Shivshankar Menon roundtable on India-Pakistan Relations

Brookings India hosted a luncheon discussion on ‘India-Pakistan Relations’ on November 23, 2015 at the Private Dining Hall in India International Centre (IIC) from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm. The discussion featured Dr. Arvind Gupta, Deputy National Security Advisor and was moderated by Shivshankar Menon, Distinguished Fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings and India’s former National Security Adviser and Foreign Secretary.

Titled “India in the World” the roundtable series will feature prominent keynote speakers in interaction with Mr. Menon over the coming months. The objective of the private roundtable discussion is to engage leading experts on issues of significance to India’s foreign policy and to provide direct policy-relevant inputs to Indian decision makers.

Relations between India and Pakistan have witnessed a roller-coaster ride in the past one year since Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office. The initial breakthrough in relations, with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attending Narendra Modi’s inauguration, soon gave way to cancellation of foreign secretaries’ talks and exchange of fire across the Line of Control. The bilateral relationship has only deteriorated further in the last few months. Relations between India and Pakistan at the moment are ad-hoc and lack a comprehensive strategy for future engagement. What can the Indian government realistically achieve vis-à-vis Pakistan? What does the short and long term engagement look like? What would be the role of other countries such as China, the United States and Russia and how can these countries affect the South Asian region? The discussion attempted to answer some of these questions that define the complicated Indo-Pakistan relationship.