Arun Joshi
Yet again Pakistan has voiced its willingness to have economic ties with India as it is facing immense pressure from its business communities to reconsider its snapping of commercial ties with India. This was confirmed in no uncertain terms by Pakistan’s new Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar at a news conference in London a couple of days ago. He said that the Government of Pakistan is aware of concerns of the business community and recalled that how the community had made demands and appeals for the restoration of trade and business with India, and promised, “We will seriously examine this, and see what can be done about it.”
Pakistan, in reality is talking of reversal of its stand on the abrogation of Article 370. It was after the August 5, 2019 decision of doing away with the Article 370 that granted semi-autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir that Pakistan had decided to snap economic and trade ties with India, and declared that it won’t resume this relationship unless India revokes its “illegal action that went against the UN resolutions on Kashmir. Now, it has seen the futility of this approach, nearly five years after the doing away with the special status and special relationship of Jammu and Kashmir within the Union of India. It has accepted the defeatist narrative of its won and woken to the newer geopolitical realities – that J&K is integral part of India and there is no need to dispute this fact.
This is pure business because the Pakistan’s business and trade community is importing Indian goods via Dubai or Singapore, a fact that Ishfaq Dar who was Finance Minister in the last government, also admitted that this detour “causes higher freight, extra transshipment and transportation costs etc.” The business life line between two countries exists between Wagah- Atari border in Amritsar-Lahore corridor in Punjab provinces on either side of the border
As the two neighboring countries which are bound by the shared history and heritage and economic ties cannot work in silos. There is a need to be realistic and resume the work. A beginning can be made with the revival of trade ties. But, there are two major issues involved before exploring this possibility once again between the two countries.
First, Pakistan should understand that the things cannot be put on off and on mode because of its whims, because it was Islamabad that had stopped the trade with India in August 2019 when India abrogated special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated it into two union territories. The irony is that Pakistan wants to resume the trade and economic activities with India, four years after the August 5, 2019 decisions, and there is no change in the status since that date and time. This shows that Pakistan took this decision without considering need and welfare of its people. The August 2019 decision of Pakistan government, has proved to be quite damaging for itself and the people of the country. As the international community shied away, rather rebuffed Pakistan’s attempts to create an anti-India atmosphere on Kashmir, Islamabad is now more isolated than it was before August 5, 2019. Now this realization has dawned on it that it cannot remain in silos of isolation, and the way out is to resume normal ties with India.
In the larger context, Pakistan has accepted that all its narrative on the abrogation of Article 370 was just politics which had no relevance to the realities, and this kind of political game left it empty. This emptiness is haunting it like anything. Pakistan is a story of all distress and destruction and the spoiled relations with India, and other neigh ours including Iran and Afghanistan. Economically, it is shattered, living on borrowings from the international funding organizations, like IMF and the countries, ranging from China to Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan’s desire for economic relations with India is understandable; its economic stocks are quite low. People are suffering from lack of availability f essential commodities. There is an every-day struggle to survive. Loans from international orgganizations and foreign countries only help Pakistan government to fund its own services, very little is left for the people. But Pakistan government needs to stop export of terrorism into India before hoping for a positive response from India .The terror network in Pakistan is a threat to the whole of South Asia, and over the past 34 years it has bled India in Kashmir. So, Pakistan needs to understand that it cannot hope for one sided hand of friendship without neutralizing terrorism in all its forms and frustration in its own home.
Arun Joshi is author of “Eyewitness Kashmir; Teetering on Nuclear War and senior journalist based in Jammu and Kashmir, writes on South Asian affairs)
Disclaimer: This is the personal opinion of the author. The views expressed in this write-up have nothing to do with www.prameyanews.com.
