I personally believe in 50 years time we will have negligible contact with those to the east of us and we will be more fully integrated with China. I also believe that Afghanistan will more integrated with us. Just my humble predictions so I could be completely wrong.
I am afraid there are much more ominous portents on hand :
In 1972 were in pretty good shape to ensure our security, and by 1974, we had completely redefined ourselves as a nation.
Here are the differences in the enemy we face between the last 50 years and now:
1. In 1970s the regime in power in India was a non-religious one, under the umbrella of the Soviet Union. The Congress party headed by Indira Gandhi ( actually the General Secretary was Dev Kant Baruah but that doesn't count) was backed by the Communist Party of India and a number of minor centrist parties.
2. Indira Gandhi and the ruling elite wanted a center stage leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement. India was looking for a regional big power status and the Soviet backed Non-Aligned Movement was one way to assert India's foot print.
3. The Soviet Union was looking for a foothold in the region ; basically control over Afghanistan and West Pakistan to gain access to the Persian Gulf. India was a useful tool to achieve its ends.
4. The Soviet Union had been inimical to the presence or existence of Pakistan since the late 50s. The CIA flew U2 spy planes over the Soviet Union from Peshawar. After shooting down a Peshawar based U2 over its territory in 1960 , the USSR made a thinly veiled nuclear threat to Pakistan as a response. There was not much the USA could have done to protect Pakistan, and would certainly not have entered into a nuclear war on its behalf. Pakistan stopped the U2 flights but this did nothing to assuage the dislike the Soviet Union had developed for Pakistan. As a response it started arming India encouraging it to dismember Pakistan.
5. At that time India's hatred towards Pakistan was against the Pakistani state and government, not against the people of Pakistan ( at least not so much ).
The reason for India's hatred was as follows:
5.1 India wanted to project itself as a modern secular progressive state to its Soviet ally as well as to the Western world. The existence of Pakistan as an Islamic state or "Homeland for the Indian Muslims " , was a reminder that the anti-colonial struggle India triumphantly displayed to other newly independent and Non- Aligned nations, had gone horribly wrong. If the Indian political establishment could not win the trust of its largest minority, then India could not lecture to other countries, or lead the nations emerging from colonial domination to become secular democracies. Pakistan therefore had to go. It had to be defeated militarily, and brought back into the Indian Union.
5.2. For the Soviet Union secularism was the first step towards socialism. It was in the interest of the Soviet Union that India remained a secular state. If India turned religious it would be a godsend to the USA and NATO, who had long preferred religious fundamentalism over communism. The Communist Party of India which the Soviet Union dreamt would one day come to power, would never survive in fascist religiously fundamentalist state and would meet the fate of the German Communist Party in the 1930s.
5.3. Internally the stability of the Congress government was frequently threatened by right wing fascist political outfits such as the Jan Sangh and RSS, who hated the secular stance as much as they hated Muslims both in India and Pakistan (including Bangladesh). .
Partition of India had happened just two and half decades earlier. A secular India with a contented and secure minority was the last thing the RSS wanted. The RSS wanted a Hindu Rashtra ( Nation only for majority Hindus) by killing off, forcibly converting or driving out Muslims from all of old British India ( Pakistan, Bangladesh included ),.
The RSS wanted the land of Pakistan ( East and West);cleansed of Muslims, They wanted to start with Indian Muslims.
The Congress wanted the land of Pakistan ( East and West) with Muslims.
India under the Congress dreamt of dominating the Middle East, Central Asia , and North Africa with the world's largest Muslim population.
5.4. In their own way both the Congress and the RSS, viewed the existence of Pakistan as a major impediment to a cohesive Indian social fabric. The RSS viewed Indian Muslims as fifth columnists for Pakistan, having no basis to continue living in India when the country had been partitioned on communal grounds. Therefore the RSS, and Bharatiya Jan Sangh engineered communal pogroms, massacring Muslims and seriously damaging India's reputation among the non aligned countries particularly those with a Muslim majority ( Example : Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Tunisia, Algeria ). India's feeble argument that despite Partition there was a Muslim majority region within India ( Kashmir) did not have much impact on its dented image in the non-aligned movement
5.5 The Congress blamed the creation and existence of Pakistan for the Hindu Muslim tensions. If Pakistan magically disappeared, Hindu Muslim relations would improve ( so they thought). The RSS would be devoid of any argument to pursue their anti-Muslim agenda, and the Muslim population of East and West Pakistan along with the Muslim population of India would ensure secularism permanently in the Indian mindset.
Congress had to show the RSS that they were super-nationalists by attacking and destroying Pakistan. This would kill two birds with one stone. Both Pakistan and the RSS would be history.
5.6 The Congress Party would rule forever with Muslim electoral support. Congress assumed that the Indian Muslim support it was getting already would be translated into support from "liberated Pakistan's " population.
Pakistan was portrayed as a military dictatorship unrepresentative of its people who were dying to be liberated and reunite with India.
So India and the Soviet Union both had common reasons for the destruction of Pakistan. However India's military capabilities were limited in invading and "liberating" the peoples of Pakistan as the war of 1965 showed.
Another opportunity presented itself during Pakistan's Civil War in 1971. Events did not quite work out as intended, much to the Soviet Union's disappointment. Despite massive arms aid and full diplomatic support India from the Soviet Union India failed to "liberate " West Pakistan, or even take back Kashmir. The "liberated " eastern wing which emerged as Bangladesh could not be integrated back into India.
Ignoring India for its own long term geo-strategic aims the Soviet Union launched its own plans to take out Pakistan after first seizing Afghanistan.
India recognized that Pakistan would continue to exist on its border as a hostile state, which was very likely to join up even more closely with China and pose a long term threat. Therefore all further plans for Pakistan 's destruction would have to be put on hold. Maybe a soft option would work. If Pakistan did not feel threatened it would have no reason to join up with China. If diplomatic relations could be improved India could use all its cultural leverage on the basis of "people to people " contact and keep Pakistan out China's orbit.
Pakistan could be slowly dissolved like an ice cube in warm water. Once again a friendly Pakistan would take the wind out of the RSS and right wing parties. Indian Muslim support would be guaranteed simply because of the reduction in communal violence and also because at that time there were still enough divided Muslim families who desperately wanted easier travel between the two countries.
It didn't work !
( to be continued in the next post );
