Because the cost of these useless and money-sucking parleys, conferences, talks and so on are cheap ways to keep them peaceful and pre-occupied.
The main task of the Indian Army, Air Force and Navy against Pakistan is to make sure that they do not float yet another addle-pated misadventure. Why they do so in the teeth of all objective criteria is wrapped in folk-lore and in the psyche of a set of people who perceived threats where there were none, who sought guarantees against aggression that did not exist, who wanted to defend themselves against a foe whom they described as timid and unwarlike. It goes beyond reason, and is wrapped up in the bitterness overcoming an elite who have to suffer degradation from elite status. So Pakistan will always attack; it is at that time that she is dangerous, not while defending.
The second reason is the Ronald Reagan defence. As long as the two countries are at peace, some kind of peace, the Indian economy gains - every single day - an additional edge over the Pakistani economy. Our competition is not with the Chinese, not even with the Pakistani, it is with ourselves. It is we who are holding ourselves back, by not completing reforms and the dismantling of the administration of minute controls. It is we who can release ourselves to grow to the position that we held till as late as the advent of the British, when the wealth of India was a significant proportion of the wealth of the world. And for that we need peace.
The effects of this drawing away in economic and financial terms is already clear. The Pakistanis have lost the battle, the war, mentally. Their purchase decisions are imbued with an air of defeat. They buy what they know is compromised technology, re-works of yesteryear, and justify it by pointing to an increasing amount of indigenisation of their main battle tank. An effort like the Arjun is beyond them, and if we were to look at things with an unbiased vision, we would realize that but for our military's greed and hunger for Russian bribes, we have already won the battle for the mind against Pakistan. Minor defects like the shortage of ammunition for tanks, and shortage of artillery, and several others which go unreported, are nothing but minor defects. They will evaporate once pressure builds up, and can exist only as long as everyone knows that these are storms in a tea-cup, commotions in a time of peace. So, too, with their aircraft provisioning; so, too, with the evident confusion in naval planning, devoid of strategy or reason to the point where anything that the Indian Navy does looks good by comparison.
If this continues for another decade - two would be nicer - there will be a permanent salience of morale against them, in favour of India. As this salience grows, the danger also grows that some intelligent general, who realizes what is happening (as most of them do even today) and, unlike the others, decides to arrest the process by giving the military something to chew on and so goes to war, will find us between one stage of preparedness and another.
That is why I believe that you would do a great service to the nation - both nations - by calming the waters on the surface, and allow the invisible hand to work its miracles. If only the Pakistanis realized that we would do nothing about Baluchistan for the simple reason that all that a hostile Indian administration might wish for is being achieved for them with ridiculous ease by the other side. So, too, with all other problems afflicting them. They are the Sorcerer's Apprentice; they have nursed and let loose forces beyond their control, and our task should only be to let them sort things out internally, in their on-going but unannounced civil war, and only to stir into action to go to their rescue if things get too bad, or to stop foolhardy aggression as we have had to do so many times before.
What nonsense.
