World | India
Ambitious Indians give peace a chance
With a deadly attack on its embassy in Afghanistan, Pakistani troops clashing with its soldiers in disputed Kashmir and Islamist militants bombing its cities, India has in recent months seemed a country under siege.
- AP
- Published: 00:02 August 10, 2008
New Delhi: With a deadly attack on its embassy in Afghanistan, Pakistani troops clashing with its soldiers in disputed Kashmir and Islamist militants bombing its cities, India has in recent months seemed a country under siege.
Just don't ask it to live like one.
Its ancient markets are as packed as ever. Its bright new malls bustle as never before. And few talk of avenging attacks that just a few years ago would likely have brought South Asia's nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of war. It's a turn-the-other-cheek attitude that is tempting to see as weakness, and some here say it reflects the lack of options available to India, where seemingly no one wants to abandon a four-year peace process with Pakistan.
But in India's restraint, many here also see a pragmatic approach to a problem as old as the country itself. It's the response, they say, of a nation with ambitions to become a global powerhouse, not a mere player in an unending regional feud.
"We can't keep going back at it with Pakistan. Where would that leave us?" university student Sanjay Joshi asked. "We've done war. We're in a different place now. It's not about India-Pakistan. It's about India, what can we do as a country, what can we achieve," he said.
Sitting in one of the bright, new coffee shops that have sprung up in recent years throughout this land of roadside tea stalls, Joshi gave off the air of a man unrestrained by ancient traditions, old rivalries, past injustices.
New sentiment
One of his friends, 21-year-old Reema Sarin, said: "What do I care for Pakistan? We should all leave each other alone." It's a sentiment that flies in the face of history.
Hindu-majority India and Muslim Pakistan were born in the bloody partition of the subcontinent at independence from Britain in 1947. They have fought three wars, held tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests and engaged in countless battles before peace talks got under way in 2004.
For India, the peace talks' timing could not have been better. Its economy was taking off and the dialing-down of tensions with Pakistan allowed it to start carving out an identity separate from its troubled neighbour.
India could start claiming what it always considered its rightful place as a world power. It began lobbying for a UN Security Council seat, flexed its economic muscles and, within a year, it reached a landmark nuclear energy cooperation deal with the US.
The agreement would reverse three decades of American policy by allowing atomic trade with India, which has not signed international nonproliferation accords.
India's leaders say the deal will help the country power its energy-hungry economy and raise its global standing.
However, the deal must still be approved by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) of countries that export nuclear material.
But that doesn't mean India and Pakistan are close to securing a lasting peace.
Last month, tensions rose after a suicide car bombing at New Delhi's mission in Kabul killed 58 people. India and Afghanistan - and, reportedly, the US - believe Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, orchestrated the attack.
The bombing is widely viewed as a Pakistani attempt to undermine India's budding friendship with Afghanistan, which Islamabad considers a strategic rear base in any potential conflict with India. Pakistan denies any role but has promised to investigate.
"We know the promise is weak, but there is relatively little India can do short of military action, and we do not have the stomach for that," said Radha Kumar, the director at Jamia Millia Islamia University's Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution.
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