- Trade the key to regional connectivity, stability and prosperity
A thousand years of history, deeply ingrained prejudices, two full blown and three territorially limited wars, skirmishes on Line of Control, the Afghan conflict, an almost instinctive, gut- level cynicism, mistrust and animosity, alleged acts of cross-border terrorism, sharing of water resources and even the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, a daunting and perhaps still incomplete list of disaffections, stand in the way of a mutually beneficial connectivity between India and Pakistan, keeping the two neighbours on a knife-edge, and the region and indeed the wider world, in a state of apprehension over the unending shenanigans of the nuclear-armed rivals. As a corollary of this mindless enmity, the economic potential of the immediate region stands unfulfilled, institutions such as SAARC lose their effectiveness, impact and purpose. It is a no-win situation for everyone.
The knee-jerk, infantile Indo-Pak hostility and its damaging implications were mulled over at a two day recent conference in Islamabad, ‘Connectivity and Geo-economics in South Asia’, with Pakistan’s former National Security Advisor emphasising the inextricable linkage between the two neighbours’ common security and economy, between their joint stability, monetary growth and connectivity, highlighting Pakistan’s central role in the emerging geo-economic order of South Asia and pivotal position as a faster, cheaper and convenient conduit of Indian goods to Europe via Central Asia, while pointing out the massive flow of free trade that would accrue provided New Delhi became part of CPEC. But, as a prelude, it is necessary to move beyond past bitterness and bigotry, nurture mutual respect, think and act-broadmindedly, and the NSA’s own meetings with his Indian counterpart during his three years in office were held in ‘very good spirit’, because they ‘did not try to win arguments against each other’. So, a calm objectivity and weapons of courtesy, rather than blind one-pmanship, talking each other down, clinging obstinately to ‘holier-than-thou attitudes or attempting to appear always in the right, are the road to redemption. An Indian participants’ revelation of detailed secret deliberations between the two countries however awaits official confirmation, while another rightly stressed small, deliberate confidence-building steps. But hardliners and hawks on both sides must also sheath their talons.
