The Prime Minister’s statement in Srinagar last Saturday should help to put the current disturbed state of Indo-Pakistan relations in a proper perspective. As reported by one of the national news agencies (UNI), she has said that she does not apprehend any trouble on the country’s borders with Pakistan and that her government is trying hard to avoid any such trouble. Formulated in this manner there is a measure of inconsistency in the statement. New Delhi can have no need to try to avert trouble on the border unless it apprehends trouble from the Pakistani side. Apparently what Mrs. Gandhi must have intended to convey was that India was doing all it could to avoid an armed conflict with Pakistan and that it was hopeful that a conflict would in fact be avoided. Implicit in such a proposition would also be an acknowledgement that the Pakistanis too cannot be particularly keen to precipitate a major clash.
This should help to clear the atmosphere in our own country to some extent. For the Prime Minister’s statement should once and for all dispose of the view that she has been trying to queer the pitch for a controlled armed clash with Pakistan in order to be able to exploit it for electoral purposes. It is a sad commentary on the Indian political scene that anyone in this country should entertain such a proposition. Mrs. Gandhi has not only to be utterly cynical but also extraordinarily naive to think in those terms. For she cannot guarantee that an armed conflict with Pakistan, if it once breaks out, can be contained. We are, of course, not referring to the kind of skirmishes which have recently taken place in the Korakoram around the line of control where there is an unresolved dispute on the definition of the line. While these skirmishes are not immaterial, they are treated as routine by the people in the two countries and do not arouse the kind of passions which lend themselves to exploitation for political purposes.
As India’s Prime Minister charged with the responsibility of ensuring its security, both external and internal, Mrs. Gandhi has, quite understandably, been concerned over the US supply of sophisticated weapons to Pakistan and Islamabad’s alleged involvement with the Akali extremists in Punjab. Each development is disturbing in itself; together they must be a source of the deepest anxiety. Pakistan denies that it is arming itself for the purpose of a war with India and that it has been involved in training and arming the Akali extremists. But these denials cannot dispose of the reality that the recent upheaval in Punjab has given Pakistan a powerful leverage in its dealings with India and that the US arms supplies can give it the necessary confidence to use this leverage. Surely no Prime Minister worth the name can ignore such a possibility. By the same logic Pakistan’s emphasis must be more on exploiting the troubles in Punjab than on preparing for a war with India. For all we know Indo-Pakistan relations may have entered a new and, for this country, a far more dangerous phase.
