Diminish, deter, de-hyphenate: The 3D solution for India's Pakistan problem

Last week, National Interest teased a sequel: The perils of self-hyphenation. What does this mean?
For three decades de-hyphenation from Pakistan has been the centre point of our grand strategy. But we can't move away from Pakistan physically or strategically. As Atal Bihari Vajpayee's immortal line goes: 'You cannot choose your neighbours.' India is particularly 'blessed' in that respect, with two big hostile nuclear-armed neighbours.
They are in a tight strategic alliance, which is today perhaps the strongest in the world after America and Israel. Yet they're different countries, with shared interests but different priorities. You have to have the wherewithal to deal with them. Ideally, one at a time but be prepared in case they decide to collude, either indirectly as principal-and-proxy, as during Operation Sindoor, or, who knows, in active warfare. The first element of Indian grand strategy, therefore, has to be to prevent.
Of the two, militarily and economically, India is much better equipped to deal with Pakistan. China is the really formidable challenge that we will need years to either match up to, or to create sufficient mutual vested interest in stable peace. That is where the idea of de-hyphenation with Pakistan comes from. It is wise, and has been pursued by every Prime Minister since Indira Gandhi's second coming in 1980.
India has pushed back sharply at any suggestion of an Indo-Pak policy from Western powers (read the United States). Progress on this was slow, until the first Bill Clinton term, and then picked up. In the two decades since the nuclear deal, it has moved at a sprinting pace.
India pushed it to the extent that it objected if a Western leader combined visits to India and Pakistan. The two-country rule was seen as an offence and another name of hyphenation, however convenient it might have been for visitors. The first sign it was working came during Mr Clinton's post-Kargil visit when he did touch down in Pakistan but left after a few hours at the airport, having delivered a finger-wagging 'maps in the subcontinent can no longer be redrawn in blood' warning to the Pakistanis. This principle is now so firmly established that we just saw how the Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visiting India as our Republic Day chief guest was gently dissuaded from adding Pakistan to the itinerary. The Americans used a different description, saying that their view on the subcontinent is not a zero-sum game. That they could have ties with India and Pakistan independent of each other and unencumbered by the burdens of the Cold War.
The Simla Agreement is rooted in this principle — that henceforth, India and Pakistan will both discuss all their issues bilaterally. It implied that no third party, no mediator had any further role to play, and that the old UN Security Council Resolutions were accordingly rendered obsolete.
This is why India became so triggered by Donald Trump's repeated assertion (16 times so far) that he brought about the peace between India and Pakistan. The Congress latched on, accusing Narendra Modi of surrendering under Mr Trump's pressure ('Narender, surrender') and he responded. At this point, however, it looks like both sides have calmed down. Hopefully, what both sides call the most consequential strategic relationship of the 21st century will survive this turbulence.
Let's be optimistic now and hope that Mr Trump takes a chill pill on the subcontinent, understanding that if he so needs a Nobel, this is the wrong geostrategic patch for him to find it. If India and Pakistan do really decide on a permanent peace, why would they give some outsider the credit? There are Nobel hopefuls here as well. Everybody can be aspirational, and in this case, in a good way.
How will the picture look if and when Mr Trump does calm down? That's the question that takes us back to self-hyphenation. Check out the number of times Pakistan features in our, mostly the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's), political discourse, and not necessarily after Op Sindoor. It's a harsh reality, but must be stated, that over the years, this BJP government has pretty much built its domestic politics around a permanently hostile Pakistan.
I don't know how you prefer to analyse these things. But if you simply did a word-cloud analysis of all speeches by the Prime Minister, you will find Pakistan featuring, compared to China, 100:1. In fact, maybe even more than that. How does one explain this, when we are also told that China is the real long-term threat to India? Pakistan doesn't matter so much. We've left it so far behind.
It is a belief shared across the political and intellectual divide going back four decades. General Krishnaswamy Sundarji, in a famous 1986 interview with India Today, had said: 'China is the real challenge. Pakistan can be handled en passant.' Fun fact: That's the first time I read that expression. It means 'in passing' and is drawn from nonchalantly knocking off a pawn in chess. You might translate it into Hindi as 'chalte chalte'. As in, Pakistan ko hum chalte chalte sambhal sakte hain.
How has what we thought we could handle en passant in 1986 returned to centre stage? The short answer: We've reinstalled it there. The Modi government has done it by making Pakistan an essential feature of its domestic politics. This political formulation isn't at all twisted. It is quite linear. Pakistan equals terrorism, which means Islamist terrorism, and suffice it to say, makes the core of the politics of Hindu-Muslim polarisation.
India's larger strategic plan of these three decades is sound and pragmatic. Stabilise the situation with China and respond only to the gravest provocation. Create the time to build India's economy and reposition it favourably in the post-Cold War era as its comprehensive national power (CNP) rises.
Meanwhile, keep advising the world not to hyphenate you with Pakistan, as you've moved into a different orbit, and are poised to jump higher still. But, are we following that advice ourselves?
The evidence of the past decade isn't reassuring — especially since 2019, after Pulwama won the Modi government its biggest election victory yet. Since then, Pakistan has become central to the Modi-BJP politics. This is our self-hyphenation.
It has now reached a stage where even the Pakistanis would think they can game our responses. They will end up suffering more in the end, as we saw again in their battered airbases. But if they were so rational, they won't be trapped in this permanent enmity with India. This also guarantees Pakistan army its pre-eminence there. See how Op Sindoor has pulled Asim Munir from the public opinion doghouse to national adulation.
This underlines the perils of self-hyphenation. By making Pakistan central to its politics, the BJP has now created an unexpected predicament for itself, and for India — where its domestic political interests are clashing with India's geopolitical priorities.
Indian strategists are smart and need space to deal with this Trumpian world of many simultaneous wars. They will be strengthened by a reboot in our domestic politics. On Pakistan, our diplomats should use their skills to keep diminishing the threat, as focused military spending builds deterrence. Meanwhile, the BJP's politics should drop this re-hyphenation. Diminish, deter, de-hyphenate. That's the 3D solution to our Pakistan problem.

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