The Genesis of Indo-Pakistan Security Competition1

Abstract

Understanding the tortured history of Pakistan's revisionist agenda with respect to India is critical to appreciating the utility of LeT and other militants to Pakistan's deep state. For this reason, this chapter provides a brief history of the independence movement, the inherent communal ideologies that Pakistan's proponents mobilized to achieve an independent state, and a precis of the disastrous Partition process that gave rise to India and Pakistan. Three particular issues remain significant in contemporary Pakistan. First, many Pakistanis continue to pass onto their descendants these tales of communally motivated murder, rape, and mayhem that accompanied the countries' births. Second, Pakistanis continue to assert that the way in which the British parsed the districts of the Punjab was inherently unfair and prejudicial to Pakistan's interests. Third, Pakistanis believe that the princely state of Kashmir should have gone to Pakistan and that the way in which the British carved up the Punjab enabled India to mobilize troops against Pakistani invaders, thus thwarting Pakistani efforts to secure the state by force.