ISAS Insights

What drives the Indo-Pakistani rivalry? This paper challenges a number of extant explanations, ranging from the memories of partition, innate Hindu-Muslim discord, the Pakistani claim to Kashmir and mutual misperceptions. Instead, it draws on a body of literature in international relations to argue that the relationship involves two states with markedly different preferences. One of them, India, is a status quo power and a security seeker. The other, Pakistan, is a revisionist state, which is dissatisfied with the territorial arrangements in the region and seeks to upend them. The paper then traces the sources of PakistanÔÇÖs revisionist behaviour.