In a news discussion on Pakistan earlier this week, NDTV’s Prannoy Roy asked me, with a mix of exasperation and longing, if it would be possible some day for India to leave Pakistan behind (aside?) and carry on? The cause for exasperation that particular evening was the Pakistan government’s declaration in their national assembly that they had banned Jamat-ud-Dawa — while the organisation continued with its activities brazenly and its chief had been freed just the other day. Longing, because if only India were to be rid of that deadly distraction that hobbles it at every step, it would be so much better placed to leverage its many newfound strengths.

Now, at a pinch you can even shake away the burdens of history. But geography? Can you ever escape that? Can an entire nation collect green cards or H-1Bs or whatever and migrate some place far, far away? While it is a simple enough truism that you cannot choose your neighbours, our most difficult neighbour is also a product of recent, bitter history. It makes it that much more challenging for an Indian leadership to “leave it behind” or “aside”. Pakistan can be neither our Canada (there is far too much historical baggage), nor Mexico because that kind of disparity is just not there. Yet, somehow India’s leaders must find a way now to peel away. We have invested a whole decade of foreign policy effort to get the Americans to de-hyphenate their India policy. Are we now capable of de-hyphenating our own foreign policy from Pakistan? Can we think creatively enough to even move in that direction? I use the expression “creative thinking” because for so long now our immediate reflexes and even policy responses have come to be governed by the same hostility and insecurity that block any new thinking.

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