Now, trade route

Between the lines

We have come full circle to a proposal long familiar to the people in India and Pakistan: keep business separate from Kashmir. There was a time when Pakistan would refuse to have any trade with India until Kashmir was solved. New Delhi would say that it was not opposed to a solution of Kashmir, but the starting point should be business.

The meeting between prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Reza Gilani broke the deadlock and Pakistan did not underline Kashmir as the core problem. As Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Kher said after returning from Maldives that Pakistan would ‘bend backwards’ to be friendly with India.

This is a welcome development, not only for the two countries but also for South Asia. Nothing in the region would move because the estrangement between India and Pakistan cast its shadow on any joint step forward. Islamabad should be complemented because it has moved away from its beaten path.

Whatever Pakistan’s compulsions—the Army is on board—it is a bold step which can lead to the normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan. Manmohan Singh’s decision not to link trade with the sentence to terrorists, who are being tried in Pakistan for the attack on Mumbai three years ago, is courageous at a time when his own stock is not high.

The Indian media is mostly critical and the hawks are even abusive. But they represent a minority who see everything in Pakistan negatively. They do not want Pakistan to fall apart but they continue talking about punishing Islamabad. Their outlook tallies with India’s main opposition party, the BJP. And left to both, the hailing of any breakthrough with Pakistan will be considered anti-national.

Pakistan media may be a shade better. But it too does not rise from the parochial angle it has followed for decades. Nor are of any help the books still preaching that Hindus are enemies or incidents like the killing of four Hindu doctors in Sindh. Civil society there appears to have given up even the semblance of resistance. The murder of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer at the hands of fanatics has silenced even the boldest liberals.

The bureaucracy and the intelligence agencies on both sides do not see the development at Maldives as an opportunity to shed the baggage of history of last six decades and start from a clean slate. I concede that all will not change at one sweep. Relations between India and Pakistan have to be evolved and tended carefully. The path the two governments have taken will have to scale the mountains before they hit a sunny valley. It required patience and perseverance.

Too weak evidence

India’s grievance of Pakistan not yet punishing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks is genuine. No explanation by Islamabad is convincing. Yet it has a point when it says that the evidence which India has provided is too weak to get favourable verdict in court. Now that Pakistan’s judicial committee is coming to India, it should be collecting as much evidence as it wants. The case must move forward. Once it happens, doubts on this end would be assuaged to a large extent.

When it comes to trade, India’s aim should be to develop Pakistan economically so that it is not dependent on America or Saudi Arabia for assistance. This will ultimately stop foreign interference in the affairs concerning the region. Pakistan, on its part, should open the country to India’s investors. If they can buy large concerns in the UK or the US, they should be able to do so in Pakistan as well. There may be joint ventures between India and Pakistan. Economic ties in due course will become the sinews for friendship and then the gun will become superfluous.

It is understandable that the Pakistan government is under great pressure not to keep Kashmir apart. But there is no doubt that trade between the two countries will generate so much goodwill that a solution of Kashmir may become easy. After all, the governments on both sides did arrive at some understanding on Kashmir.

Once when Nawaz Sharif was the prime minister, the coup by Genl Pervez Musharraf stalled the solution. The remark by the then prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, was: “We were almost there.” The second time when Musharraf brokered a solution and was on the verge of inviting Manmohan Singh for signing the agreement on Kashmir, the lawyers’ agitation changed the scenario.

I realise that it is difficult for both sides to rub off the history. But there is no alternative to peace. They cannot change their geography and have to accept each other as they are, not as they want them to be. If Germany and France could become friends after years of war why can’t India and Pakistan?

My advice to civil society in Pakistan is that it should speak out in public. At present its criticism is confined to drawing rooms and it remains pathetically quiet even when its sees the truth being attacked. I have not seen a single voice of concern for the judge who sentenced the killer of late Punjab governor Salman Taseer. The judge had to disappear after doing his duty because he knew that neither civil society nor the government would come to his rescue.