When Donald Trump claims to have helped bring peace to several conflicts, this one between Pakistan and India is one of the ones he is talking about.
There are also important bridges with Iran, even if Pakistan is an ally of Saudi Arabia. The two countries have several interests in common, such as combating Baluchi separatism on both sides of the border, and it is important to highlight that despite being a country with a Sunni Muslim majority, Pakistan has the second largest Shiite community after Iran.
Pakistan’s desire for protagonism comes at a time when it is practically at war with Afghanistan, accusing Kabul, where the Taliban once again rule, of providing shelter to Pakistani Taliban groups that use terrorism to destabilize the country. A delicate situation on the western border when, for almost eight decades, disputes on the eastern border remain unresolved. There have been three Indo-Pakistani wars to date, a count that does not cover certain moments of great tension and even armed confrontation such as that of 1999 or the aforementioned one, which took place last year. Kashmir is a major focus of dispute, because if India, with a Hindu majority, but which makes plurality its flag, does not give up the only state with a Muslim majority, Pakistan, born to be a homeland for the Muslims of South Asia, has a reference to that region in its own name.
The partition of India by the British at the time of decolonization took place, it will be eight decades in 2027. The death shortly after independence of the founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, greatly harmed the evolution of Pakistan, which also lost the eastern part, today’s Bangladesh, in 1971. Unlike India, where the military remained in barracks respecting democracy and civil power, in Pakistan the generals have always been powerful, for long periods some of them were even presidents, complicating the democratic game. The strength of political dynasties is also immense in Pakistan, even if the current prime minister is the brother of a previous one and President Asif Ali Zardari is the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. It should be noted that this issue of political parties linked to the family is a common phenomenon throughout South Asia, as is the well-known case of the Nehru-Gandhi in India.
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