Like Koreas, India & Pak must shake hands

Ranjit Singh Ghuman

Professor of Economics, CRRID, Chandigarh

The two Koreas have written a historic chapter on their relations with each other by signing the inter-Korean Summit on April 27, 2018. North Korea's state news agency KCNA called it a turning point in the journey towards a new era of peace for the Korean peninsula. It is indeed a bold step as they have always been bitter enemies ever since the end of World War II when the peninsula was divided into North Korea and South Korea. 

India and Pakistan have a similar history as the two neighbouring countries have been seeing each other through the prism of permanent political hostility and enmity ever since the Partition in 1947.

India, Pak hostilities

One can well understand that there is a bitter legacy of Partition, three and a half wars and the emergence of Bangladesh, but the need of the hour is to stop traversing on the beaten track of the past. Economic and political rationality no longer warrants the continuation of acrimonious relations. The situation demands transcending the past syndrome and marching jointly towards the betterment of their people, including the Kashmiris. Otherwise the posterity would curse us for our acts of omission and commission. A durable solution could be the conversion of the Line of Control into international border and then into 'line of peace'.  

The misfortune of Indo-Pak relations, however, has always been the lack of sincerity, commitment and continuity; scuttling the process on trivial grounds; fear-psychosis; narrow political considerations and certain exogenous factors. Pakistan's non-accordance of MFN (most-favoured nation clause under the WTO Agreement), violation of ceasefire on LoC and low intensity proxy war are some typical examples. The dual behaviour (opposing and criticising the issue when in opposition and supporting the same issue while in power) of political parties/alliances is a serious limitation on carrying forward the national and international concerns of India. Electoral politics and interests are being kept above the country's interests. The over-riding vested interest of the army in Pakistan may be a serious limitation of the forces that want to have cordial relations with India. The American and Chinese interests are other factors which seem to be playing their 'role' in Indo-Pak relations.

The diplomatic and political initiatives to improve their mutual relations are, however, often bitten by the long and poisonous 'snake' (s) when the game reaches at 99 (like in the children's game of ladder and snake). Something similar happened to Agra Summit in July 2001. The invisible 'snake' (s) bitten the summit when the game reached at 99. The summit was torpedoed on trivial grounds. Pakistan's insistence on exclusive discussion on Kashmir and India's insistence on including cross border terrorism and two previous accords (Simla, 1972 and Lahore 1999) in the Agra Summit were those trivial grounds. These issues were used as an alibi to scuttle the Summit knowing fully that K-issue would have to be part of the discussion in every dialogue until it is resolved. The other two issues were very much referred to in the Agra Summit. 

Yashwant Sinha's attack on Manmohan-Musharraf Joint Statement of September 24, 2004 and Vajpayee's letter of June 16, 2005 seem to have scuttled the move towards dialogue. The track-II diplomacy under the name of 'Neemrana Dialogue' initiated in early 1990s, too, did not reach anywhere. A number of other efforts aimed at normalising the political relations between the two neighbouring countries met with the similar fate. IK Gujral and Nawaz Sharif in their meeting on the occasion of SAARC Summit at Male in May, 1997 agreed to set up a working group on Kashmir but nothing has moved forward mainly because of negative forces. 

There are mainly eight issues of concern to both the countries. They are peace and security, including confidence-building measures; Siachen; Sir Creek; WullarBarage/Tulbul Navigation project; Kashmir; terrorism; drug-trafficking; economic cooperation; and promotion of  friendly exchanges in various fields. 

Resuming dialogue and diplomacy

Fortunately, India and Pakistan have recently resumed the track-II diplomacy and have held the interactions in Islamabad sometime in the last week of April 2018. Hopefully, this time the dialogue reaches the logical conclusion.  Nonetheless, the moot question is who those ‘snakes’ are who ‘bite’, the dialogue when it is about to the reach the final stage. The identification of those ‘snakes’ and rendering them irrelevant is the fundamental challenge to Indo-Pak relations. 

The leadership and people on both sides must understand that the acrimonious relations have only created bad blood and caused immeasurable loss of men, material and resources. The scarce resources are being used to match with each other's military strength unmindful of the fact that they are the net losers and arms suppliers are the real gainers. It has also had an adverse impact on their socio-economic development and their fight against poverty, illiteracy and unemployment. Both the countries must adhere to the logic of political and geographical contiguity between themselves and with central, South Asian and West Asian countries. This necessitates the development of infrastructure along the borders and border check posts, physical connectivity by road, railways and air to exploit the advantages of geographical proximity. Cooperation in environmental and ecological issues, disaster management and natural calamities also requires cordial political relations.

The saner people on both sides must prevail upon the fundamentalists and the 'snakes', internal as well as external, if they are really interested in establishing and durable cordial relations with each other.  The political leadership, on both sides, instead of promoting short-term and narrow political interests (remaining in power by hook or by crook) must not sacrifice the larger politico-economic interests of their respective countries. This would require bold initiatives by both the countries. We have had enough of enmity; let us now have friendship.

The handshake of both Koreans has, in fact, shaken the world. There have been some similar handshakes (Arafat-Rabin, 1993; Queen-McGuiness, 2012; Obama-Castro, 2013; and Xi-Ma, 2015) that shook the world. It is now the turn of India and Pakistan to shake the world by their handshake. Let us hope that the lucky event happens at the earliest.

Views are personal