ABSTRACT
Compressing the complex pattern of relations between India and Pakistan during a 22-year time-span is not easy. Pakistan during this period (1977-99) had the governments of Zia-ul-Haq, Benazir Bhutto, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Nawaz Sharif and Moinuddin Qureshi, with Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif coming back to power twice through elections. The government in India also went through parallel changes in leadership. Morarji Desai came to power in March 1977, a few months before Zia overthrew Bhutto in a military coup. Desai was succeeded by Charan Singh, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, P.V.Narasimha Rao, H.D.Deve Gowda, I.K.Gujral and Atal Behari Vajpayee. The point to remember is that Indo-Pakistan relations at one level were subject to political uncertainties and changes of governmental leadership, and at another level the general adversarity was punctuated by brief periods of thaw and normalisation, especially after democracy was revived in September 1988 with Benazir becoming prime minister.
