Ajay Bisaria’s Anger Management is a unique book that tells the story of India-Pakistan diplomacy from the point of view of its practitioners on the ground. It explores the journey of bilateral diplomacy since 1947, examining the seminal events of each decade, the military actions, the diplomatic highs and lows. The pattern that emerges is characterized by attempts at constructive conversations periodically interrupted by conflict and violence—of several false dawns and dashed hopes.
Apart from the scholarship and the mastery of the diplomatic interaction between India and Pakistan, the book is commanding for the levels at which it tells the story. One level, of course, is the Indo-Pak diplomatic exchanges. The second level is the details of internal developments, especially in Pakistan and also in India aligning with the diplomatic narrative. The third level is the global power play that impacts the relationship. This gives the reader a 360-degree view of the unfolding relationship and developments.
Bisaria’s accurate assessment is that the Indo-Pak relationship is determined by one overwhelming factor: Pakistan’s quest for identity based on territory and security. Pakistan took on the additional burden of determining, even inventing an identity distinct from India’s. Indicative of this was Jinnah shifting Independence from 15 August to 14 August to distinguish Pakistan’s identity as well as birth from India’s midnight hour. Unfortunately for him and for Pakistan, the 15th was the ‘night of destiny’, the last Friday of Ramzan and perhaps Pakistan would have had a more fortunate destiny had he not changed the date.
To my mind there was another, deeper factor at play. The movement that culminated in the creation of Pakistan had its roots in the feeling of insecurity that had crept into a section of the Muslim elite in north India, that they had become a minority. This insecurity was not due to the numbers because they were always a minority, but due to the loss of power resulting from the long decline of the Mughal Empire and the growing domination of the British. Loss of power coupled with the introduction of representative government based on one-man one-vote raised fears of becoming permanently subordinate to the majority Hindus.
As a result, Jinnah and the Muslim League did not accept the democratic norm of one-man, one-vote, thinking they would be swamped by the Hindu electorate. They wanted parity or equal weight in electoral rights for the minority Muslim population with the majority Hindu electorate. Without this extra weight, the Muslim League believed, Muslims were vulnerable to being denied their due political rights. It was this demand that lay at the core of the argument for Pakistan. Post-1947, this has been translated into an obsessive desire for parity between India and Pakistan.
Bisaria makes an important point that while the main drivers of diplomacy between India and Pakistan have been the leaders of the two countries, structural factors have also played a critical role. He identifies the primary structural flaw in the relationship as the Pakistan army’s paranoia about India.
The book highlights the central flaw in Pakistan: Lack of fresh thinking about Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). In 1947 the Pakistani army pushed ‘raiders’ into J&K; in 1965 they used ‘infiltrators’; in 1999 they used army soldiers dressed as mujahideen in Kargil. In 1947 and 1965 Pakistan made the critical error of assuming that Kashmir was a ‘ripe fruit’ about to fall into its lap. The army made the same miscalculation in Kargil, hoping to capture some border territory in a conflict limited to Kashmir and to bring India to the negotiating table through renewed international attention.
In somewhat similar manner have been the assertions of several Pakistani leaders about peace. Speaking at an India Today conclave in March 2004, Pakistani president Gen. Pervez Musharraf said India and Pakistan “must bury the past and chart a new roadmap for peace.” But, he went on to add, Kashmir is the central issue that awaits “just and durable settlement” and there was an indigenous freedom struggle “being waged in Kashmir.” Musharraf’s peace rhetoric of two steps forward and one back would often be repeated by Pakistan’s leaders, both civilian and military. Imran Khan used it in 2018 after he became Prime Minister and army chief Gen. Qamar Bajwa deployed it in 2021. The PML-N manifesto released in the run up to the 2024 elections says much the same thing.
The book provides some fascinating insights, like how an exasperated Sri Prakash, India’s first High Commissioner to Pakistan, advocated a simple solution to J&K: hand over the territory to Pakistan! Pandit Nehru had to admonish Sri Prakash. Another: that during the 1965 war, the Indian mission in Karachi was not sure if the two countries were actually at war. A query made with the Pakistan Foreign Office elicited the response that they would refer the matter to higher ups for a response! During the same 1965 war, the Pakistani foreign secretary summoned the Indian High Commissioner and described the Indian leadership as “rabid Hindu leaders” and “Hindu fascists.” This offers an understanding that the current Pakistani obsession of designating India as “Hindu India” and “fascist Hindu India’” is not new and goes back decades.
Crystal ball-gazing, Bisaria asks how the future will unfold in 2047. He offers three broad scenarios: business as usual; conditional optimism; and conditional pessimism. The first implies a continuation of tensions with periodic episodes of working towards normalcy. The second implies a Pakistan moving towards becoming a ‘normal’ state leading to a normalized relationship, if not a friendly one. The third implies the two countries moving along the path of aggravating tensions with significant risks of further conflict or worse, nuclear Armageddon.
Overall, this is a remarkable book. It is a book that everyone interested in Indo-Pak relations should have by their bedside, since it is a comprehensive account and analysis of all that has happened since 1947.
Bisaria, Ajay, Anger Management: The Troubled Diplomatic Relationship between India and Pakistan. Repro India Limited, 2024.
Tilak Devasher is an author and member of the National Security Advisory Board.
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