Pakistan and the Act of Union

A Cold Comparison, Not a Romantic One

There is only one historical analogy worth using when discussing Pakistan “rejoining” 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, 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.

Pakistan’s 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 Pakistan’s Darien Scheme

Pakistan’s 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 India–Pakistan union would be elite-driven and deeply unpopular. Germany absorbed losers anyway, and still carries resentment decades later. Pakistan’s 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 “Akhand Bharat” 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.