Pakistan's India Policy: Shift from Zia to Benazir
Authors: Bhogal Parminder S. 
Published: January 2023

According to Sajjad Hyder, an ex-Ambassador of Pakistan in India, “The first determinant of our foreign policy is safeguarding Pakistan from India.” 1 Pakistan's India policy occupies a very significant role in Pakistan's overall foreign policy. In other words, Pakistan's foreign policy mainly revolves around its India policy, or is Indocentric. The major reason behind such a trend is the historic background of Indo-Pak relations. It will be apt to say that, “In large measure, Pakistani feeling {and policy) towards India has been a continuation of the political struggle before partition.” 2 Support to the idea of Pakistan among Indian Muslims arose basically from the feeling of fear and insecurity both real and propagandised. The feeling of insecurity was indeed vis-a-vis the majority Hindu community and their certain dominance over India once it became free. This feeling aroused mistrust and hence misunderstanding and this was strengthened by the psychological trauma “resulting from the way the sub-continent was divided between India and Pakistan There was a complete emotional upset of all the people in India and Pakistan because of this.” 3 Such a psychological condition has been a very strong factor behind Pakistan's India-centric foreign policy. As a result, “from the day Pakistan emerged on the world map as a sovereign independent country, the main plank of Pakistan's foreign policy has been to obtain a shield against a possible attack from India.” 4 The calculations of Pakistan's foreign policy-makers, in fact, revolves around the India factor— Pakistan's overriding concern vis-a-vis India, fear of its sheer size and size of the army.” 5

There is a continuing feeling in Pakistan that India has not reconciled to the partition of 1947 and is bent upon destroying and dismembering it. Such a psyche is mainly the result of the deliberate propaganda which was sustained by the statements of some communal leaders in India, as well as by misinterpreting the broad statements on the part of secular Indian leadership like Jawaharlal Nehru. But such a feeling was aggravated after the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. Whatever may be the factors, people in Pakistan do widely believe in this. The leader of the Opposition in the Pakistan National Assembly, Mohammad Aslam Khattak remarked during a debate:

It is a fact that India never reconciled herself to the partition of Pah Indian sub-continent. They always cherish this secret desire and dream that partition may be undone one day. The hostility of India has been a nightmare for the foreign policy-makers of this country. 6 (Pakistan National Assembly Debates-1964).

Again, as Ambassador Sajjad Hyder puts the same fear in this way: “To us in Pakistan the reason for this malise is our perception that beneath a thin veneer, the Indian leadership and a sizeable segment of its following continue to regard the formation of Pakistan as an historical error forced on India, that given the opportunity they would like in some way to redress the situation and that in their mind, the 1971 War supported this presumption.”

Apart from the above aetiology there are a number of other factors also behind the evolution of Pakistan's foreign policy. These include, the psychological need for parity, interests of the ruling elites, the fear of being reduced to a satellite state of India and above all using the existing hostility of bilateral relations to justify and rationalise all kinds of foreign aid from all sources as also to legitimise the creation and existence of Pakistan in the eyes of its own public and the world at large.