Mani Shankar Iyer, leader of the opposition Congress party in India, says that India will not be able to achieve its place in the world as long as its relations with Pakistan are strained.
Mani Shankar Iyer served as the Indian Consul General in Karachi from December 1978 to January 1982. He describes his time in Pakistan in his autobiography, Memoirs of a Maverick – The First Fifty Years (1941-1991). I have written a whole chapter.
In an interview with the Press Trust of India about his new book, he said that the most important job in my bureaucratic career was undoubtedly serving as Consul General in Pakistan.
He said that India’s biggest asset in Pakistan was its people who did not consider India as an enemy country.
Mani Shankar Iyer said that within the first two or three weeks of the posting, one day we were returning from dinner that during our stay in Karachi, my wife Suneet asked me a question, ‘Isn’t this our enemy country?’ Which then I asked myself during my three years in Pakistan and the last 40 years after returning from there.
He said that all this time I have come to the conclusion that whatever the view of the military classes or political parties, but as far as Pakistan and its people are concerned, neither Pakistan is our enemy country nor its people. They consider India as their enemy country.
Talking about the strained relations between Pakistan and India, he said that whenever we want to show our displeasure with the Pakistani government, the visas of the people there are stopped and then the films are stopped, both. The exchange of television programs and books between countries is stopped.
He said that I don’t understand why we don’t get to take advantage. The goodwill of the Pakistani people is an integral part of our diplomatic approach.
Mani Shankar Iyer said that all negotiations between India and Pakistan have been closed for the past 9 years.
He said that until Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India, almost every Prime Minister, if he had time, tried to negotiate with the Pakistanis in some way or the other, but now we are stubborn and this stubbornness. Pakistan Army is not getting any harm but it is causing trouble to those Pakistani people who have a large number of relatives living in India and they want to come to India to meet them.
Mani Shankar Iyer concluded his speech by saying that as long as our relations with Pakistan are strained, we will not be able to get our place in the world and it is completely ridiculous to say that India is among the world leaders because till now we have So could not learn how to treat your neighbor.
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