A Cold Comparison, Not a Romantic One
There is only one historical analogy worth using when discussing Pakistan ārejoiningā India: the Act of Union of 1707 between Scotland and England. Not Rome and Greece. Not Yugoslavia. Not German reunification. And certainly not civilizational nostalgia. The reason is simple. The 1707 Union was not about love, memory, or reconciliation. It was about bankruptcy, security, elite survival, and managed loss of sovereignty without humiliation. That is the only way such a union could ever happen.
Union Is an Elite Exit, Not a Popular Dream
Scotland did not join England because it felt British. It joined because it was broke. The Darien Scheme collapsed. The Scottish state was insolvent. The elite faced personal ruin. England controlled capital, markets, and trade. The Act of Union absorbed Scottish debt,Ā protected elite property, preserved law and church, dissolved sovereignty while preserving status. The public opposed it. It passed anyway. Unions are not plebiscites. They are elite exits under pressure.
Pakistanās Position Is Structurally Similar
Pakistan today is not Scotland in 1707. But the resemblance is close enough to matter. Pakistan is chronically indebted, permanently IMF-dependent, over-militarised by design, economically capped by scale and FX limits. It is run by elites whose lives are already offshore, Like Scotland, the state is failing faster than rents can be extracted, sovereignty has become expensive, security dominates fiscal policy and there is no credible independent growth path. This is not ideology. It is arithmetic.
Why India Is England in This Analogy
England did not seek union out of affection. It wanted security, alignment, and control of risk. India faces a permanent western security distraction, diplomatic and military overhang and a neighbour whose instability spills outward. A union would benefit India too, but only if India behaves like England did: confident, restrained, and transactional. England demanded alignment. It did not demand cultural victory.
The Military Is Pakistanās Darien Scheme
Pakistanās real failure is not economic. It is institutional. The permanent security state crowds out development, weakens civilian rule, replaces productivity with rent-seeking and cannot withdraw without humiliation. A union offers something no treaty can: a face-saving off-ramp. The military would not be defeated. It would be absorbed, reduced, and redeployed, as Scottish regiments once were. Loss of autonomy. Not loss of honour. That difference matters.
Islam Without Existential Burden
Pakistan must constantly perform its reason for being. It must justify its existence, prove Islamic legitimacy and defend borders as theology. Whereas inside a union, Islam stops being existential, Muslim identity becomes social, not geopolitical and Faith survives better without state dependency. Scotland did not stop being Presbyterian in 1707. It stopped needing Presbyterianism to justify sovereignty. That release is power.
Kashmir Is Only Solvable Inside a Union
Outside a union, Kashmir is zero-sum where compromise is betrayal, militarisation is permanent. Inside a union, borders soften, autonomy becomes real and identity detaches from sovereignty. England and Scotland fought for centuries. Union did not erase difference. It made it manageable. Kashmir cannot be won. It can only be domesticated.
Why This Is Not German Reunification
German reunification is a bad analogy because it assumes symmetry. East and West Germany were one nation, one language, one identity and one legitimacy claim (like the Koreas or China\Taiwan). East Germany collapsed. Its population demanded absorption. West Germany replaced its institutions wholesale. Pakistan is not a collapsed twin of India. It is a rival nation built on non-India. It is militarily intact. It is ideologically self-justifying. There is no Leipzig 1989 in Pakistan. German reunification was popular. An IndiaāPakistan union would be elite-driven and deeply unpopular. Germany absorbed losers anyway, and still carries resentment decades later. Pakistanās losers would revolt immediately. Scotland negotiated. East Germany surrendered. Pakistan would do neither.
The Absolute Red Lines
Pakistan alas would never join a Hindu civilizational state, a centralized Delhi empire and an āAkhand Bharatā narrative. The Act of Union worked because England avoided humiliation, preserved asymmetry, protected institutions and did not perform victory. Union requires confidence. Not chest-thumping.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Pakistan would not join India because “Partition was a mistake“, shared cultures or that somehow history was misunderstood. It would join because sovereignty is unaffordable, decline costs more than dignity loss and Elites survive better inside than outside. As capital and security lie east, not west, it may be that the Indian Subcontinent assess with an integrated political infrastructure would look and feel like. The Act of Union was not a romance. It was an accounting exercise with swords still warm. If such a union ever happens, it will look the same: cold, negotiated, elite-driven, unpopular, and decisive. That is not a fantasy. It is the only form a union like this has ever taken.
One thing not being taken into account is Kashmiri TFR. Kashmir’s “freedom struggle” will end for the same reason the Native Americans did – they just died out.
Already the blue collar class is from the hindi belt.
I think you’re being intentionally inflammatory with this TFR notion.
An IndiaāPakistan union would be elite-driven and deeply unpopular.
well, unpopular with whom? the pakistani masses don’t care. their elites would become subordinates. they will resent. in my opinion, there is still more juice to be squeezed out. what might happen will be trade, cultural exchange, etc.which will favour the elite.
sadly that kind of cultural elite on the indian side are in a minority now.
Partition is not going to be undone.
There is honestly no desire among Pakistanis to become part of a Hindu-majority country. Similarly, there is no desire among Bangladeshis for Bangladesh to join West Bengal.
Islam is a core part of Pakistani identity. India is also becoming more and more aggressively Hindu. There is no way any type of union can take place under these circumstances. Pakistanis and Indians can barely get along on a blog like this. We cannot be part of the same country.
In the past, I would have been happy to advocate for some kind of a South Asian Union along the lines of the EU. However, subsequent events have shown that that is a non-starter. India and Pakistan barely have diplomatic relations, the borders are closed etc. We need to get to a place where we can behave like normal neighboring states that don’t need to particularly like each other but also are not on the brink of going to war. But that requires India to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. There needs to be some dialogue on Kashmir. Personally, I believe the Musharraf-Manmohan Plan is the best deal either country will ever get.
As long as the Hindu Right is in power things will only get worse not better.
Rather than rejoining, Pakistan would be better off divided with KPK joining Afghanistan and independent Balochistan, Punjab, Sindhudesh existing under Indian suzerainty.
Ah yes! The ultimate Indian fantasy!
Yet if I say that “India” would be better off divided so that Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra etc are all independent nation-states all hell will break loose on this site.
Pakistan is a nuclear state. Any threat to the territorial integrity of the country will put the nuclear option on the table.
Difference is those states don’t have raging insurgent movements.
All this nuclear talk is bluster. Pakistan was bombed to hell in May and they didn’t do anything.
In all probability, Pakistan’s nukes will be shot out of the air before it even reaches Indian airspace like their missiles were in May.
And it isn’t an “Indian” fantasy. It’s a Baloch/Pathan fantasy as well.
Pakistan won’t break apart
It did.
Yes, in 1971. Pakistan didn’t possess nuclear weapons at that time.
Any attempt by a hostile power to fan the flames of secession in Pakistan is a red line. Not one inch of the Islamic Republic will be lost.
East Timor broke apart – some argue its because it had oil resources, others say because it was ‘christian’.
If you think about it, Balochistan can become a potentially viable state given its population density, coastline and natural resources. The only thing preventing it is the might of the PakMil. If the US decides that it wants to ‘greenland’ Balochistan into a subcontinental banana republic, can the PakMil really resist?
I mean, this is utterly speculative of course. But lets not pretend its completely impossible.
If you want to talk about “insurgent” movements or freedom struggles, may I present you with Occupied Kashmir or even Nagaland?
The balkanization of Pakistan is an Indian fantasy. You just continue to expose your own anti Pakistan attitude.
There is no reason that India is one nation-state and not twenty plus. It is just a contingent artifact of history: the fact that the British had unified “India” and created the modern borders.
Anyway, the territorial integrity of Pakistan is a red line.
landlocked insurgencies rarely succeed. The Baloch don’t have that constraint. And the Pukhtoon have neighboring brethren to support them along a mountainous frontier – Not unlike JnK, but Pakistan’s …capacities both economic and military, are nowhere near India’s.
Reality is that if not for the CCP deciding on Pakistani utity as a cat’s paw, PakMil wouldn’t have nukes. And arguably would have already suffered a second 1971 by now.
As it stands, I think the CCP still sees utility in PakMil as a nuisance-hedge on India. So the biggest factor in Pakistan’s continued unitary survival would be continued hostility between India and China. If those 2 ever resolve their differences…..
The point is that just as the Indian state takes threats to its territorial integrity very seriously (see its policies in Occupied Kashmir) the Pakistani state will never tolerate secession. There will never be a “second 1971”. We will use our nuclear weapons if there is any serious attempt at secession.
Your desire to see Pakistan balkanized just reflects your anti-Pakistan attitude. It’s quite pathetic at this point.
Not sure why you think I have a “desire” to see Pakistan balkanized. That’s completely a figment of your own mental projections.
From a ‘hawk’ perspective, it is a much better outcome if Pakistan manages to stay united but forever teetering with its internal fault lines.
As I have said multiple times here on BP and elsewhere – my personal best-case for Ind-Pak is US-Canada style collaborative co-existence. But I recognize that its quite unrealistic in the near term. And requires a genuine revolution and a successful struggle for… azadi in Pakistan against the kleptocratic vise that it finds itself repeatedly caught in.
If you don’t have a desire to see Pakistan balkanized, then why the repeated harping on Balochistan?
You can profess whatever you like “US-Canada style co-existence” but all your comments on BP expose a fundamentally anti-Pakistan attitude.
Pakistanis should not trust people like you one bit.
The…mistrust is mutual. You make grandiose claims on being ‘liberal’ while justifying Islamic apartheid and overt hagiographic borderline fanatical support for the kleptocratic military that is incredibly illiberal in its usurping of power.
I do not need you to ‘trust’ me.
See, there you go. Your anti-Pakistan attitude has been exposed yet again.
You are disingenuous and a hypocrite.
I am a center-left Pakistani.That doesn’t mean I’m not a patriot.
>If you donāt have a desire to see Pakistan balkanized, then why the repeated harping on Balochistan?
Any and every time Pakistani fantasies on Kashmir gets discussed, Balochistan belongs in the conversation.
Its a conveniently relevant litmus test to expose pseudo-liberal delusions and pretenses on ‘self-determination’.
tl;dr Pakistanis have no so-called “locus standi” to harp on self-determination in JnK when they themselves have not managed it in almost the entirely of their existence.
Aah yes, something that Kabir always fails to omit.
It is not only India that is “occupying” Kashmir.
One other country is as well which has actually given a part of Kashmir to China and already conducted demographic change.
From an Indian point of view, Pakistan is “occupying” AJK and G-B.
I’m a Pakistani. I’m not going to use those terms for AJK and G-B. From a Pakistani POV, what you all call “J &K” is India-Occupied Kashmir.
For the rest of the world, they are “Pakistan-Administered” and “India-Administered” Kashmir respectively.
The point–which you continue to fail to grasp– is that Kashmir is DISPUTED TERRITORY.
As for the Trans-Karakoram Tract: Pakistan had the right to settle our border with China however we liked. That border treaty states that in the event the Kashmir Dispute is ever resolved, China has to settle the border with whoever is sovereign.
“Any and every time Pakistani fantasies on Kashmir gets discussed, Balochistan belongs in the conversation”.
You are either being stupid or disingenuous. Kashmir is a DISPUTED TERRITORY. Balochistan is an unequivocal part of Pakistan.
Do read XTM’s post about why the comparison between Balochistan and Kashmir is not intellectually honest.
Any child can understand the difference between a Disputed Territory and an integral part of a nation-state.
As for “pseudo-liberal”: Territorial integrity is a red line for nation-states. I am center-left but secession is a red line for any patriotic Pakistani.
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provocative. But third party injections of emergency funding in a post-nuclear subcontinent have taken this possibility off the table. Permanently I think.
Even if Pakistan manages to keep bungling its finances, I do not think there is any appetite any more in India to accept Pakistan back. A …cold co-existence is the best we can visualize at this point. And that is a …slim possibility in the near-term. Thanks to kleptocratic pakmil tightening its grip on Pakistani politics in the way it has recently.
England was a growing empire that had need of Scottish manpower. What does Pakistan have to offer to India?
why would any sane Indian want any part of subsidizing the under-educated, teeming masses of current day Pakistan?
England was a growing empire that had need of Scottish manpower. What does Pakistan have to offer to India?
About 10-15 years ago, Pakistan was not just starved of budget funds, but about to have a serious electricity crisis. The Chinese stepped in, with a massive loans program. And power plants. Of course it came with some seriously expensive strings – Loans were guaranteed at Libor+ rates – commercial lending interest rates not the normal ‘soft’ loans common for govt to govt programs. And of course all the contracts went to chinese firms, with future billing rates locked in.
Pakistani elites have decided that they will mortgage their citizens’ futures, to any devil, as long as the PakMil gets to continue rewarding itself for sustaining hostility with India.
Its a disastrous, suicidal policy stance. One that will ultimately cost Pakistan dear. But then again, the elites won’t pay the price.
Loans were guaranteed at Libor+ rates ā commercial lending interest rates not the normal āsoftā loans common for govt to govt programs
Safiya Aftab, an Islamabad based economist, told DW that the interest rates on Chinese loans are not concessional and come in at around 3.7%.
Analyst Khalid believes these loans “are challenging to repay due to exorbitantly high interest rates, which exceed the payment capacity of the government.”
3.7% is not exorbitant. Chinese Govt to Govt Interest rates are always around 3%. Commercial Loans, I dont know.
Chinese are not like the Merchants of Venice in the US. They are reasonable and dont try to get a pound of flesh. Stop believing US/West propaganda who want to continue to exploit poor third world countries as they have done for the last couple of centuries.
https://www.dw.com/en/how-chinese-loans-trapped-pakistans-economy/a-69841139
Chinese are not like the Merchants of Venice in the US. They are reasonable and dont try to get a pound of flesh.
what is your assessment of the hambantota port deal?
what is your assessment of the hambantota port deal?
Construction (Rajapakses): A very good deal.at 3% interest/
Sale (2015) by West Leaning Ranil to fund consumption for his political games. On late reflection good, China has now a bested interest in Sri Lanka in a strategic maritime area.
Note: This port construction was first offered to India
my comment lost once again ! ?
[…] bombay_badshah on Pakistan and the Act of Union […]
West + section of Indian political parties (under guidance from former) seem to be working towards a revised Cabined mission plan. The details will obviously be different and subject to compromises/negotiation. But the primary driving motivation seems to be a geopolitical South Asian entity that can be serve as cannon fodder to take on China under west’s tutelage. “Act of Union” is the lollipop that will be sold to “secular+liberal” crowd across India + Pakistan. “Akhand Bharat” for Indian RW and “Ghazwa e Hind” for the Islamist crowd.
basically a Raj 2.0
But the primary driving motivation seems to be a geopolitical South Asian entity that can be serve as cannon fodder to take on China under westās tutelage.(will write about it later)
Yes, India has successfully engineered two coups in Sri Lanka. I suspect the Nepal coup too was India/US collobaration
are indians that smart? it looks that they are not reading b’desh at all!
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I think one underappreciated part here is that I don’t think there is any appetite among most of Indian population to absorb Pakistani population into the milieu, atleast not as a democracy. Akhand Bharat fantasies are just that, no one wants to pay the price.
Yes a 1947 Unified India wouldnāt be able to elect Modi but just about struggle with a Nehru..
Itās an interesting meditation that in the past 78yrs the Hindu body politic has homogenised to such an extent that it now keep Modi in power endlessly.
This probably is a post-90ās globalising and capitalising phenomenon where Hinduism is rapidly transforming into a āGlobal Faithā like Islam & Christianity (itās absorbing other weaker identities into its rubric).
The BJP gets the votes of around 30% of voters. In the 2024 election, the BJP was not able to attain a majority by itself. It’s being kept in power because of its coalition partners.
It’s not inevitable that the BJP will form the government again in 2029 (though I will concede that it seems most likely at this point).
That’s how parliamentary elections work.
As long as a party gets over 50% of the vote in 50% of the seats, they will win even if they get 0% votes in the other 50% seats.
But then again I wouldn’t expect Pakistanis to understand. A country where no PM has completed a full term lol.
And you are lying again. BJP alone won 36.56% seats in 2024.
Frankly, 30% is a facetious point. Not a full reflection of preferences. Some vote groups tend to focus on a single point at the time and that reflects in their voting. Other groups can hold multiple thoughts and voting pattern. We are talking over each other in that sense.
As a thought experiment, let’s say India implements those 1st-nth choice presidential system, where the winner has to cross 50% threshold. Do you genuinely feel Modi doesn’t cross the threshold. No one knows for sure obviously, but just walking along your thought process here.
The fact is that in the 2024 election the BJP was not able to cross the majority mark on its own. It was able to form the government thanks to its coalition partners.
There is no guarantee that the NDA will form the government again in 2029. Modi is in a weaker position given the US tariffs on India and the general move of the US away from India and towards Pakistan.
Of course there are still three years to go, so a lot can change. But the point is that there is still a lot of opposition in India to the BJP-RSS vision. One of the commendable things about India is the strong tradition of protest–whether it is anti CAA or anti Farmer’s Laws.
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Calm pls
I think Modi’s prophetic power is a bit overstated here. For his coalition of voters, he is the best option available and the supposed fanaticism for him disappears when there is better option on other side.
Hindutva project is a simple function of information dissemination, for good or for bad. I think it will be a very difficult case to make that institutions outside Sangh fold are sympathetic to Hindu cause and not explicitly biased. That street power is not respected in these institutions. That demography doesn’t matter. What is disappointing from Hindutva PoV is lack of practical solutions, infact a general lack of solutions.
I should have said shephard instead of prophetic. Got the 2 mixed up with the example of most famous prophet.
Just as most Indians don’t want to “absorb the Pakistani population”, the vast majority of Pakistanis (and I would venture to say Bangladeshis) have absolute no desire to be part of a Hindu majority India.
Partition is not going to be undone (barring some major catastrophic event) so this whole post is basically a hypothetical.
At a bare minimum we need to accept that British India is now divided into three sovereign nation-states. In order to move forward, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all three states needs to be respected.
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Kabir, I no one disagrees with you here, on this point. Infact, that was one of the central points of the article. The implied point that people avoid to say out of politeness is, no one mentioned here cares. Unification case says that only the elite matter. For Hindu population, it’s besides the point that the ‘cancer’ doesn’t care for them either.
The point is that there is not going to be any “unification”. No one wants that–neither Indians nor Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.
The current Hindutva administration has demonized those Muslims who are already Indian citizens. Why would they want to take in Pakistani or Bangladeshi Muslims? Pakistanis certainly don’t want to be ruled by Hindus.
This whole post is based on a hypothetical.
The fact that Muslims are considered a “cancer” is very offensive and very telling about what kind of a country India is today.
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