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It is amazing to encounter the latest
round of fun and frolic, love and
hate, relationship growing between
the sub-continent’s two biggest, yet estranged, neighbours, India and Pakistan. The warmth in the relation can be felt in this yet-to-be-felt chilling winter, going by the flurry of activities criss-crossing the LoC, apart from Track One and Two already explored. Indeed, the moves provide a feeling of satisfaction. The hope is that the feeling will give way to reality and some benefits will possibly come to the common man on both sides of the border this time. The hope has increased ever since the five-minute long telephone conversation Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had with his Pakistani counterpart, Mr Mir Zafarullah Jamali on December 8. That tete-a-tete was a sort of a telephonic warm-up to know each other’s mood before the actual summit.
As the SAARC summit approaches, the earlier mood of hostility both sides had for each other has mellowed. Today, apart from the occasional outbursts, the atmosphere is friendly. The outbursts from both sides are all aimed to appease the home crowds and is more a tit for tat. If the Pak Information Minister made some unsuitable remarks in New Delhi recently, Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani was quick to counter the other day saying that complete normalisation of relations with Islamabad was impossible unless cross-border terrorism stopped completely.
The barbed comments notwithstanding, the real problems on both sides cover more than one aspect. For long, the foreign policies of India and Pakistan have been fuelled by mutual hostility against each other. Inheriting a common but rich cultural, economic, and historical legacy, successive leaders of both countries have failed to nurture or even live up to them since Independence and partition. Take Kashmir for example. The issue of Kashmir is fifty-plus years old but it has given rise to more than 150 overt and covert situations to spoil neighbourly relation between India and Pakistan.
Trade, for instance, is another hiccup. The two countries do not buy many products directly from each other. Both still do not subscribe to the concept of comparative advantage of producing products, which will be mutually beneficial. Each one sees no economic benefits in according MFN status to each other, whatever GATT might say. Ironically, both ignore the presence of each other, yet allow informal trade to flow at the cost of their exchequers.
As for the common people, there is hardly any interaction. The borders and the check-posts prevent the people from moving freely. There is always a sense of fear and scepticism. Despite the cultural similarity, there is no cultural proximity. The political leadership from both countries has played with the sentiments and emotions time and again to project ill of the other. One little Fatima Noor who came all the way from Pakistan to Bangalore for a heart operation can hardly change the scenario that distorts sanity. It is time for all and sundry to condemn all such steps, which are impediments to normalisation of relations. Political representatives fighting and winning elections on religious cards have blinded the common man on either side. Perhaps, what is worse is that the intelligentsia is silent watching the machinations of calculative leaders. As for the common man, he is confused. In such a scenario, achieving normalisation will indeed take a long time.
India’s charge of cross border terrorism and Pakistan’s intransigence over the ‘K(ashmir)’ word, will continue to have more than the desired fire-power to stoke tensions in the region, unless a normal process of dialogue on the twin issues starts in the immediate future. The right time to start such an initiative will be immediately after the SAARC Summit. But one thing is clear. Learning from earlier experience, whatever may be the moves to restart train, bus or flight services, and granting visa free travel to prop up the Track II policy further, unless the political establishments in New Delhi and Islamabad take some real steps forward on the Track I process, the efforts are doomed to fail.
In the next few weeks, communication of every sort will start again between Pakistan and India. The real test, however, will be to sustain these moves and look at more avenues which could strengthen the bonds. One such area, which could be discussed during the SAARC summit is the economic front. If some brisk trade and business movements take place, the region could not ask for more. If the recent series of measures to break the deadlock is any indication, a meeting between the two Prime Ministers is not an impossibility.
For the moment, however, all eyes and efforts are on the Islamabad SAARC Summit. Vajpayee and other leaders will meet and discuss some ideas, both old and new. Trade is certainly going to be on the agenda this time. For the eighteen years of SAARC’s existence, one thing has become clear. If SAARC succeeds, even if it is in bits, it will reflect a move in the right direction in the New Delhi-Islamabad frontier. But if it fails, it will only bring out the worst side of neighbourly relations. Will Vajpayee and Musharraf sit down and seriously think about normalisation of relations instead of going for a ride on the merry-go-round again? We do not have to wait long…
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