Creating a Common Home? Indo-Pakistan Relations and the Search for Security in South Asia

Indo-Pakistan relations present the analyst and the policy maker with one of the most intransigent cases of mistrust, suspicion and threat to be found in the contemporary world. The early 1990s witnessed a series of diplomatic expulsions, mutual accusations of spying, the closing of consular offices, and allegations of covert support for separatist groups and militants operative in Kashmir, Sindh (especially Karachi), India's northeast and Baluchistan. In March 1993, a series of bomb explosions in the Indian city of Bombay killed 250 people, and led to the accusation that Pakistan was behind the carnage. In early 1996, a bomb explosion in Lahore led to similar accusations by the Pakistanis against India. In mid-1999, following incursions from the Pakistani side, the two countries fought a short war in the Kargil area of Kashmir.