‘To move forward, Pakistan and India must tie up all loose ends’

With the recent escalation of tension at the borders of India and Pakistan, the launch of the book, Back from the Brink: India-Pakistan Ties Revisited, could not have been timed more aptly.
The book, with contributions by intellectuals from both countries, attempts to answer why relationships between the two nations fail to remain smooth and fall prey to perpetual tension.
The book was launched at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology on Wednesday where Dr Riaz Ahmed Shaikh, who chairs the department of social sciences at the university, was credited for compiling and editing the book.
A wide number of experts spoke at the event and came to a consensus – India and Pakistan need to readdress their long-lasting conflicts so that they can move forward towards development and progress.
Speaking on the recent tension between armed forces across the Line of Control, former foreign secretary Najmuddin A Shaikh said that it was unfortunate that certain elements in the Indian media indulged in malicious propaganda, which was neither backed by the Indian army nor by civil officials. In contrast, Shaikh said that the Pakistani press, sensing the fragility of relations between both countries, showed much restraint than that of their counterparts across the border.
According to Karachi University’s Pakistan Study Centre chairperson, Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed, the book discusses the legacy of partition and how to overcome those problems. In his opinion, the nature of the state determines its future direction and that is why, the issues on ideology of Pakistan need to be debated.
A professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Savita Pande, said that the emerging conflicts in the region have the potential to disrupt the peace process between India and Pakistan. “We need to realize that together, Pakistan and India can do so much more – they can bring a vital change in the fate of the people of South Asia.”
Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy pointed out that more than 40,000 innocent Pakistanis have been killed by militants and more than 4,000 soldiers have been killed by Talibans. “These figures are more than the number of soldiers killed in all Indo-Pak wars. We need to stop looking for enemies outside and deal with the ones on our land.”

Covering all angles
The book is divided into four thematic sections – the first part is The Partition and State Formation with contributors like Arundhati Roy, Rajeev Bhargava and Hamza Alavi. The second part, Undoing and Barriers, is a historiographical attempt to understand post-partition developments for peace at both sides of the border via Mani Shankar Aiyar, Dr Mubarak Ali and more.
Julian Schofield, Savita Pande, Didier Chaudet and others have written on issues from roles of China and Afghanistan to experimentations on democracy in Pakistan in the third section, New Divergences. The book’s final part, Horizons, is an attempt to identify the solutions for long-lasting peace and coexistence by Aneek Chatterjee, Jai Narain Sharma and Ashu Pasricha.