India and Pakistan have been each other's 'enemy number one' for more than sixty years. Even though China did try to make an entry into this dyad in 1962, yet it effectively remained the 'other'. We are gradually coming to see changes ushered in by globalization, challenging status quoist bias in policy. Yet, Indo-Pak relations are governed more by the habit of history than detached objectivity.

Pakistan is once again at cusp of far reaching changes owing to tumultuous developments both in the domestic arena as well as on its western frontier. The moot question is whether this crisis presents us an opportunity, not necessarily a Machiavellian one. Pakistan is on the throes of a violent sectarian Islamic upheaval, whose downward trend is almost inevitable. Or to put it in more anodyne terms, as an existential search for an identity more in line with puritanical Wahabism. Should India follow "Pakistan's Westward Drift" (Pervez Hoodbhoy, Himal, September, 2008) in mending relations where almost all habitual instrumentalities are well rehearsed to the point of becoming a caricature? Though policy makers have to keep up with the trend,creative diplomacy may provide an answer.

The Indian establishment could well take this crisis in Pakistan as an opportunity after the success of the nuclear deal, to stage a 'walk out' from 'high presence' in Pakistan, politically, diplomatically, mentally and emotionally. The very seduction to the idea that India has or should play an important role in stabilizing Pakistan is fallacious. The same analysts who were putting India and Pakistan as Siamese twins, are asserting that it is India which can do maximum to help Pakistan. India could do well to insulate itself from the growing Islamization in the region. India's over presence in the domestic discourse of Pakistan, will lead to fringe groups coalescing around an anti-India sentiment. India can draw solace from the fact that Pakistan has enough of domestic contradictions to keep it engaged in its "westward drift". To believe that India can form a stable relationship with a country undergoing existential drift to the core is mistaken.

India could help in the westward drift of Pakistan (both politically and geostrategically), minimizing, if not entirely exculpating the sub-continental traction. Thus, Indian interests in Afghanistan become as important as in Pakistan. This explains why ISI was involved in bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul. For India, Afghanistan acquires a tremendous tactical value, where it can not only seek to spread its influence, but also divert Pakistani pressure from East to the West. In fact it may happen that Pakistan might try to calibrate violence in the East to excuse itself from the Western theater of war in the Global War on Terror. It may happen but it will be of limited value and temporary phenomenon. The pressure from the Western sector is immense as George Bush recently said Pakistan is a major theatre in the war on terror.

The other state which holds much influence in Pakistan is China. India need not be fearful of the Chinese "all weather friendship." In fact one could see it in a positive light. India could use both China and the US as a lever of influence in stabilizing Pakistan. Indian profile in regional politics has grown and seeing the two relationships (Pakistan and China) in the worst case scenario of a two front war will be a very narrow view . In the Kargil conflict China had taken a neutral posture. China's close friendship with Pakistan will help dampen its existential crisis and inject necessary economic muscle. Pakistani society and state need guidance from its troubled present. In the 21st century one cannot allow profligacy of violence in the form of terrorism as a legitimate means of political representation. The US's strong presence in Pakistan and Afghanistan, may cajole if not force it in the right direction of abjuring terrorism as a state sponsored activity.

On Kashmir the logical connection between self-determination, identity, azadi and nation-state do not follow. The principle of self-determination which was indiscriminately applied in the post- World War I period as one of the Wilsonian fourteen points culminated in the Second World War. Self-determination means having full civil and political rights, owing to terrorism in Kashmir its full realization is constrained. India has not done enough in Kashmir to sell the idea of India. In fact, mentally we have disengaged from Kashmir, where it is a problem only to be managed, not people to be wooed. This explains why inordinate importance to some persons in Kashmir rather than processes. Democracy at best has been a convenient fig leaf to manipulate the system. Solution to Kashmir can be found only by connecting with the ordinary people, and helping them re-connect with India. The laying of the train link from Qazigund to Baramula is a good policy . Opportunities should be given to ordinary Kashmiris to deliberate the viability of azad Kashmir, or be a part of an increasingly sectarian Pakistan, or to take full part in the unparalleled democratic experiment called India.