'India must initiate credible dialogue with Pak.'

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, JULY 2. ``As the larger power with larger ambitions, India will have to figure out a way to initiate and sustain a credible dialogue with Pakistan either directly or through intermediaries. The difficulty of doing this is evident in the failure of the formal negotiations and secret diplomacy of recent years'', writes Dr. Stephen Cohen in his forthcoming book ``India: Emerging Power''.

A senior fellow of the Brookings Institution and author of numerous works on South Asia, Dr. Cohen argues that Indians feel themselves besieged by Pakistan and retreat to the moral high ground. ``While this position may be gratifying, New Delhi now needs to attempt a fresh start'', he maintains going on to say that until a few years ago many Indians would have welcomed the decline and disappearance of Pakistan but with the rise of Islamic extremism and the acquisition of nuclear weapons ``a weak and failing Pakistan could be a greater threat to India than a coherent Pakistan''.

With the upcoming summit of the leaders of India and Pakistan in Agra and the insistence of Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he will be making Kashmir the centre-piece of the meeting, Dr. Cohen makes the point in his latest book that there would have to be a lot of ``stage management'' on the Kashmir problem given that both countries have invested so much on the issue over the years. The larger questions, according to the author, would mean coming to eventual grips of contested people, contested territory and two contested national identities.

``While Pakistan must move some distance from its entrenched view of how Kashmir could be resolved, prospects for agreement would be enhanced if India came to the realisation that conflict with Islamabad is an important barrier to India's full emergence as a major power'', says Dr. Cohen.

``A more tranquil domestic political order, expanded regional economic cooperation, a greater role in the Middle East and other adjacent regions, and perhaps a Security Council seat would all follow if India removes this millstone from around its neck.

If it does not, then it may have to learn to live with a Pakistan that can threaten and undercut it in many ways, but as long as this state of affair continues, Indian influence will suffer'', Dr. Cohen remarks.

Going beyond the standard stereotypes of what it is that makes India and how this had contributed to the perceptions of policy makers in Washington, Dr. Cohen in his new work, tries to make, in his words, a ``net assessment'' of the major factors that are critical to India's emergence as a great power.

In going about organising his work, Dr. Cohen has dealt with the world view of India's strategic elite, domestic dimensions, India as a military and nuclear power, as an Asian power, not to mention the discussion of India with Pakistan and the United States.

In his final chapter ``India Rising'', he argues that the prescription for relationships between the United States and India called for neither opposition nor alliance but for something in-between.

``There is no need to contain or oppose an India that is still struggling to reshape its economic and political order,especially since it is in U.S. interests that those domestic reforms proceed apace.

However, the United States cannot expect a strategic alliance that Delhi would view as a part of an anti-Pakistan or anti-China campaign'', says Dr. Cohen.

An ``in-between'' relationship, according to the author, would require developing new understandings between the U.S. and India in several areas including joint humanitarian intervention; deploying new defensive military technologies such as the theatre missile defence but without leading to arms race in Taiwan and South Asia; and joint steps to strengthen fragile democracies in Asia and elsewhere.

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Section  : International
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