India And Pakistan Relations Case Study

1-India and Pakistan relations: For any country, in the way of development, needs cordial relations with its neighbors in political, social and global issues to create a healthy environment for development. Pakistan, one of the most important neighbor of India was once homogeneous political unit with India before independence and the struggle for freedom was fought collectively. India’s relations with Pakistan are the most complex of its ties with its neighbors and can be understand by following historical events :

Historical background :

Before independence, India was a single unit in its composition i.e. Hindus and Muslims were living together and the struggle for freedom was fought collectively against British Empire. Indian national congress

One was the trend that was initiated by Nehru. It focused on regionalism as the dominant theme. The second emerged during the Lal Bahadur Shastri years. This came in the aftermath of the 1962 war and the need for resetting the Indian worldview keeping in mind its capabilities. Shastri was to stress on bilateralism as the key to foreign policy, especially in relationto South Asian countries.

3-Pakistan’s world views:

· Pakistan’s perception of its role emerged from realisation of the two simultaneous forces—the geopolitics of the country that was divided between East and West Pakistan and the Islamic worldview. The former placed Pakistan firmly in the South Asian regional state system while the latter brought it close to the Islamic world of West Asia.

· Pakistan thus saw itself as a nation with two distinct identities and roles, that of a South Asian power and that of an Islamic West Asian power that was to eventually emerge as an important country of the Organisation of Islamic Conference.

· One of the dominant security concerns that Pakistan sought to address right from its inception is that of fear of India. The problem of Pakistan’s foreign and defence policy revolved around this central theme of Indian domination and safeguards that were to be instituted to counter this