Chapter Eight

a ‘delinking policy’. That is to say, the question of Kashmir’s political status should be delinked from other important human concerns in the context of relations between India and Pakistan. The Kashmir question should then be sought to be resolved entirely through peaceful dialogue. As regards other, non-political issues, relations between the two countries should be fully normalised. For instance, with regard to trade, education, travel, tourism, cultural relations and other such matters, India and Pakistan should establish fully normal and friendly relations— the same sort of relations as exist, for instance, between India and Nepal or between the different European countries. The advantage of this solution would be that the Kashmir question would not stand in the way of progress on other fronts as far as India-Pakistan relations were concerned, as is the case at present. The biggest blunder of the Pakistani leadership with regard to Kashmir is that they are still living in the past. They want to extract the price of their mistakes from the other party. Completely ignoring an unchangeable principle of nature, they want to build an imaginary world of their own. However, this is completely impossible in the real world. Pakistan’s completely unrealistic approach to the Kashmir question has greatly damaged Pakistan itself. If it continues with this unrealistic approach, its final consequence could be an enormously destructive war between Pakistan and India. If, God forbid, such a war breaks out, it would prove deadly for both countries. However, because India is a large country, it will be able to bear it. But Pakistan, in comparison, is a much smaller country. Today, it refuses to accept India’s control over Kashmir. But in the event of such a devastating war, Pakistan would itself have to accept coming under the control of numerous countries to recover and remain alive with their assistance. And as far as Kashmir is concerned, its political map will have remained completely unaltered.