On May 25, Pakistan releases 151 Indian fishermen from its jails in a goodwill gesture ahead of the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi as prime minister. 

2014 – On May 27, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi holds talks with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in New Delhi. Both sides express willingness to begin a new era of bilateral relations.

2015 – Modi makes a surprise visit to the Pakistani eastern city of Lahore on Sharif’s birthday and the wedding of his grand-daughter.

2016 – India launches what it calls “surgical strikes” on “terrorist units” in Pakistan-administered Kashmir in September, less than two weeks after an attack on an Indian army base leaves 19 soldiers dead. Pakistan denies the attacks took place.

In November, seven Indian soldiers are killed after rebels disguised as policemen storm a major army base near the frontier with Pakistan.

2019 –  In the early hours of February 26, India conducts air attacks against what it calls  Pakistan-based rebel group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM)’s “biggest training camp”, killing “a very large number of terrorists”.

Essay on India Pakistan Relations

Students are often asked to write an essay on India Pakistan Relations in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on India Pakistan Relations

Introduction.

India and Pakistan are neighboring countries in South Asia. They gained independence from British rule in 1947. But their relationship has been marked by conflict and tension.

Post-Independence Era

After independence, both countries faced partition-related violence. This led to the first of many wars, primarily over the region of Kashmir.

Conflict and Diplomacy

India and Pakistan have fought multiple wars, mainly over Kashmir. However, there have also been periods of peace and diplomatic dialogues.

Current Scenario

Today, the relationship remains strained. Issues like terrorism and border disputes continue to create tension. However, peace talks and diplomatic efforts are ongoing.

250 Words Essay on India Pakistan Relations

India and Pakistan, two neighboring nations, share a complex and multifaceted relationship. Born out of the tumultuous partition of British India in 1947, the relationship has been marked by periods of sharp conflict and relative peace.

Historical Context

The partition, which resulted in large-scale violence and mass displacement, sowed seeds of mutual distrust. The contentious issue of Kashmir has been a perennial source of conflict, leading to three major wars in 1947, 1965, and 1971. The nuclearization of both nations in the late 20th century further complicated the dynamics.

Political Dynamics

The political dynamics between India and Pakistan have also been influenced by domestic politics. The rise of religious nationalism in both countries has often exacerbated tensions, while periods of democratic rule have seen attempts at rapprochement.

Recent Developments

Recent years have seen a mix of conflict and cooperation. The 2008 Mumbai attacks strained relations, but the subsequent democratic transitions brought a thaw. The 2019 Pulwama attack and India’s revocation of Kashmir’s special status in 2019 escalated tensions again.

Future Prospects

The future of India-Pakistan relations remains uncertain, with possibilities for both conflict and cooperation. Enhanced people-to-people contact, economic cooperation, and diplomatic engagement could pave the way for peace. However, unresolved issues like Kashmir and terrorism pose significant challenges.

In conclusion, the India-Pakistan relationship is a complex interplay of historical grievances, political dynamics, and regional geopolitics. Navigating this relationship requires a nuanced understanding of these factors and a commitment to peace and cooperation.

500 Words Essay on India Pakistan Relations

India and Pakistan, two neighboring countries in South Asia, share a complex and tumultuous relationship marked by periods of cooperation, conflict, and diplomatic stalemate. The roots of their relationship can be traced back to their shared colonial history and the subsequent partition in 1947, which has left indelible scars on their bilateral ties.

The partition of British India into India and Pakistan led to one of the largest mass migrations in human history, accompanied by horrific communal violence. This traumatic event has shaped the collective memory and national identities of both countries, often serving as a backdrop to their bilateral relations. The territorial dispute over Jammu and Kashmir, which emerged from the partition, has been a major flashpoint, leading to three full-scale wars in 1947, 1965, and 1999.

Security Dilemma and Nuclear Rivalry

The security dilemma between India and Pakistan, which arises from their geographical proximity and historical enmity, has been amplified by their nuclear capabilities. The nuclearization of South Asia in 1998, with both countries conducting nuclear tests, has added a dangerous dimension to their rivalry. The threat of nuclear escalation has global implications, necessitating international mediation during crises, as seen during the Kargil conflict in 1999.

Economic Relations

Despite the political and security challenges, there have been attempts to foster economic cooperation. Trade between India and Pakistan has the potential to benefit both economies. However, the full potential remains untapped due to political disputes and trust deficit. The suspension of the Most Favored Nation status to Pakistan by India following the Pulwama attack in 2019 further strained economic ties.

People-to-People Contact and Cultural Exchange

Cultural exchange and people-to-people contact have often acted as a bridge in the strained relationship. Shared linguistic, culinary, and artistic traditions have facilitated cultural diplomacy. However, these exchanges have also been affected by the political climate. Visa restrictions and bans on cultural imports have periodically interrupted this soft diplomacy.

Prospects for Peace

The prospects for peace between India and Pakistan hinge on addressing historical grievances, resolving territorial disputes, and building mutual trust. Confidence-building measures, sustained dialogue, and third-party mediation can play a role in this process. However, the path to peace is fraught with challenges, as evidenced by the cyclical nature of their relationship, oscillating between engagement and estrangement.

The relationship between India and Pakistan remains one of the most complex and challenging bilateral relationships in the world. The legacy of partition, territorial disputes, nuclear rivalry, and trust deficit continue to impede normalization of ties. However, the potential benefits of peace and cooperation, for the countries and the region, underscore the need for constructive engagement and conflict resolution. The role of informed and empathetic youth, like the readers of this essay, in shaping this future cannot be overstated.

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An eminent historian looks to the present and the future as the U.S. withdraws from the longest war in its history. He sees the danger of an escalating conflict between India and Pakistan - two nuclear powers that could threaten world peace.

A t six o’clock in the morning of February 26, 2010, Major Mitali Madhumita was awakened by the ringing of her mobile phone. Mitali, a 35-year-old Indian army officer from Orissa, had been in Kabul less than a year. Fluent in Dari, the most widely spoken language in Afghanistan, she was there to teach English to the first women officer cadets to be recruited to the Afghan National Army.

It was a sensitive posting, not so much because of gender issues as political ones: India’s regional rival, Pakistan, was extremely touchy about India providing military assistance to the government in Afghanistan and had made it very clear that it regarded the presence of any Indian troops or military trainers there as an unacceptable provocation. For this reason everyone on the small Indian army English Language Training Team, including Mitali, and all the Indian army doctors and nurses staffing the new Indira Gandhi Kabul Children’s Hospital, had been sent to Afghanistan unarmed, and in civilian dress. They were being put up not in an army barracks, or at the Indian Embassy, but in a series of small, discreet guest houses dotted around the city’s diplomatic quarter.

I was the only one of my team who came back alive.

Newly graduated soldiers from the Afghan National Army (ANA) attend a graduation ceremony in Kabul September 23, 2010. Afghanistan's army got its first female officers in decades on Thursday when 29 women graduated in a class of new recruits. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

The phone call was from a girlfriend of Mitali’s who worked for Air India at Kabul airport. Breathless, she said she had just heard that two of the Indian guest houses, the Park and the Hamid, were under attack by militants. As the only woman on her team, Mitali had been staying in separate lodgings about two miles away from the rest of her colleagues, who were all in the Hamid. Within seconds, Mitali was pulling on her clothes, along with the hijab she was required to wear, and running, alone and unarmed, through the empty morning streets of Kabul toward the Hamid.

“I just thought they might need my help,” she told me recently in New Delhi.

As she dashed past the Indian Embassy, Mitali was recognized by one of the guards from diplomatic security who shouted to her to stop. The area around the guest houses was mayhem, he told her. She should not go on alone. She must return immediately to her lodgings and stay there.

“I don’t require your permission to rescue my colleagues,” Mitali shouted back, and kept on running. When she passed the presidential compound, she was stopped again, this time at gunpoint, by an Afghan army security check post. Five minutes later she had charmed one of the guards into giving her a lift in his jeep. Soon they could hear bursts of automatic weapons, single shots from rifles and loud grenade blasts.

Site of the militants' attack on Indian guest houses in Kabul February 26, 2010. At least 18 people were killed and 36 wounded in the Taliban-affiliated attacks in Kabul. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov

“As we neared the area under attack I jumped out of the jeep and ran straight into the ruins of what had been the Hamid guesthouse. It was first light, but because of all the dust and smoke, visibility was very low and it was difficult to see anything. The front portion of the guesthouse was completely destroyed—there was just a huge crater. Everything had been reduced to rubble. A car bomb had rammed the front gate and leveled the front of the compound. Three militants then appeared and began firing at anyone still alive. I just said, ‘Oh my God,’ and ran inside.

“I found my way in the smoke to the area at the back where my colleagues had been staying. Here the walls were standing but it was open to the sky—the blast had completely removed the roof, which was lying in chunks all over the floor. There was cross-firing going on all around me, and the militants were throwing Chinese incendiary grenades. Afghan troops had taken up positions at the top of the Park Residence across the road and were firing back. I couldn’t see the militants, but they were hiding somewhere around me.

“As quietly as I could, I called for my colleagues and went to where their rooms had been, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. I searched through the debris and before long started pulling out bodies. A man loomed out of the gloom and I shouted to him to identify himself. But he wasn’t a terrorist—he was the information officer from our embassy and he began helping me. Together we managed to get several injured people out of the rubble and into safety.

“Then we heard a terrible blast. We later learned that Major Jyotin Singh had tackled a suicide bomber, and by holding him from behind had prevented him entering the Park Residence. The bomber was forced to blow himself up outside. Jyotin had saved the lives of all the medical team inside.

“But the only one of my colleagues who hadn’t been killed on the spot, Major Nitesh Roy, died of his 40% burns in hospital three days later. I was the only one of my team who came back alive.”

Military personnel stand in front of Kabul City Centre shopping mall after the bomb blast in Kabul on February 26, 2010. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov

In all 18 people were killed in the attack that morning, nine of them Indians, and 36 were wounded. Among the dead found beneath the debris was the assistant consul general from the new Indian consulate in Kandahar. This consulate was a particular bugbear of the Pakistanis, who accused it of being a base for RAW—the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency. The Pakistanis believed RAW was funding, arming and encouraging the insurgency in Baluchistan, the province that has been waging a separatist struggle ever since it was incorporated into the new nation of Pakistan in 1947.

Pakistan made no public comment on the attack, other than to refuse permission for the planes carrying the dead bodies back to India to cross its airspace.

It was not difficult to figure out the motive for the attack. The operation was soon traced by both Afghan and U.S. intelligence to a joint mission by the Pakistani-controlled Haqqani network, a Taliban-affiliated insurgent group under the leadership of Jalaluddin Haqqani, and the Pakistan-based anti-Indian militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Righteous), which carried out the November 2008 assault on the Taj Hotel and other targets in Mumbai. Both the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba are believed to take orders from the ISI—Inter-Services Intelligence, which is closely linked to the military.

Afghan protesters set fire to a Pakistan flag during a demonstration against recent border clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Kunar province, May 14, 2013. REUTERS/Parwiz

Afghan protesters set fire to a Pakistan flag during a demonstration against recent border clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Kunar province May 14, 2013. REUTERS/Parwiz

T he February 2010 attack on the Indian guest houses was a rare overt act of hostility in the long covert struggle India and Pakistan have been waging on and off for more than sixty years over their competing influence in Afghanistan. But it was not the only such act. In fact it was the third in less than three years.

Fifteen months before, on October 8, 2009, a massive car bomb had been set off outside the Indian embassy in Kabul killing 17 people and wounding 63. Most of the dead were ordinary Afghans caught walking near the target. A few Indian security personnel were wounded, but blast walls built following a much deadlier bombing the previous year which killed 40 and wounded more than 100—also thought to have been sponsored by Pakistan—deflected the force of the explosion, so that physical damage to the embassy was limited to some of the doors and windows being blown out. In the case of the 2009 attack, American officials went public with details from phone intercepts which they said revealed the involvement of the ISI.

The hostility between India and Pakistan lies at the heart of the current war in Afghanistan.

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The hostility between India and Pakistan lies at the heart of the current war in Afghanistan. Most observers in the West view the Afghanistan conflict as a battle between the U.S. and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on one hand, and al-Qaida and the Taliban on the other. In reality this has long since ceased to be the case. Instead our troops are now caught up in a complex war shaped by two pre-existing and overlapping conflicts: one local and internal, the other regional.

Within Afghanistan, the war is viewed primarily as a Pashtun rebellion against President Hamid Karzai’s regime, which has empowered three other ethnic groups—the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras of the north—to a degree that the Pashtuns resent. For example, the Tajiks, who constitute only 27% of the Afghan population, still make up 70% of the officers in the Afghan army.

Although Karzai himself is a Pashtun, many of his fellow tribesmen view his presence as mere window-dressing for a U.S.-devised realignment of long-established power relations in the country, dating back to 2001 when the U.S. toppled the overwhelmingly Pashtun Taliban.

The Pashtuns had held sway in Afghan politics ever since the state assumed its current boundaries in the 1860s. By aligning with the Tajiks of the northern provinces against the Pashtuns of the south, the U.S. saw itself making common cause with the forces of secularism against militant Islam; but it was unwittingly taking sides in a complex civil war that has been going on since the 1970s—and that had roots going back much further than that. To this day, because the Pashtuns feel dominated by their ancestral enemies, many support or at least feel some residual sympathies for the Taliban.

There is also an age-old Pashtun-on-Pashtun element to the conflict. It pits Taliban from the Ishaqzai tribe, parts of the Nurzais, Achakzais, and most of the Ghilzais, especially the Hotak and Tokhi Ghilzais, against the more “establishment” Durrani Pashtun tribes: the Barakzais, Popalzais and Alikozais.

Beyond this indigenous conflict looms the much more dangerous hostility between the two regional powers—both armed with nuclear weapons: India and Pakistan. Their rivalry is particularly flammable as they vie for influence over Afghanistan. Compared to that prolonged and deadly contest, the U.S. and ISAF are playing little more than a bit part—and they, unlike the Indians and Pakistanis, are heading for the exit.

July 1999: U.S. President Bill Clinton (r) shakes hands with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif outside Blair House following their talks on de-escalating tensions between Pakistan and India over Kashmir in Washington July 4. REUTERS

Since the Partition of the Subcontinent in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought three wars—the most recent in 1971—and they seemed on the verge of going nuclear against each other during a crisis in 1999, when Pakistani troops crossed a ceasefire line and occupied 500 square miles of Indian Kashmir, including a Himalayan border post near the town of Kargil. As tensions rose, the Pakistanis took ominous steps with their nuclear arsenal. President Bill Clinton mediated a solution. In intense negotiations at Blair House in Washington over the Fourth of July weekend, Clinton persuaded Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to order a pullback of his country’s forces to the Pakistani side of the line. That concession cost Nawaz his job and, very nearly, his life. The army commander, Pervez Musharraf, mounted a coup and sentenced Nawaz to death. Clinton intervened and Nawaz was exiled to Saudi Arabia.

It is easy to understand why Pakistan might feel insecure. India’s population (1.2 billion) and its economy (GDP of $1.4 trillion) are about eight times the size of Pakistan’s (180 million Pakistanis generating an annual GDP of only $210 billion). During the period of India’s greatest growth, which lasted from 2006 to 2010, there were four years during which the annual increase in the Indian economy was almost equal to the entire Pakistani economy.

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In the eyes of the world, never has the contrast between the two countries appeared so stark as it is now: one is widely perceived as the next great superpower, famous for its software geniuses, its Bollywood babes, its fast-growing economy and super-rich magnates; the other written off as a failed state, a world center of Islamic radicalism, the hiding place of Osama bin Laden, and the only ally of the U.S. whose airspace Washington has been ready to violate and whose villages it regularly bombs. However unfair this stereotyping may be, it’s not surprising that many Pakistanis see their massive neighbor as threatening the very existence of their state.

In December 1971, Pakistani and Indian forces clashed in Khulna, in what is now Bangladesh. The battle was the last major engagement fought on the eastern front of the third war between India and Pakistan. In this photo, Indian soldiers walk past a destroyed Indian tank. CORBIS/Dave Kennerly

To defend themselves, Pakistani planners long ago developed a doctrine of “strategic depth.” The idea had its origins in the debacle of 1971, when, in less than two weeks, India crushingly defeated Pakistan in their third war. That conflict ended with East Pakistan, which had risen up against West Pakistan, becoming the independent state of Bangladesh. According to the Pakistanis’ narrative, the dismemberment of their country—which they blame on India—made it all the more important to develop and maintain friendly relations with Afghanistan, in large measure in order to have a secure refuge in the case of a future war with India. The porous border offers a route by which Pakistani leaders, troops and other assets, including its nuclear weapons, could retreat to the northwest in the case of an Indian invasion.

For the idea to work, it is essential that the Afghan government be a close ally of Pakistan, and willing to help fight India. When the Taliban were in power, they were seen as the perfect partner for the Pakistani military. Although widely viewed in the West as medieval if not barbaric, the Taliban regime was valued in Pakistan as fiercely anti-India and therefore deserving Pakistani arms and assistance.

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The current president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai has been the dominant political figure there since the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001. An ethnic Pashtun, he is a member of the Popalzai tribe. He has lived, worked and studied in both India and Pakistan. His second presidential term ends in 2014, and he has said that he will step aside.

After the Taliban were ousted by the U.S. after 9/11, a major strategic shift occurred: the government of Afghanistan became an ally of India’s, thus fulfilling the Pakistanis’ worst fear. The president of post-Taliban Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, hated Pakistan with a passion, in part because he believed that the ISI had helped assassinate his father in 1999. At the same time he felt a strong emotional bond with India, where he had gone to university in the Himalayan city of Simla, once the summer capital of British India. When I interviewed Karzai in Kabul in early March, he spoke warmly of his days in Simla, calling them some of the happiest of his life, and he was moved almost to tears as he recalled the sound of monsoon rain hitting the tin roof of his student lodgings and the sight of the beautiful cloud formations drifting before his windows. He also expressed his love of Indian food and even admitted to liking Bollywood films. Karzai views India as democratic, stable and relatively rich, the perfect partner for Afghanistan, a “best friend” as he frequently calls it.

With Karzai in office, India seized the opportunity to increase its political and economic influence in Afghanistan, re-opening its embassy in Kabul, opening four regional consulates, and providing substantial reconstruction assistance totaling around $1.5 billion, with an additional $500 million promised within the next few years.

For the Pakistani military, the existential threat posed by India has taken precedence over all other geopolitical and economic goals.

An Afghan soldier searches a Pashtun voter at the polling station during parliamentary elections in Spin Boldak near the Afghan/Pakistan border September 18, 2005. REUTERS/Saeed Ali Achakzai MK/TC

That said, India’s presence is still, even now, quite modest. According to Indian diplomatic sources, there are actually fewer than 3,600 Indians in Afghanistan, almost all of them businessmen and contract workers in the agriculture, telecommunications, manufacturing and mining sectors. There are only 10 Indian diplomatic officers, compared to nearly 140 in the UK embassy and 1,200 in the U.S. embassy. But the Pakistani military, which effectively controls Pakistan’s foreign policy, remains paranoid about even this small an Indian presence in what they regard as their strategic Afghan backyard—much as the British used to be about Russians in Afghanistan during the days of the Great Game.

For the Pakistani military, the existential threat posed by India has taken precedence over all other geopolitical and economic goals. The fear of being squeezed in an Indian nutcracker is so great that it has led the ISI to take steps that put Pakistan’s own internal security at risk, as well as Pakistan’s relationship with its main strategic ally, the U.S. For much of the last decade the ISI has sought to restore the Taliban to power so that it can oust Karzai and his Indian friends.

In a nation whose government has often been run by the military, and whose foreign policy has been seen as carried out by the ISI, General Kayani has held the leadership of both institutions. Currently chief of staff of the army, a position he has held since 2007, Kayani reversed Musharraf's policy of staffing military officers in the government's civilian posts. Forbes magazine ranked him the 28th most powerful person in the world in 2012.

To achieve this goal, the Pakistani military has relied on “asymmetric warfare”— using jihadi fighters for its own ends. This strategy goes back over 30 years. Since the early 1980s, the ISI has consciously and consistently funded and incubated a variety of Islamic extremist groups. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid calculates that there are currently more than 40 such extremist groups operating in Pakistan, most of whom have strong links with the ISI as well as the local Islamic political parties.

Pakistani generals have long viewed the jihadis as a cost-effective and easily-deniable means of controlling events in Afghanistan—something they briefly achieved with the Taliban capture of Kabul in 1996. By the same means, the Pakistanis have kept much of the Indian army bogged down in Kashmir ever since the separatist insurgency broke out in 1990. The generals like using jihadis because they help foster a sense of nationalism based on the twin prongs of hatred for India and the bonding power of Islamic identity.

function fbs_click() {u=location.href;t=document.title;window.open('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(u)+'&t='+encodeURIComponent(t),'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436');return false;} " onclick="return fbs_click()" target="_blank" class="fb_share_link"> A Short History of India - Pakistan Relations Brianne Aiken

It is unclear how many Pakistanis still endorse this strategy and how many are having second thoughts. There are clearly those in the army who are now alarmed at the amount of sectarian and political violence the jihadis have brought to Pakistan. But that view is contested by some in both the army and the ISI who continue to believe that the jihadis are a more practical defense against Indian hegemony than even nuclear weapons. For them, support for carefully chosen jihadis in Afghanistan is a vital survival strategy well worth the risk. General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the commander-in-chief of the Pakistani army, was once in this camp. As he put it in a speech in 2001, “Strategically, we cannot have an Afghan army on our western border which has an Indian mindset and capabilities to take on Pakistan.” How far he has now changed his position remains a matter of debate.

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Pakistan-watchers are unanimous that, while Kayani is mindful of the Taliban threat in his own country, his burning obsession is still India’s presence in Afghanistan. As I was told by a senior British diplomat in Islamabad, "At the moment, Afghanistan is all [Kayani] thinks about and all he wants to talk about. It’s all he gets briefed about and it’s his primary focus of attention. There is an Indo-Pak proxy war, and it’s going on right now.”

Partition in India. September 1947. Moslems waiting to leave for Pakistan as they seek protected transport to Dot Purana Qila, an ancient fort in Pakistan, where many refugees had gathered. Getty Images

Partition in India. September 1947. Muslims waiting to leave for Pakistan as they seek protected transport to Dot Purana Qila, an ancient fort in Pakistan, where many refugees had gathered REUTERS/Parwiz

T he origins of the Indian-Pakistani rivalry in Afghanistan date back to Partition in 1947.

As the British walked away from their Indian Empire in the aftermath of the Second World War, they divided up their former colony between Hindu-majority India and overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan. It was in that context that Kashmir became a thorn in the side of both countries. The fate of what had been, under the Raj, the princely state of Kashmir, became an anomaly of Partition. With its large Muslim majority, Kashmir was an obvious candidate to join Pakistan. But the pro-Indian sympathies of both its Hindu maharajah and its pre-eminent Muslim politician, Sheikh Abdullah, as well as the Kashmiri origins of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, led to the state’s remaining part of India, which Pakistan has always regarded as unacceptable.

Mutual antipathy to Pakistan quickly brought India and Afghanistan together as natural allies

It was in Kashmir in 1947 that Pakistan first used irregular tribal fighters to try to get its way, sending Pashtun tribesmen over the border to march toward Srinagar, Kashmir’s capital city. Along the way they looted and killed and, among other atrocities, raped and murdered several European nuns they found in a hospital and a convent. With covert British assistance in the form of an airlift involving British transport planes, Indian troops eventually drove back the Pashtun tribesmen. By the terms of a ceasefire signed on January 1, 1949, Kashmir was effectively divided between India and Pakistan. The two countries would go on to fight another war over Kashmir in 1965, and it has remained a cause of conflict ever since.

function fbs_click() {u=location.href;t=document.title;window.open('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(u)+'&t='+encodeURIComponent(t),'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436');return false;} " onclick="return fbs_click()" target="_blank" class="fb_share_link"> Teresita Schaffer, nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, speaks to Afghanistan's central role in a range of South Asian challenges for the U.S.

It was not just India that got off to a bad start with the new nation of Pakistan. Afghanistan also had an uneasy relationship with the Land of the Pure (“Pak” means “pure”). Afghanistan alone opposed Pakistani membership in the UN in 1947. As with India, borders and territory were in dispute. Afghan leaders had never accepted the Durand line that the British drew in 1893 and, after Partition, Afghanistan was not about to recognize that line as its border with Pakistan. The Afghan king, Zahir Shah, was especially keen to regain Peshawar, in a valley at the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, which had once been the summer capital of the Afghan empire. It had been in British hands since 1845, and was now to become part of Pakistan. To this day most Afghans look on Peshawar as a lost Afghan city.

1947: Lord Mountbatten (center, hands on table), the British viceroy of India, meets with various leaders to devise a plan to partition India into two nations. Jawaharlal Nehru sits to his right, and M.A. Jinnah to his left. CORBIS/Bettmann

Mutual antipathy to Pakistan quickly brought India and Afghanistan together as natural allies and in 1950 the two signed a friendship treaty. In the years that followed, India and Afghanistan both attempted to destabilize Pakistan, giving aid and shelter to discontented Pashtun and Baluchi nationalists. In 1961 Pakistan and Afghanistan went so far as to close their borders and break off diplomatic relations with each other.

It was only the pressure of growing Soviet influence in Afghanistan in the 1970s that forced the Afghan government to improve its relations with Pakistan. President Daoud Khan reached out to Pakistan in 1977 as a counter-balance to the Soviets, and began talks with Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto with a view to settling their border disputes. In April 1978, however, Daoud was overthrown in a Soviet-backed leftist coup, after which India was able to regain its pre-eminent place in Kabul. Throughout the 1980s India expanded its influence in Afghanistan, contributing to an ambitious series of development projects—building manufacturing plants and hydroelectric facilities, as well as supervising numerous irrigation initiatives.

Pakistan meanwhile began to arm the mujahedin, the Islamic radicals—some, like Osama bin Laden, from outside the country—who fought the Soviet occupation. Their recruitment was always controlled by the ISI, but was originally also funded by the Saudis and the CIA.

Afghan western-backed mujahedin resistance fighters man an anti-aircraft position in Kunar valley in the eastern province of Kunar sometime in the 1980s. These forces help topple Kabul's Moscow-backed regime and drove the Soviet army back after ten years of occupation. AFP/Getty Images

Pakistan also began sending the jihadis into Indian Kashmir during the 1980s. As Hamid Gul—the ultra-hardline former director of the ISI during that period—once explained to me: “If they [the ISI] encourage the Kashmiris, it's understandable. The Kashmiri people have risen up in accordance with the UN charter, and it is the national purpose of Pakistan to help liberate them. If the jihadis go out and contain India, tying down their army on their own soil, for a legitimate cause, why should we not support them?" Next to him in his Islamabad living room as he spoke lay a large piece of the Berlin Wall presented to him “by the people of Berlin” for "delivering the first blow" to the Soviet Empire through his use of jihadis in the ’80s.

In an attempt to limit Pakistan’s influence after the fall of the pro-Soviet Afghan regime in 1989, India began its support of the Northern Alliance under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a Tajik leader who also had assistance from Iran and Russia. India continued to supply Massoud with high-altitude warfare equipment, defense advisors, and helicopter parts and technicians after the rise of the Pakistan-sponsored Taliban.

The period of Taliban rule, from 1994-2001, was the high point of Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan. India, which did not recognize the regime, was forced to close its embassy and all its consulates and, with ISI encouragement, Afghanistan quickly became the base for a whole spectrum of anti-Indian groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, which, in 2008, would execute the deadly assault on Mumbai.

As the Taliban, supported by regular Pakistan troops, pushed the Northern Alliance into ever smaller corners of Afghanistan toward the end of the ‘90s, India as well as Iran continued to send supplies to the increasingly beleaguered Massoud forces. In 2001 India built a hospital at their airbase in Tajikistan so that there would be a place to which they could ferry wounded Tajik soldiers for treatment.

Lt. General R.K. Sawhney, the Indian commander who oversaw this program of assistance to the Northern Alliance, recalled to me vividly and with sadness the day the hospital received its first casualty. It was Ahmad Shah Massoud himself, assassinated by two suicide bombers posing as cameramen.

The date was September 9, 2001.

An outpouring of thousands in the heart of the Panjshir to bury Ahmad Shah Massoud, the "Lion of Panjshir," who was officially declared dead from wounds suffered in a suicide bomb attack on September 9, 2001 by two men posing as Arab journalists. REUTERS

An MQ-1B Predator from the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron takes off from Balad Air Base in Iraq, June 12, 2008. REUTERS/U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Julianne Showalter

I n Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf, the army commander who had overthrown and replaced Nawaz in the military coup of 1999, was quickly pressured by American threats into allying himself unambiguously with the U.S. "We were on the verge of being declared a terrorist state,” he later wrote in his memoirs. “In that situation," he added—revealing his overarching strategic priority—"what would have happened to the Kashmir cause?"

Musharraf’s support for the U.S. reversed a decade of Pakistani foreign policy. He embraced President George W. Bush’s “Global War on Terror,” publicly broke relations with the Taliban, and called for the arrest of members of al-Qaida. By 2007, according to his own estimate, 672 of them had been rounded up in Pakistan, 369 of whom were then handed over to the U.S. This saved Pakistan from being bombed “back to the stone age” by America—a threat Musharraf attributes to Richard Armitage, Bush’s deputy secretary of state (Armitage denies using those words).

...only months after 9/11, the ISI was providing refuge to the entire Taliban leadership...

function fbs_click() {u=location.href;t=document.title;window.open('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(u)+'&t='+encodeURIComponent(t),'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436');return false;} " onclick="return fbs_click()" target="_blank" class="fb_share_link"> Bruce Riedel, a Brookings senior fellow and director of the Intelligence Project at Brookings, puts a fine point on Pakistan's obsession with its archenemy, India.

The reversal of policy came at a great price to Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. And it happened when India’s influence was at an all-time high, thanks largely to Hamid Karzai’s ascension to power shortly after 9/11.

October 2001: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (l) and Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf during a joint news conference in Islamabad. Musharraf backed the U.S.-led military action against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. REUTERS/John McConnico

In the years afterward, India made wise use of its opportunity to forge a close partnership with Afghanistan. The aid and reconstruction program it set in motion during the 1980s was so generous that it quickly established India as the single largest donor in the country. It was also carefully thought out, praised as one of the best planned and targeted aid efforts by any country.

India has built roads linking Afghanistan with Iran so that Afghanistan’s trade can reach the Persian Gulf at the port of Chabahar, thus freeing it of the need to rely on the Pakistani port of Karachi. India has donated or helped to build electrical power plants, health facilities for children and amputees, 400 buses and 200 minibuses, and a fleet of aircraft for Ariana Afghan Airlines. India has also been involved in constructing power lines, digging wells, running sanitation projects and using solar energy to light up villages, while Indian telecommunications personnel have built digitized telecommunications networks in 11 provinces. One thousand Afghan students a year have been offered scholarships to Indian universities. India has also played a key role in the construction of a new Afghan parliament in Kabul at a cost of $25 million.

An Ariana Afghan Airlines pilot waves on the plane's arrival at New Delhi International Airport. With India's assistance, the Afghan airline was nursed back to health after years of negligence under the Taliban, and re-launched its international service in 2002. REUTERS

All this led to India becoming enormously popular in Afghanistan: an ABC/BBC poll in 2009 showed 74% of Afghans viewing India favorably, while only 8% had a positive view of Pakistan.

Although pressure from the U.S. dissuaded India from sending troops into Afghanistan or providing military supplies, Pakistanis are still deeply disturbed by signs of India’s growing influence in the region, especially because many have come to believe India is using its Afghan consulates to foment insurgency in Baluchistan. A former Indian consul general in Kandahar privately admitted to me that he had met with Baluchi leaders at his consulate there, but he claims his ambassador gave him strict instructions not to aid them in any way against Pakistan. Still, he hinted to me that RAW personnel were present among the staff at the Kandahar and Jalalabad consulates.

It is hardly surprising that India keeps intelligence personnel in these sensitive postings, but there is no hard evidence that RAW or any other Indian agency is taking reciprocal action against the Pakistanis in response to their covert war against Indian interests in Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence agencies have followed up all the leads provided by the Pakistanis on this matter and have not found any evidence that India is actively aiding Baluchi separatists in the way Pakistan alleges.

President Musharraf’s post-9/11 about-face with respect to the Taliban was short-lived.

Nevertheless, as a result of the lingering suspicions among his colleagues in the Pakistani military and ISI, President Musharraf’s post-9/11 about-face with respect to the Taliban was short-lived. Despite his public promises to the contrary, from 2002 on, the ISI actively supported the Taliban. Furthermore, the speed with which the U.S. lost interest in Afghanistan after its successful invasion in 2001 convinced the Pakistani army that the U.S. was not serious about a long-term commitment to Karzai’s regime. This gave the Pakistanis hope that once American attention turned elsewhere, the Taliban could, once again, be used to reinstall a pro-Pakistani regime in Afghanistan.

Taliban militants pose for a picture after joining the Afghan government's reconciliation and reintegration program, in Herat March 14, 2010. Thirty Taliban militants joined the program, which remains an integral part of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's efforts to achieve a peace settlement. REUTERS/Mohammad Shioab

So it was that, only months after 9/11, the ISI was providing refuge to the entire Taliban leadership after it fled from Afghanistan. Mullah Omar was kept in an ISI safe house in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, while his militia was lodged in Pashtunabad, a sprawling Quetta suburb. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the jihadist and Pakistan-backed Islamic Party, or Hezb-e-Islami, was lured back from exile in Iran and allowed to operate freely outside Peshawar, while Jalaluddin Haqqani, one of the most violent of the Taliban commanders, was allowed sanctuary by the ISI in North Waziristan. When he fell ill, he is said to have received treatment in Pakistani hospitals.

In order to keep contact with such groups beyond the radar of Western intelligence, the ISI created a new clandestine organization, staffed by former ISI trainers and retired Pashtun officers from the army, who armed, trained and supported the Taliban in camps around Quetta. By 2004, Pakistani army trucks were seen delivering Taliban fighters to the Afghan border and retrieving them a few days later; wireless monitoring at the U.S. base at Bagram picked up Taliban commanders arranging with Pakistani army officers at the border for safe passage as they came in and out of Afghanistan. By 2005 the Taliban, with covert Pakistani support, were launching a full-scale assault on NATO troops in Afghanistan.

In 2006, supporters of a nationalist Pakistani political party chant anti-George W. Bush slogans during a rally in Karachi. President Bush said that he was convinced of President Musharraf's commitment to the war on terrorism despite ongoing militancy in Pakistan and the presence of Al-Qaeda. REUTERS/Zahid Hussein

Since then the Taliban have proved remarkably successful in southern Afghanistan, their stronghold. By 2006 the Taliban had come to have a presence in over 70% of Pashtun areas, and in many districts of the rural south were able to resume collecting taxes, enforcing Sharia law and dispensing their usual rough justice. Every month their sphere of influence has increased. According to a 2009 Pentagon report, Karzai’s government had control of only 29 out of 121 key strategic districts across Afghanistan. In 2011, there were 12,244 Taliban attacks in Afghanistan, a fivefold increase since 2006.

Yet if Pakistan’s proxies proved unexpectedly successful on the battlefield, it could also be said that by his skillful manipulation of his neighbors, Karzai has enjoyed some surprising successes on the political front. In June, 2010, much to the alarm of India—and the U.S.—Karzai decided to attempt negotiations with the Taliban. In preparation for this, Karzai removed his strongly pro-Indian and deeply anti-Pakistani security chief, Amrulla Saleh, a tough, bright Tajik who had risen to prominence as a protégé of Massoud and was viewed by the Taliban and their backers in the ISI as their fiercest enemy. As Bruce Riedel, then President Barack Obama’s AfPak adviser (and now a senior fellow at Brookings), said when the news broke: “Karzai’s decision to sack Saleh has worried me more than any other development, because it means that Karzai is already planning for a post-American Afghanistan.”

Manmohan Singh is the 13th and current prime minister of India, a position he has held since 2004. A Sikh—the first to hold India's premiership—Singh was born in what is now Pakistan. After Partition, his family relocated to Amritsar, in India. He is an economist by training, and has been a leader in India's economic globalization.

For a while it looked as if the rapprochement with Pakistan might bear fruit. The head of the ISI, Lt. General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, and General Kayani, the head of the Pakistani army, shuttled between Kabul and the military headquarters in Rawalpindi, presumably to encourage some sort of accommodation between Karzai and the ISI-sponsored jihadi network of the Haqqanis that would leave Karzai in power in Kabul in return for a more pro-Pakistani dispensation in the south. There was even talk of Pakistan agreeing to help train the troops of the Afghan national army.

In the end, however, the reconciliation lasted less than a year. Kayani and Karzai soon fell out again, and in 2011 the pendulum swung the other way when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Kabul, where he signed a strategic partnership deal promising closer cooperation on national security, this time with an agreement to provide light weapons as well as training in counterinsurgency and high-altitude warfare.

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By June 2012 the U.S. had gone on the offensive against what it now openly declared to be a treacherous ally. Reacting to further evidence of Pakistan’s connivance in attacks on U.S. interests in Afghanistan and its hosting of Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil—intentionally or not—Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that the U.S. “was reaching the limits of its patience” with Pakistan. More significantly, for the first time he endorsed Indian training of the Afghan army. This brought Pakistan’s fear and mistrust of India to a new high—and its relations with the U.S. to a new low, especially in the face of mounting Pakistani fury over its territory becoming a kill zone for U.S. drones.

Hesco barriers and concertina wire surround the living quarters of the Chinese owned Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, Afghanistan, just south of Kabul. Getty Images/Benjamin Lowy

T welve years after the international community went into Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaida and oust the Taliban, Western troops are about to withdraw, with neither objective achieved. The Taliban now control most of rural southern Afghanistan. That share is likely to increase next year when the British and the Americans withdraw 100,000 of their troops. Al-Qaida, which has moved to the Pakistani borderlands, and elsewhere, has been severely damaged but is far from finished.

Hamid Karzai’s own future is equally uncertain. He must step down from office next year, according to the constitution. And on a recent trip to Islamabad, I heard from everyone from senior officials in the foreign ministry on down that there were severe problems with Karzai’s mental health.

Afghan National Army soldiers practice emplacing anti-tank weapons during training at the Kabul Military Training Center in 2011 in Kabul. NATO Training Mission/U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Ernesto Hernandez Fonte, via Getty Images

Yet Karzai is no fool, and he retains strong views about Pakistan’s links with his Taliban enemies. “I warn them!” he told me in March in Kabul, waving his finger in the air. “Every day Afghan security forces are getting stronger! No government of Afghanistan can have good relations with [Pakistani President] Zardari, Nawaz Sharif [who has since been elected Prime Minister] or any of the others. Because we all know who is pulling the strings—the mullahs and the ISI…. The Pakistani ulema [scholars] council [has recently] said it is right to advocate suicide bombing in Afghanistan. It is very clear what is going on. Some of our so-called allies—the British in particular—tell me the Pakistanis have changed. Do I believe this?” Karzai laughed a deep, throaty laugh: “Nothing doing!“

If you grow vipers in your back yard, you’re going to get bitten.

For all his failures and all the forces arrayed against him, Karzai has managed to remain in power in Kabul for 12 years and successfully survived setbacks that would have broken a lesser man. Playing India, Pakistan, Iran and China off against each other, and skillfully manipulating the U.S. and the 49 other countries that contribute troops to ISAF, he has successfully advanced Afghanistan’s geopolitical and economic objectives. And occasional outbursts notwithstanding, he knows how to induce his neighbors to compete for good relations with Afghanistan. One day after signing the strategic partnership with India he reassured Pakistan that the deal “was not aimed at any one country.”

Moreover, despite the gross corruption of his regime, Afghanistan under Karzai’s rule has changed beyond all recognition, and for the good. The cities have grown, those who live in rural areas now travel much more widely beyond their ancestral valleys, and people everywhere have become more prosperous and better educated. Television, the Internet and an energetic press have also helped to open many minds. The Taliban may be capable of causing widespread disruption but few observers, inside the country or outside, believe they are strong enough to roll back over the country and retake Kabul or the north. They remain a rural Pashtun force with few supporters north of Kabul. After the American withdrawal, Karzai’s successor is likely to be able to maintain himself in fortress Kabul and continue to manipulate Afghanistan’s neighbors.

Pakistan’s future is at least as uncertain as Afghanistan’s. Fourteen years after the military coup that ousted him, Nawaz Sharif staged a stunning political comeback and is, once again, Pakistan’s prime minister, while the man who staged the coup, Pervez Musharraf, languishes in house arrest and faces the same threat of being hanged that he subjected Nawaz to in 2000.

Nawaz Sharif, newly re-elected prime minister and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz political party, speaks to party members in Lahore, May 2013. REUTERS/Mohsin Raza

All Pakistani interest groups are pondering—and doing their best to manipulate—how these reversals of fortune will affect the country’s politics and policies. Hina Rabbani Khar, the foreign minister under President Zardari, who is said to be close to General Kayani, stressed repeatedly to me that Pakistan is currently fighting a major internal war with the Pakistani Taliban, and claimed that a return of the Afghan faction of the Taliban to Kabul is the last thing her country wants or needs. Most Afghan and Indian observers would scoff at her, arguing that she was trying to pull the wool over their eyes, just as Karzai did with me in his insistence that the Pakistani motives have not changed.

But there are certainly many good reasons why the Pakistanis might be worried about the jihadi protégés they have so lovingly funded and trained for three decades. For while many in the ISI may still believe that they can use jihadis for their own ends, the Islamists have increasingly followed agendas that put them at odds with their sponsors, sending suicide bombers out against not just Pakistan’s religious minorities, especially the Shia, and its political leaders, but even the ISI headquarters at Camp Hamza itself. As Cameron Munter—the former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan—succinctly put it: “If you grow vipers in your back yard, you’re going to get bitten.”

The continuation of clashes between India and Pakistan in—and over—Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal is dangerous for all countries in the region and for the world.

Nawaz Sharif is the newly-elected prime minister of Pakistan, a post he has held on two previous occasions. He was premier in 1988 when Pakistan conducted its first nuclear tests, in response to India's doing the same for the first time in 24 years. Ousted in a military coup and threatened with jail or execution in 2000, Sharif has turned the tables on his former adversaries, including former President Pervez Musharraf.

The danger posed by the jihadis—not just to India, but to Pakistan as well—is increasingly clear to all. In the late spring, when I tried to have breakfast with a Pakistani friend who lives near the military’s main primary school in Lahore, I was unable to get to him because all the roads through the Lahore Cantonment area were blocked by checkpoints. According to the soldiers manning the roadblocks, so fearful have the generals become of the Pakistani Taliban that they lock down much of Lahore every day in order to insure that their kids can get safely to school and back. They have also abandoned the use of military number plates on their cars, aware that these might attract the attention of Taliban suicide bombers.

In March 2013, essay author William Dalrymple met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace in Kabul. Photo: Author's own

British diplomats in Islamabad take the view that because the Pakistani army now fears jihadi-generated instability more than it fears India it really has changed its attitude toward the jihadis. As General Kayani himself stated in a major speech in April on the eve of the elections: “The menace of terrorism and extremism has claimed thousands of lives, including those of the Army, Rangers, FC, Police, Frontier Constabulary… and the innocent people of Pakistan… [A] small faction wants to enforce its distorted ideology over the entire nation by taking up arms and for this purpose defies the Constitution of Pakistan and the democratic process,” he said. He went on to call on militants to lay down their arms and accept the country’s constitution unconditionally.

This has led many Pakistan-watchers to speculate that the generals may have had a change of heart about the dangers of their longtime strategy in Afghanistan. General Kayani recently told a senior American military officer that if Afghanistan deteriorated into chaotic civil war after the Americans leave, it would be bad for Afghanistan but a disaster for Pakistan. The army now fears the possibility that the return of Taliban rule would create a reverse sanctuary for Pakistani Taliban and other malcontents.

A Pakistani police officer at a checkpoint in Lahore, Pakistan. AP Photo/Anjum Naveed

The continuation of clashes between India and Pakistan in—and over—Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal is dangerous for all countries in the region and for the world, especially given Pakistan’s reported fondness for developing tactical nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield, such as the recently tested Hatf IX missile, with a range of under 40 miles. Pakistan is apparently also testing other small, low-yielding nuclear devices such as landmines, presumably designed to destroy large Indian tank formations moving into Pakistani territory.

The priority that Pakistan has given to such weapons and the scenarios they’re meant to deal with constitute the latest and most alarming manifestation of the government’s fixation on India as the main threat to Pakistan’s existence. In fact, however, the threat to Pakistan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty is clearly no longer from India at all, and arguably never has been. For years, largely and perversely because of Pakistan’s own policies, that threat has come from within Pakistan itself. Likewise, as far as India is concerned, the real threat to its dominance of the region is not Pakistan so much as the dragon rising on the other side of the Himalayas: China, which now has very considerable mineral assets in Afghanistan.

Kandahar, Afghanistan, May 2013: Afghan men march through downtown chanting “Death to Pakistan” and “Death to the ISI.” AP Photo/Allauddin Khan

In 2008, a Chinese mining consortium—Chinese Metallurgical Group and Jiangxi Copper Co.—bought a 30-year lease on the Afghan copper deposits at Mes Aynak for $3 billion; they estimated that the valley contained potentially $100 billion worth of copper, possibly the largest such deposit in the world, and potentially worth around five times the estimated value of Afghanistan’s entire economy.

China is also training a first batch of 300 Afghan policemen. China is arguably the only country to which the Pakistani security establishment defers. If China continues to invest in Afghan mineral resources, and the roads and railways with which it can extract them, it will expect Pakistan to protect its interests and not allow the Taliban to disrupt these operations in Afghanistan. This could be a boon for future peace in Afghanistan. The Indians, of course, view these developments with some foreboding. But there have been recent secret talks in Beijing between Chinese and Indian officials to discuss their interests in post-American Afghanistan.

Hamid Karzai visiting the Badaling Great Wall on the outskirts of Beijing in 2002. REUTERS/Guang Niu

Much will depend on what India decides to do. It is unclear whether its government will choose to play an enhanced role in Afghanistan after the departure of American troops. Some Indian hawks, in the army and the Ministry of External Affairs, argue that by taking on a more robust and possibly even a military role in Afghanistan, India could fill the security vacuum left by the U.S. withdrawal, advance its regional interests, compete with their Chinese rivals for influence in Afghanistan, and thwart their Pakistani enemies at the same time. Others in New Delhi argue that by willfully fueling Pakistani paranoia, India would panic Islamabad into going on the offensive and providing ever greater support for the Taliban, which, in turn, would be dangerous for both India and Pakistan.

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William Dalrymple is the author of nine books about India and the Islamic world, including award-winning titles such as City of Djinns ; White Mughals ; The Last Mughal ; and Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India . He recently curated a major show of Mughal art for the Asia Society in New York. His new book, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-42 was published to acclaim by Knopf in February. He writes regularly for the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books and the Guardian , and is one of the founders and a co-director of the Jaipur Literary Festival . He has honorary doctorates of letters from the universities of St Andrews, Aberdeen, Bradford and Lucknow, and in September took up a visiting fellowship at Princeton. Learn more about Dalrymple and his work at http://www.williamdalrymple.uk.com/

function fbs_click() {u=location.href;t=document.title;window.open('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(u)+'&t='+encodeURIComponent(t),'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436');return false;} " onclick="return fbs_click()" target="_blank" class="fb_share_link"> Michael E. O'Hanlon's response to this essay

Further reading

Shooting for a Century: The India-Pakistan Conundrum Stephen P. Cohen (Brookings, 2013)

Avoiding Armageddon: America, India, and Pakistan to the Brink and Back Bruce Riedel (Brookings, 2013)

Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-Building in Afghanistan Vanda Felbab-Brown (Brookings, 2012)

Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad Bruce Riedel (Brookings, 2012, revised edition)

The Future of Pakistan Stephen P. Cohen, ed. (Brookings, 2011)

History Does Not Condemn Afghanistan to Failure or India and Pakistan to Rivalry There Michael E. O'Hanlon, (Brookings, 2013)

Get more Brookings research on Afghanistan , Pakistan and India

Like other products of the Institution, The Brookings Essay is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are solely those of the author.

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Canadian Arrests Highlight Alleged Gang Role in India’s Intelligence Operations

India’s external spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, has long been accused of tapping into criminal networks to carry out operations in South Asia. Is the agency now doing similar operations in the West?

By Mujib Mashal and Suhasini Raj

Reporting from New Delhi

Months after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada accused India’s government of plotting a murder on Canadian soil — plunging diplomatic relations between the two countries to their lowest level ever — the first arrests in the killing, which came on Friday, did little to demystify the basis of his claim.

The police didn’t offer clues or present any evidence that India had orchestrated the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh nationalist leader who was gunned down at the temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia, in June. What they did say was that three Indian men had committed the killing and that an investigation into India’s role was ongoing.

Before the arrests, Indian officials had maintained that Canada was trying to drag New Delhi into what it described as essentially a rivalry between gangs whose members were long wanted for crimes back in India.

After the arrests, a report from the CBC, Canada’s public broadcasting corporation , based on anonymous sources, also said the suspects belonged to an Indian criminal gang.

But analysts and former officials said that the possible role of a gang in the killing does not necessarily mean the Indian government was not involved in the crime.

India’s external spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, has long been suspected of tapping into criminal networks to carry out operations in its immediate neighborhood in South Asia while maintaining deniability.

Canada’s accusation, if proven, that India orchestrated the Nijjar killing — and a similar accusation made soon after by the United States in a different case — may suggest that RAW is now extending its playbook of working with criminals to carry out operations in Western countries, analysts said.

U.S. officials have produced strong evidence in their accusation that an agent of the Indian government participated in a foiled attempt to assassinate a dual American-Canadian citizen. And Canada and allied officials have maintained that Canada has evidence supporting Mr. Trudeau’s claim that Indian agents carried out Mr. Nijjar’s killing.

But the Canadian failure to reveal any evidence that India took part, nine months after Mr. Trudeau’s explosive allegation, leaves the killing of Mr. Nijjar in the realm of accusations and counter-accusation in what is a highly tense political environment in both countries, analysts said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been flexing his muscles as a nationalist strongman, pitching himself during his ongoing campaign for a third-term in office as a protector of India who would go as far as it takes to target security threats.

During speeches, he has boasted about how his government eliminates enemies by “descending in their homes.” While he has made those references in relation to the country’s archenemy — Pakistan — right wing accounts on social media had celebrated the slaying of Mr. Nijjar in Canada as a similar reach of Mr. Modi’s long arm.

Mr. Trudeau, on the other hand, had been facing criticism of weakness in the face of Chinese election interference activities on Canadian soil, and his getting ahead of the Nijjar killing was seen as compensating for that.

Canadian police announced on Friday that they had arrested the three Indian men in Edmonton, Alberta, the same day and charged them with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the killing of Mr. Nijjar. The suspects had been living in Canada for three to five years but were not permanent residents of Canada, the police said.

The gang that the CBC reported that the hit-men are connected to is led by Lawrence Bishnoi, 31, who is accused of several cases of murder, extortion and narcotics trafficking. He has orchestrated much of it from an Indian jail, where he has been held since 2014 . His members are seen as being behind the murder of a popular Punjabi rapper, and threats of attacks on Bollywood celebrities.

Indian security officials have frequently arrested criminals connected to Mr. Bishnoi, often with allegations that the gang’s network stretched as far as Canada and overlapped with those promoting from Canadian soil the cause of Khalistan, a once deeply violent separatist movement with the goal of carving out the Indian state of Punjab as an independent nation.

A large Sikh diaspora resides in Canada, many of them having migrated there after a violent and often indiscriminate crackdown by the Indian government in the 1980s against the movement for an independent Khalistan. While the cause has largely died down inside India, it continues to have supporters among some segments of the diaspora. The Indian government has accused Canada, and several other Western countries, of not doing enough to crack down on the separatists.

Analysts and former security officials said that in India’s immediate geographic neighborhood, RAW has often been willing to venture into murky spaces to recruit killers. Senior officials of Mr. Modi’s administration, including Ajit Doval, the storied former spymaster who now serves as his longtime national security adviser, have in the past been accused of reaching into the underworld to find hit men willing to go after targets both inside the country as well as abroad.

Mr. Bishnoi has demonstrated enormous power from behind bars, even giving a television interview from jail last year to pitch himself as a nationalist warrior rather than a criminal mastermind. That, one former security official said, was a signal of his trying to align himself with the spirit of nationalism for a potential deal.

“I am a nationalist,” Mr. Bishnoi said in that interview. “I am against Khalistan. I am against Pakistan.”

Ajai Sahni, a security analyst who runs the South Asia Terrorism Portal in New Delhi, said the exploitation of criminal gangs by spy agencies to carry out operations with deniability was something that “happens all over the world.”

“It is definitely possible for agencies like RAW to use gang rivalries instead of exposing their own covert operators,” Mr. Sahni added. “But just because that is generally how one would expect it to be done, it doesn’t necessarily mean we know this is exactly the case in Nijjar’s killing.”

The failed plot on American soil had some of the sloppy hallmarks of an agency trying to extend an old playbook into a different, unfamiliar space.

A U.S. indictment in November laid out evidence, including electronic communication and cash transactions between the hired hit man — who turned out to be an undercover cop — a boastful middleman, and an Indian intelligence handler whom The Washington Post recently identified as Vikram Yadav .

The Indian government’s response suggested worry: India’s top diplomat said the action was not government policy, while the government announced an investigation into the matter and promised cooperation with the United States.

Canada’s case has played out very differently. The country has not publicly disclosed any evidence backing up Mr. Trudeau’s claim, even as allied officials said in September that Canadian officials had found a “smoking gun”: intercepted communications of Indian diplomats in Canada indicating involvement in the plot.

Indian officials have pushed back against Mr. Trudeau’s claims with the kind of aggression that suggested it either wasn’t involved or that it was confident of its deniability.

The Indian government expelled Canadian diplomats , and doubled down by putting out a list of individuals on Canadian soil that it said were long wanted as part of what it described as a crime and terror nexus.

Last week, officials in Mr. Modi’s government jumped on scenes of an event that Mr. Trudeau had attended to say it showed his accusations were simply to appease what they say is a Sikh vote bank for him. They pointed to videos of an event where Mr. Trudeau was the chief guest and where chants of “long live Khalistan” were shouted. Mr. Trudeau, in his speech, said he will always be there “to protect your rights and your freedoms, and we will always defend your community against hatred.”

After the speech, the Indian foreign ministry summoned Canada’s second highest ranking diplomat in New Delhi to lodge a complaint.

“His remarks to us illustrates once again the kind of political space that has been given in Canada to separatism, extremism and people who practice violence,” Randhir Jaiswal, the foreign ministry spokesman, said at a news conference.

Mujib Mashal is the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, helping to lead coverage of India and the diverse region around it, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. More about Mujib Mashal

Suhasini Raj is a reporter based in New Delhi who has covered India for The Times since 2014. More about Suhasini Raj