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High stakes

In view of the high stakes involved in the Pak-India détente, fewer things can be more unfortunate for the people of the two countries than being on a warpath. The recent violence and exchange of fire across the line of control (LoC) and the subsequent trading of charges of aggression, which seems to be yet another case of déjà vu, have shored up tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad.

This renewed tension has come just before an expected meeting of the prime ministers of the two countries on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session. Though such high-profile meetings, notwithstanding the immense media hype that accompanies them, accomplish little in concrete terms, they do send out the message that the two nuclear powers have not abandoned their faith in dialogue.

Therefore, without pinning any hopes on the outcome of the meeting, one hopes that the meeting will take place. The so-called hawks in Indian politics, media and civil society advising their premier not to meet his Pakistani counterpart in the wake of the LoC cross-fire are only making things worse.

As the Economist puts it, Indo-Pak relations are characterised by “periods of slight progress punctuated by nerve-shredding crises.” The road to the détente between Islamabad and New Delhi is fairly long and full of obstacles. The relationship is remarkably deficient in utility and strongly embedded in sentiments and has been exploited on both sides by those who fear normalisation of relations.

The logical outcome of such a situation is that each country prefers maintaining the equilibrium to taking any bold step. However, the equilibrium in Indo-Pak relations is an instable one. If the problems are left unresolved, something nasty happens all of a sudden, the antagonism escalates and the so-called confidence-building measures come to naught. This happened, for instance, in November 2008 after the Mumbai attacks.

There are quite a few contentious issues between Pakistan and India: Kashmir and Siachen, Sir Creek and the Wullar Barrage, cross-border militancy and external interference. For most of the last 66 years, relations have been characterised by mistrust – both a cause and an effect of the persistence of the aforementioned problems. Leaders and high officials from the two sides meet only to discover that such meetings may continue. No progress is registered on any of the issues and the only commitment either side makes is to thrash the same out. That said, negotiations are the only option.

One notable exception to this was Pakistan’s decision to normalise trade with India. Making a break with the past, the Pakistan People’s Party government (2008-2013) had decided to grant the most favoured nation (MFN) status to New Delhi, in accordance with the rules of the World Trade Organisation of which both countries are founding members, with effect from January 1, 2013.

As part of the process, the positive list for imports from India was replaced with a negative list, which was to be phased out by the end of 2012. However, that didn’t come through and in the present tense atmosphere trade normalisation with New Delhi doesn’t hold much of a promise despite the fact that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is a strong supporter of good ties.

For Pakistan, one perennial problem has been how to live with a country much bigger and traditionally deemed an ‘antagonist’. It was that problem that drove Pakistan to join the US-sponsored military alliances of the South East Asia Treaty Organisation (Seato) and the Baghdad pact in the 1950s. However, those pacts were of no use to Islamabad in the 1971 war with India, which led to the separation of East Pakistan, and eventually the country decided to quit both the alliances.

Since the 1970s Pakistan has dealt with this problem by endeavouring to match India’s nuclear programme knowing well that New Delhi is far ahead in conventional military strength. When India went nuclear in 1998, Pakistan followed suit. Islamabad has also insisted that core issues, Kashmir being at the top, should be settled before the countries re-establish normal economic relations. The decision to grant MFN status to India implied a strategic shift from this approach.

New Delhi’s position has been that the political problems – including Kashmir – should not bear upon commercial relations. A related argument was that restoration of normal economic relations between the two countries would create common stakes, which in turn would contribute to addressing the political issues. India is already following this approach in its relations with China with both countries having realised that letting political issues bottleneck greater bilateral economic cooperation will be to their detriment.

Be that as it may, a look at the history of Indo-Pak ties strongly suggests that it’s well-nigh impossible to completely segregate politics and economics in this part of the world. Thus lack of progress on addressing political issues is likely to undermine attempts to upgrade economic relations, especially when one country is far better placed than the other to secure most of the gains from the opening up of markets. This makes it crucial that the two countries make concrete headway towards settling their political issues.

For India improved relations with Pakistan are doubly important. New Delhi has ambitions to become a world power. Despite making remarkable economic progress in recent years, India remains mired in poverty and backwardness. More than 69 percent of the population (842 million) earns less than $2 a day. Per capita income is barely above $1400. On both the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and the Human Development Index (HDI) India’s ranking is rather low: 56th out of 142 countries on the GCI and 136th out of 186 on the HDI.

An unstable Pakistan will put Indian security at risk, while détente with Islamabad will re-allocate precious resources from military purposes to social spending. Not only that, it will help New Delhi see a bigger picture befitting an aspiring great power. Not to speak of the potential commercial benefits that improved Indo-Pak ties promise. Therefore, a stable, prosperous and friendly Pakistan is in India’s own interest.

As for Pakistan, it has enormous economic problems of its own. Not only are resources scarce, they are also misallocated. A substantial portion of the budget is spent on procuring military goods and services leaving a very small amount, after debt servicing and meeting administrative expenditure, for capital formation and human resource and social sector development.

The country is facing militancy, which has also affected both the economy and society. Escalation in tensions with India could also bear adversely on the counterterrorism campaign – if redeployment of troops from the western to the eastern borders becomes necessary.

The writer is a freelance contributor.Email: hussainhzaidi@gmail.com

Hussain H Zaidi, "High stakes," The News. 2013-08-31.
Keywords: Social sciences , Political science , International relations , Political issues , Political process , Political leaders , Political relations , Pakistan foreign relations-India , Human development , Economic relations , Social development , Politics-India , Wullar Barrage , Sir Creek , PM Nawaz Sharif , Delhi , Islamabad , Pakistan , Kashmir , India , China , LOC , MFN , HDI