Indo Pak Relationship Analysis

Indo-Pak Relations: Views of Pakistan’s Political and Religious Parties

Length (4000-5000 words)

Introduction:

The timeline of the soured relationship between India and Pakistan starts from 1947 after the exodus of the British Empire from the subcontinent. The seeds of a soured relationship between two neighbouring countries were germinated from mutual distrust, disputes, wars, and uncertainty of intentions. The relationship between India and Pakistan faces periodic ups and downs over the decades, in which two countries fought three major wars while trying to settle down their territorial preferences. The protracted history of volatile, impulsive and unstable relationship has been apprehensive towards an enduring peace and sustainable

The regional circumstances have continually forces Pakistan to adopt a security-centric stance and give scant attention to other foreign policy tools. The ongoing War on Terror has severely fractured the socio-economic fabric of Pakistan. The economy is in tatters and the loss of more than sixty thousand lives has inflicted a disturbing psychological and demoralizing impact on Pakistan’s national mindset which is still reeling from the confusion since joining War on Terror.

Indo-Pak relations are once again in the doldrums. The simmering tensions along the Line of Control (LoC) have put the entire Indo-Pak peace process on a perilous

Sustainable peace and stability in the region demands settling down all outstanding issues between the two arch-rivals including the dispute of J & K. Both countries are listed in developing countries, where half of the overall population lives below the poverty line. There are issues of poverty, education, health, climate change, human rights, which are much more important than spending billions on fruitless defence expending and deadly arms race.

The research aims to understand the religio-political parties’ stance on relationship with India in the discipline of foreign and defence policies and particularly on economic ties with India in the prevailing security environment. The research tried to encapsulate the strategies, if any, devised by the religio-political parties to counter the challenges being faced by the two states in terms of establishing long-term sustainable relations. A detail investigation of the party manifestos and existing literature was carried out to understand the Indo-Pak relations. Interviews with party representatives were also conducted to fill the gaps with information collected through secondary and tertiary