[The Hindu] ... Paks... realise that seeking security in relation to a much larger neighbour is not the same thing as insisting on parity with it. All nations are equal in international law but sovereign equality is not synonymous with parity.

In any case, Pakistain is India's rival in real terms only as much as Belgium could rival La Belle France or Germany and Vietnam could hope to be on a par with China. India's population is six times larger than Pakistain's while its economy is 10 times the size of the Pak economy. Notwithstanding internal problems, India's $2 trillion economy has managed consistent growth whereas Pakistain's $245 billion economy has grown sporadically and is undermined by jihadi terrorism and domestic political chaos.

Country comparisons

India is expanding by most measures of national power while Pakistain has been able to keep pace with it only in manufacturing nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. Paks are often not told of the widening gap between the two countries in most fields.

For example, 94 per cent of India's children between five and 15 complete primary school compared with 54 per cent in Pakistain. Every year, 8,900 Indians get a PhD in the sciences compared with the 8,142 doctorates awarded by Pakistain's universities since Independence. The total number of books published in any language on any subject in Pakistain in 2013, including religious titles and children's books, stood at 2,581, against 90,000 in India.

The parity doctrine also requires Paks to see India as an existential enemy. Textbooks still tell Pak children that Hindu India threatens Islamic Pakistain and seeks to terminate its existence. Hardly anyone outside of Pakistain believes that to be true.

Nuclear deterrence and mutually assured destruction usually freeze conflicts and pave the way for détente as they did between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. But little has changed in the Pak ideology after the induction of nuclear weapons on the subcontinent. There is little recognition that with nuclear weapons, Pakistain no longer has any reason to feel insecure about being overrun by a larger Indian conventional force.

Kashmire issue

The notion of an existential threat to Pakistain is now only psycho-political and ideological. Pakistain has already fought four wars with India and lost half its territory in the process -- the erstwhile East Pakistain, which became Bangladesh in 1971.

As for Jammu and Kashmire, one need not deny Pakistain's initial claims to recognise that it might not be an issue that can be resolved in the foreseeable future. Jihadi militancy, since 1989, has failed to wrest Kashmire for Pakistain from India as has war and military confrontation.

Islamabad should also evaluate realistically its hope of internationalising the Kashmire issue. The last effective UN resolution on Kashmire was passed by the Security Council in 1957, when the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
had 82 members. Last year, with 193 members, Pakistain's Prime Minister was the only world leader who mentioned Jammu and Kashmire at the UN General Assembly.