Pakistan Foreign Policy
The arms race in South Asia -Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed
The arms race in South Asia has now turned into a nuclear and missile race as well, leading to a huge increase in social sector backwardness of these nations. The sad fact remains that the largest contingent of the world’s population living below the poverty line now lives in South Asia. Moreover, after 62 years of independence, the indicators of social development in India paint a dismal picture. The reports of National Human Rights Commission of India show extremely unsatisfactory conditions with respect to health and education, and the rights of labour, women and minorities. The same is true for Pakistan as per reports of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
The greatest hope in these two countries can be pinned upon their respective civil societies, which are engaged in checking the highhandedness of their governments and are actively working to resolve the problems of their societies. They have also advised their governments to resolve long-standing issues peacefully, and have tried to strengthen ties and promote understanding at various levels. They have forced the governments to start the Track-II, Track-III and similar diplomatic moves. Though nothing much is gained from such efforts these have helped checking further deterioration in difficult situations.
The history of confidence-building between India and Pakistan spans many years. Despite the fact that these countries could not achieve a major breakthrough, yet these CBMs have saved them from major disasters. For example, in the post-1980 years, when the two had joined the nuclear race, the CBMs saved them form any major collision. A good step in that direction was the agreement on informing each other about their military exercises beforehand. The other CBMs include the willingness for non-violation of each other’s airspace, an agreement about the non-use of chemical weapons (1992), establishment of a hotline at military level, and agreement about not attacking each other’s nuclear installations (1988). These measures eased the prevailing tension. When the two nations became nuclear powers in the late 1990s, it was the CBMs which, along with the respective civil societies of the two nations, kept the hope alive for a rational approach amidst war hysteria.
The 9/11 incident added to the tension, when India got closer to the West and USA, and Pakistan was declared a suspect despite its past loyalty. With war escalating in Afghanistan, Pakistan was pressured to stop intervention in Kashmir. With the Kashmir issue being put on the backburner, certain groups thought it was again postponed. The fact is that no solution to the Kashmir problem is possible unless the central role of the Kashmiris is not accepted, and to this end it is inevitable for both India and Pakistan to be flexible in their position and be ready to accept that Kashmir is not merely a piece of land, it is a living entity comprising millions of humans who should decide their fate themselves.
The question arises whether India and Pakistan will remain at loggerheads till the Kashmir issue is resolved? Can’t they collaborate in other areas? Will we keep our societies poor, backward, and deprived of education and health for an uncertain period? Will our priorities remain focused on enhancing defence capabilities? Will we keep defacing ourselves like we did in the past? Will our past prevail as our future as well?
Obviously, no sensible person would respond in the positive to such questions. In the hardest of times of human history, it was mankind’s intellect and wisdom which opened new vistas of hope. The South Asia of today finds itself in a totally different setting as compared to that of ten or fifteen years ago. New challenges have come up as the aftermath of the Cold War, dissolution of the socialist bloc, expansion of open-market economy, and the advances of globalisation, affecting seriously the backward nations. Various small nations have formed unions or blocs at the regional level to cope with the speedy onset of globalisation, thus pooling up their resources and capabilities. They have faced strict conditions of the large industrialised countries quite bravely.
Mutual cooperation has also facilitated the fulfilment of their needs and helped them avoid dependence on industrialised countries. The ASEAN countries are also experimenting with inter-state trade on the European Union model. Both these blocs are doing about 30-40 per cent of their trade at the bloc level, whereas the SAARC countries have managed only 3-4 per cent of their total trade at their bloc level.
India has wholeheartedly welcomed the open-market economy and its corporate sector is trying its best to avail itself of the possibilities opened as a result of globalisation. Once the major industries in India were under the control of the state. Jawaharlal Nehru had also preferred building a big infrastructure, which in the later years served as the base of development of the private sector. But globalisation and its accompanied trends of privatisation and open market have also multiplied the problems of the disadvantaged sections of the society. Apparently, the capitalist class and the business community is elated by the backing of the west, and the deprivation of the downtrodden is not visible to them. But the paradox will ultimately force India to revisit its policies.
In Pakistan, too, the economic contradictions are complicating the situation, and unemployment and poverty are escalating. This is beside the fact that these issues are not generally addressed in the parliament or the media due to more immediate issues like the frequent breakdown of law and order and the military operations underway to establish the writ of the state. Yet we have to grapple with these problems at some point. If Pakistan and India arrive at some agreed framework to solve some of their economic problems at the South Asian level, and if this is joined by other countries of the region, too, it would go a long way to ease the problems.
Indian raw material can come to Pakistan, and Pakistani products can find in India, an eight-time bigger market. A new set of political relations can also develop from trade relations which may also help lead to the solution of the Kashmir issue. Some more helpful measures can be the visits of the parliamentarians of the two countries, politicians’ interaction with other country’s institutions and centres of public opinion; and the ties between the civil societies of the two countries. In a fast changing world and an age of information revolution, the two countries can offer their sources of knowledge for the benefit of each other. The writers and artists have been visiting each other, but not very smoothly. They can best represent the creative faculties of their societies and be their best ambassadors. Sending books and magazines across the border has become almost impossible, given the inflated cost of postage. The traffic of students and teachers is also negligible.
Hence, people on both sides are unaware of each other’s publications and research outputs of the universities. Unfortunately, we know each other very little. There are five or six centres of Pakistan studies in Indian universities, but in Pakistan there is none solely devoted to Indian studies. It means that we do not want to know much about a country which we regard as our adversary. The attitude needs change as all diplomatic as well as other socio-economic relations between nations in today’s world rely heavily on informed knowledge and intensive research.
With respect to improvement of Indo-Pak relations, the aspects which can pose a challenge in the future need to be examined. On top of the list is the environmental issue, affecting water and food resources. Environmentalists agree that the future conflicts in the world, particularly in South Asia, will be on the issue of water. If this is so, India and Pakistan need to start serious dialogue about water resources, before they reach a crisis point, and while doing so, they should keep in view the larger interest of human welfare, and rise above the narrow considerations often glossed with nationalistic verbiage.
Normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan is also necessary because the third generation after partition has arrived, which does take the adverse past as a part of history, but is not willing to allow it to become an obstacle in its way. The failure of the colonial administration in preventing the 1947 carnage and properly managing the process of partition is there to remain as a bad memory, but the new generation does not want it to thwart its way to progress. Experiences of other nations demonstrate that differences may remain there besides working relationship and cooperation. Many countries, such as USA and Canada, or the European countries, live together with good terms despite having long standing differences on various issues. These differences are not blown up to stifle mutual existence.
South Asia is not merely a region of acute problems and contradictions; it is a region of opportunities, too. The faculties and the potential of this region are its greatest asset and virtue; on the basis of it, South Asia can emerge as an exemplary region, provided the narrow mindset and the even narrower political agendas are discarded and the possibilities are allowed to be realised. The aspiration for peace in South Asia is not merely a dream; it is also an achievable target.
(Concluded)
The writer is a professor at the Pakistan Study Centre, University of Karachi
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