It’s not often that either of us would agree with the Russian assessment of a major geopolitical issue. But on India and Pakistan’s rekindled dispute over Kashmir, we believe the Kremlin has it right: the changes made by India last week to the status of Jammu and Kashmir have been made within the framework of India’s constitution and the long-standing territorial dispute should be resolved bilaterally by Pakistan and India in accordance with relevant UN resolutions.

The permanent members of the Security Council appear to have little appetite to interfere in this issue. One of the reasons for this caution is serious misgivings about Pakistan’s motivations, particularly the concern that Islamabad is trying to internationalise the issue of Kashmir to distract attention from its domestic failings. The prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, would be well advised to stop expending precious diplomatic and financial capital on the Kashmir issue in order to focus instead on the development of his country, which stands on the verge of bankruptcy, as it negotiates yet another multibillion-dollar bailout from the IMF.

What Pakistan has long resisted accepting is that the country’s most serious existential threat is not India; it is internal extremists – together with inadequately developed economic opportunities. The strategic fixation of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services on the perceived threat from India has been useful to them domestically – and maddening to its friends overseas; however, it has for far too long led governmental agencies to pursue the wrong priorities.

In the period since India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947, India has outperformed Pakistan on virtually every economic and social indicator. According to World Bank data, India’s GDP per capita currently stands at over $2,000, outpacing that of its neighbour by almost 40 per cent. Meanwhile, the infant mortality rate in Pakistan is almost twice that of India, and literacy rates are also lagging behind. This is despite Pakistan being one of the world’s leading recipients of overseas aid and now one of the major beneficiaries of China’s Belt and Road initiative.

To any outsider, the citizens of these two countries are essentially the same people with the same potential. Yet in the case of India and Pakistan, the forces that determine economic, social, and political progress have diverged to the detriment of ordinary Pakistani citizens.