What if Indian and Pakistani leaders have a high level meeting wherein they come to an understanding on how to live and let live? The manifesto of the survival guide will read somewhat as below.
1) We will mutually agree from time to time to rake up irrelevant cross-border issues to divert attention form pressing internal matters.
2) Pakistan will every three months send a few thousand armed men across the border into Jammu & Kashmir. This will help Pakistan to reduce religious pressure at home. India will benefit by having a reason to post its army in J&K. The army will be gainfuly employed in hunting and eliminating the Pakistani intruders. A win-win situation for both Pakistan and India.
3) India will allow Pakistan to send arms experts to carry out a series of bomb experiments across India once every 7 to 8 months. The twin benefit: it will help Pakistan research and develop newer bomb technologies while the explosions will help India curb it's burgeoning population.
4) India and Pakistan will agree to disagree on the Siachen issue. That will help the armies of both nations to gainfuly employ men across this inhospitable terrain. Also another diversionary tactic for both countries to ward off public attention from more pressing internal matters.
5) Both countries will compulsively indulge in an arms race. The benefits: possibly one day both India and Pakistan will have enough arms and ammunition, nuclear or otherwise, to obliterate the Rest of the World. That fear, they hope will give them the bargaining power to force America and allies to accord India and Pakistan Superpower status.
6) Politicians of both countries will agree to mutually cooperate in the procurement of arms from suppliers known to them so that kickbacks are higher, and the fear of the news of kickbacks getting into wrong hands is near zero.
7) Both countries will shift attention to Bangladesh. Pakistan will shift all training camps to Bangladesh soil and India will eventually shift all troops along the Bangla border. The benefit: It's more easier to contain the situation if things get out of hand and also have a whipping boy in Bangladesh if things go wrong.
8) Pakistan will help India forge better ties with China. For India, the worry on the Arunachal Pradesh front is reduced. For Pakistan, China will act as a stronger deterent in case of escalation of tensions with India.
9) Indian politicans want the whole of J&K to be Indian, Pakistani politicians want the whole territory to be Pakistani. The Kashmiris want Independence. But who cares what the Kashmiris want. (Kashmiri Pandits, your position is like that of Tibetans. So no point in protesting or harboring hopes of going back to Kashmir. Find accomodation and gainful employment in other parts of India.) The solution: Pakistan will keep sending armed men, India will maintain troops, though at a minimum. Once in a while we will mutally agree to escalate tension. Otherwise, we will keep snipping at each other. This will be called the Great Art of Peaceful Mutual Disagreement. The logic: it's better than fighting a costly war.
In short, Indian and Pakistani politicians will live happily ever after. Damn the people of both countries.
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