ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Pakistan and India can overcome the lingering trauma of Partition. The initial design of forcing an idea of Pakistan onto a territory where political structures at the level of region and locality were intact, jealous of their identity and watchful of their autonomy, led to alienation and eventually open rebellion. History has demonstrated that Pakistan and India – despite coming into the world as sister nations, born simultaneously from the events of 1947 – have taken very different political paths. The way past the present deadlock in India-Pakistan relations entails a probe into the trauma that led to Partition which deeply influences politics and requires a consequent change in mindsets and the introduction of appropriate institutions for seeking solutions to the enduring conflict. The Indian litany about the need for closer relations based on physical proximity and cultural commonalities feeds into it and makes Pakistanis insecure.
