Timely!
It’s not likely to get too many people scratching their heads in Islamabad or New Delhi, but the World Bank’s reminder about some of Pakistan and India’s real social problems came at an appropriate time this week. It was meant to remind leaders on both sides, no doubt, that the bigger problems for both countries remain acute poverty, health emergencies, drought and famine, etc. And, since governance is but the sum total of improving the lives, broadly, of the people being governed, these issues ought to take precedence over war, LoC violations, prospect of nuclear exchange, etc.
The government of Pakistan must be given credit, this time, for acting the more mature of the usually equally immature antagonists. For some reason the Modi administration went out on a limb to engage Islamabad in the kind of tit-for-tat that the BJP seems to have a special liking for. Fortunately, the PML-N would have none of it. And Nawaz’s initial outreach, despite the storm it created at home, is now playing out well for Pakistan internationally. It should now be much easier to sell the narrative that Islamabad tried everything short of bending over backwards to get the peace talks going, but from Dhaka to Chabahar to Delhi, the Indians have not only talked trash but rebutted all peace efforts.
For all the Bank’s fine timing though, it’s not very likely to have any impact at all. So far, despite the sea of poverty and suffering on both sides of this unfriendly divide, there’s never ever been a joined effort to put people’s interests ahead of politics. Nobody, so far, has had the good sense to suggest deep, long-term economic/trade integration to bind them together, in mutually supportive roles. The animosity runs so deep that there has never been any chance of letting trade relations flourish; in the interest of raising employment and earnings if nothing else. And it’s unlikely that such advances will be made anytime in the near future.
