(Shaoni Sarkar’s essay is among the Top 10 of the My Report Debate II. Participants were asked the question: How to fix the India-Pakistan relationship – Jaadu ki jhappi or surgical strike?)
The relationship between India and Pakistan has become, at the ground level, disenfranchised of its complex history – so blown up that cricket can seem like a battleground instead of a site for socio-cultural exchange. India’s relationship with Pakistan is not to be fixed by our Prime Minister’s machismo. All that the championing of a hyper-masculine, aggressive state can do is engender such emotive force as can serve specific domestic political agendas, especially if it occurs at a time when elections are near and anti-incumbency is strong.