Relations between India and Pakistan appear to be coursing through a cordial phase. Recent developments like Pakistan’s decision to grant Most Favoured Nation status to India, Islamabad’s appreciation of the Indian cooperation to secure a permanent UN seat, and releasing the Indian Army helicopter that flew across the Line of Control suggests a sense of cordiality.

Perhaps the decision to grant MFN status signals a shift in Pakistani policy towards India, but to what extent it will have a bearing on political and diplomatic relations in the long term remains to be seen. All the same, an expansion of India-Pakistan trade ties is a positive and significant step forward towards normalisation of bilateral relations.

The overwhelming need to normalise relations between the two neighbours is evident from the volume of illegal or informal trade that flows freely across their contiguous borders. The informal cross-border trade is estimated to be thrice the volume of formal trade. Clearly, therefore, the economies on either side are inherently inclined towards normalisation of bilateral relations.

While the normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan has eluded the two neighbours for six decades since independence, any such expectations in so short a time frame may be unrealistic. But that does not mean that the two sides have to abandon all hope. They need to sustain their political and diplomatic efforts towards this objective — however utopian. After all, it is well known that where diplomacy ends the potential for war begins to take shape.

Historically, the first 1947-48 war between the two countries spawned immense insecurity in the national psychology of the new Muslim state. In turn, it resulted in hostility and shaped their political relations for the future punctuated by three more wars.

Considering Pakistan was founded on the basis of religious nationalism, its other two neighbours, Afghanistan and Iran being Muslim nations, were never perceived as hostile states. But India, as the third non-Muslim neighbour with whom Pakistan had fought a war — logically became a threat to national security.

The challenges of normalisation arise owing to complexities in India-Pakistan relations given the degree of mistrust between them.

For instance, Pakistan is uncomfortable over India’s proximity to Afghanistan as much as India has justifiable reasons to be anxious over Pakistan-China relations. Given that Pakistan’s strategic stature is characterised by an asymmetry of power vis-à-vis India, Islamabad attempts to use diplomacy as an instrument of foreign policy to cultivate close relations with the US and China to balance India. So much so, Pakistan’s national security and foreign policy towards India needs to gradually undergo a paradigm shift for the MFN status to have a wider and positive impact on their bilateral relations.

Today there is a demand in Pakistan to debate the philosophy of national security, especially about the overwhelming need to project India as a threat and embark on an arms race that continues for 60 years. Such a policy has skewed Pakistan’s priorities in terms of defence over development. Similarly in India too, the hardliners in the security bureaucracy are veering around to the view that a policy of engagement with Pakistan is unavoidable to accomplish some peace dividend.

Given the sense of despondency that is otherwise synonymous with India-Pakistan ties, one must remember that such state of affairs only exists at the government-to-government level. Otherwise hope that there is scope for normalisation of bilateral relations is evident from the friendly nature that characterises people-to-people relations in either country or elsewhere. For instance, there are any number of instances of positive people-to-people relations between India and Pakistan. The classic one is about how fellow Indians and Pakistanis tend to develop friendly interpersonal relations with each other owing to their common South Asian identities when they are abroad.

While the hardliner elements in Pakistan, synonymous with the religious-political or Islam pasand parties, are hell bent to sustain the status quo in ties with India, it is only the liberal and saner voices that seek peaceful relations with India. While the MFN status is the first step towards normalisation of relations with India, the next one would be for Pakistani civil society — the news media, trade bodies, industry associations, academia, legal fraternity and the political class — to debate the existing national security philosophy and alter the perception of India as a friend and not a foe.