H-word, M-word & fading K-word. India-Pakistan alphabet soup, with a side of Trump

Let's call the first the 'zero-sum game'. If Washington sees the Subcontinent in a hyphenated manner, then it must balance the relationship. Gain for one is loss for the other. It brings an equivalence India detests. It believes it stands in a class by itself and linking with Pakistan demeans it. And its return is dreaded because our successive governments have laboured for three decades to rid us of what we see as the equivalence the big powers (read the US) used to draw between us and Pakistan. Three things follow. Much as I would've wanted to use 'khota sikka',…