Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Sunday said that if India wants to change Pakistan’s behaviour towards it, it should examine and change some of its conduct towards the neighbouring country.
The former Finance Minister, speaking at a discussion onnational security at ‘Beyond politics: Debating a New Security Manifesto’, alsosaid that if both the countries continue to demonize each other, the situationwill never improve.
“We have to make Pakistan change its behaviour, which meanswe must also change our behaviour towards Pakistan,” he said.
The Congress leader also said that successive PrimeMinisters have said that we can change our friends but not neighbours.
“If Pakistan demonize India and in turn India demonizesPakistan, and this is the narrative in both the countries, we can never befriends. We can never put an end to border disputes and infiltration.”
In an apparent attack on the Modi government, he said theground reality was different from what was being portrayed.
“We have been mesmerized by the phase ‘strong leader’,’strong government’ and ‘muscular policy’ but the real test is on the ground.
“We saw more infiltration in 2018 than in the last 15 years.More successful infiltrators, more civilian and military casualties in 2018than before. So how do you claim these policies are a success?”
He said that, in a sense, “we are forbidden to ask these questions”, adding that without asking questions, one can never replace a bad policy with a good policy.