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India

The struggle between Hindus and Muslims across India is a thousand years old. Muslim conquerors stormed down from today’s Iran and Afghanistan to build some of the world’s richest and most powerful empires. A tolerant and complex civilization grew up across the subcontinent; Hindus and Muslims sometimes fought but often they lived together reasonably well and, as Muslims remember it, this was a happy and prosperous time.

British conquest of India destroyed the Islamic empires. Muslims (roughly 25% of the total population) lost the protection of powerful princes; the British sought to divide and rule the two communities, favoring now one and then then other. Muslims came to feel that the subcontinent sheltered two nations: one Hindu, one Muslim and that the differences between the two were so great that the Muslims needed their own state. Muslims insisted on and obtained the partition of British India into Hindu and Muslim states. Pakistan was the state for the Muslims.

The British left India in a hurry as the subcontinent descended into chaos. Millions of Hindus and Muslims on the wrong side of the dividing line fled or were driven from their homes. Something like 14.5 million refugees were created initially with ultimately about 25 million people moving from one country to the other; somewhere between 200,000 and 1,000,000 people were killed in vicious communal riots whose memory still poisons the region today.

British also allowed the rulers of the “princely states” to choose whether to join India or Pakistan; Kashmir’s ruler opted for India.. India won the war, and continues to hold most of the old princely state.

In subsequent years, life in both countries, but especially in Pakistan, was dominated by the consequences of Partition. Settling refugees, periodic wars, the running sore of Kashmir: all keep the memories alive. Almost everything in Pakistan’s history revolves around the unequal struggle with India.. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program is seen here as a triumph against the odds, and the nuclear arsenal is seen as the country’s last-ditch ace in the hole. Most Pakistanis are completely convinced that India is ceaselessly plotting Pakistan’s destruction and everything in Pakistani foreign policy boils down to a simple calculation about who is winning the zero-sum contest between these two states.

Since 1989 American foreign policy has been shiftinh slowly towards a strategic partnership with India. From an American perspective, the rise of India towards superpower status is one of the best things happening in the world today. The rise of India means China’s rise is likely to be peaceful; sharing Asia with India and Japan means that China is less likely to try to dominate Asia. A peaceful China balanced by powerful neighbors is exactly what the United States hopes to see.

The burgeoning US-India relationship frightens and horrifies Pakistan. The US takes India’s side in major controversies — blaming Pakistan for terrorism in Kashmir and India while doing nothing about India’s actions in Kashmir. Worst of all, the US is helping India gain access to nuclear materials and nuclear technologies while continuing to block Pakistan’s attempts in the field.

India is the first major issue driving the US and Pakistan apart; Americans should not underestimate its importance. India is an all consuming obsession for many people here, and the presence of a larger, rapidly growing and richer neighbor just 18 miles from Lahore is something many Pakistanis can never forget. The perception that America is betraying its old and faithful Pakistani ally to benefit from India’s rise unites the military and those in the religious community who hate and fear Hinduism even as it alienates many patriotic Pakistanis who have no religious ax to grind.

Afghanistan

The second major issue shaping negative Pakistani feelings about the United States is almost as important. Pakistanis are on the front lines in the war on terror and Afghanistan is, literally, right on their doorstep. Pakistanis have no confidence in America’s regional strategy and they are convinced that American blunders have created a multifaceted disaster that has already cost Pakistan dear. Many Pakistanis believe that the US invasion of Afghanistan was a mistake in the first place; Mullah Omar offered to send Osama Bin Laden to stand trial in a third country, they say, and the US should have accepted that. More, they argue that American policy from the beginning was a disaster. We invaded in the wrong place at the wrong time; we refused to work with the people who could have helped us; we lost our focus on Afghanistan to turn toward Iraq (a war deeply hated by many Pakistanis). Now, inevitably, the disaster in Afghanistan has spread across the border into Pakistan.

The US, Pakistanis say, has given only derisory military aid — $1.5 billion versus the estimated $40 billion the war has cost Pakistan. More, we are blaming the victim. The spread of radical violence in Pakistan is the direct result, they say, of the American war and blunders in Afghanistan. We even want them to dismantle their defenses against India to move forces to the Afghan frontier.

US threats against Iran threaten Pakistan’s economic interests and political stability. Pakistanis darkly suspect that Indian money and agents are responsible for violence in troubled parts of Pakistan. Many Pakistanis believe that on top of everything else, the US is now getting ready either to cut and run in Afghanistan, leaving Pakistan with the thankless task of sweeping up, or, worse, handing northern Afghanistan to India.

America and Islam

The third problem is that many Pakistanis fear — and some are convinced — that Americans are anti-Muslim.. The relative silence in the US about the situation in Kashmir compared to American hyperventilation about other problems strikes many Pakistanis as further proof that Americans don’t care as much about human rights problems that Muslims experience.

"Why, Pakistanis darkly wonder, do Hollywood stars fall all over themselves about poor Tibet, but Americans seem to glide right past the problems of Kashmir? Is this part of a global struggle against Islam?" Many Pakistanis think so. Islam stands at the core of Pakistan’s identity. Without Islam, there is no rationale for partition. Unlike many Muslim countries that have an ethnic as well as a religious identity), Pakistan’s ethnic groups have only Islam to hold them together. Take Islam away and there is no point to Pakistan.

Unwelcome Influence

Fourth, Pakistanis think Americans make all the big decisions here and that Pakistan’s institutions, including the military, have to knuckle under to American pressure. They sometimes talk about the “three As” that run Pakistan: Allah, the Army and America.

Most Pakistanis seem convinced that the US prefers military to democratic governments in Pakistan, and that America’s alliance with Pakistan’s own corrupt civilian elites and unpopular military rulers is the main reason that these undesirable people have controlled the country for so long.

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I guess I'm not sold on the idea that America as a nation is anything more than the sum of its parts: 300million strong English-founded nation with a (inherited) continent full of resources and a historical lucky streak... Perhaps if Canada or Australia were 300 million strong they would be better, more successful countries?

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You want to waste time in understanding folks who continue to live with values from before the dark ages

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