Kanti Bajpai

Opinion | India and Pakistan can achieve peace ‘by pieces’ if they start small, take heart from history

To prepare the ground for more ambitious accords in future, New Delhi and Islamabad should dust off the previous agreements they have reached

Such pacts, on Sir Creek, the Siachen Glacier, trade and investment, are already on the table and could be signed with little further discussion or bargaining

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Indian and Pakistani border forces lower their respective flags at a daily ceremony held at the India-Pakistan Wagah Border Post. Photo: AFP

Kanti Bajpai

Published: 10:00am, 10 Dec 2021

India and Pakistan are famous for their incessant quarrelling that periodically spills over into war. They have, however, cooperated and made peace many times since 1947 – a history that even Indians and Pakistanis fail to remember and take encouragement from.

Today, a comprehensive “big bang” settlement of their core disputes is politically unviable, but “peace by pieces” could be achieved. New Delhi and Islamabad can, and should, dust off previous agreements – on trade, investment and some territorial disputes – to lay the foundation for more ambitious accords in future.

War and peace

India and Pakistan have an impressive record of cooperation and peace initiatives. Virtually every bilateral problem they had before 1964 – except Kashmir – was solved diplomatically, including a landmark 1960 agreement on sharing the waters of the Indus River that both have since honoured, even in wartime.

The two even came close to reaching a solution on Kashmir through bilateral talks and the United Nations, but negotiations that involved prominent Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdullah were abandoned following the death of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, in 1964.

Since then, India and Pakistan have gone to war three times – in 1965, 1971, and 1999 – and had several more scares: in 1986-87, 1990, 2001-2, 2008, and most recently, after 2019’s Pulwama terrorist attack in Kashmir that prompted Indian air strikes on Balakot in retaliation. However, the two sides have also signed peace treaties and agreements: in Tashkent, after the 1965 war; and in Simla, after the 1971 war. When tensions ran high after their respective nuclear tests in 1998, the two signed the Lahore Declaration, which included understandings on nuclear controls, in February 1999.

Pakistan’s then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif, left, (L) shakes hands with his Indian counterpart Atal Behari Vajpayee after signing the Lahore Declaration. Photo: Reuters

Even in war they have tacitly cooperated. Neither side has ever resorted to strategic bombing of population centres and both treat prisoners-of-war correctly. Violence during hostilities has been limited, and casualties have been low. In 1988, they signed an accord to exchange a list of nuclear facilities annually and have pledged not to attack each other’s reactors.