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Firstly, thanks a lot for being so proactive and constructive in this debate.No, war is not all that bad, I fully agree with you. But we have seen the result of the war and the humiliation of the Pakistani forces in 1971. What did change after that? Nothing, not one thing. Why it did not change? Because whoever came to power after Yahya was himself from the ruling elite class, a disciple of former dictators, Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan.
The situation in Pakistan is still not any different. If today the two countries go for a war, I can give you in writing that Pakistani forces will be defeated badly. Yet, this will change nothing, because the people who will replace them are still from the ruling elite class. That is why, I am suggesting that India has to work at grass root level. If there comes a revolution in Pakistan against the ruling elites and India has played a rule in it, perhaps that will solve the problem once for all.
Pakistan's elite class, at least on paper, is a federal democracy. The objectives of a revolution, while would aim at toppling this elite class, will be to radically change it. Which again means that you have to switch from democracy to another mode of legislature. Your repeated mentions of an almost invincible elite class shows me that the bulk of the revolution would be a 'class-struggle', you know what I'm getting at.
The only way I see that Pakistan can prosper while maintaining the present political system, would be:
- Facilitating the rise of the liberal, civil-society at the expense of the conservative fundamentalist one, quantitatively
- Working against fundamentalist elements, and ensuring education to all classes, and more importantly, both genders
- Maintain healthy people-to-people contact with your neighbour
- Work towards a border dispute solution that is less opportunistic, more in accordance with status-quo ante bellum (nothing changes territorially, you retain the territory you control and recognize the territory that you don't as the other's), and close the dispute
That will end our rivalry once and for all, and Pakistanis will be planning weekend drives to Agra. You know what, even India is in dire need of doing the above. Utopian as it seems, it isn't.