| 'Anatomy of a Flawed Inheritance' by J.N. Dixit published in 1995 is a difficult book to read, particularly for a Pakistani. He knows his subject - Indo-Pak relations over the period 1970-1994 - and us too well. During the 36 years of his diplomatic career in the Indian Foreign Service, Mr Dixit served his country in the 1960s as Under Secretary of the Pakistan desk, then as Director of the Special Task Force dealing with the East Pakistan crisis between November 1970 - January 1972, and later as Indian Ambassador to Islamabad (1989-1991), before retiring as Foreign Secretary in 1994. |
| Mr Dixit’s book - the forerunner of his recent volume of memoirs My South Block Years ( 1996) - is an uncomfortably direct and relentless analysis of a relationship which has over the years all too often collapsed but nevertheless cannot be allowed to die. Like Siamese twins of unequal size, cojoined by the cartilage of a common history, India and Pakistan find it painfully uncomfortable to live with each other, and yet cannot ignore each other. |
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