Benefits of better ties are many, not just for those at the border, but also for New Delhi & Islamabad.
From the icy Himalayan heights of Siachen to the scorching sands of the Thar, military
boots dot the landscape and at great cost. Ripped out from their families and all of civilizations, soldiers on both sides of the border spend months in these hostile frontiers. If on the Siachen, many of these soldiers go back with frostbite and end up with severed limbs, the desert leaves the sentinels scarred with much more than sunburns.
Putting balm on the sunburns and frostbites is the smallest of the peace dividends that would cascade once the hostility cedes. The biggest among them would be restoration of normal life in Kashmir, a trade windfall for businessmen on both sides of the border, a chance to plough some of the millions of dollars spend on guns towards butter for the poor citizenry and even lighting up homes in the Thar.
"Friendship between Pakistan and India is intrinsically related to the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. There can be no two opinions about how definitely it impacts life in our state," says Mehbooba Mufti, leader of the People's Democratic Party in J&K. "Everything has been tried to resolve Kashmir without of course anchoring a resolution in the space that can be created only by good relations between the two neighbours.
While it's necessary that the relations between the two are normalized, it's equally important that Kashmir is viewed both at the level of the cause and consequence of bad blood. The two objectives go hand in hand and cannot be seen in isolation," says the Kashmiri leader. It doesn't take much to see the obvious benefits of peace along the concertina-wire wrapped, land-mined frontier. But the more intangible ones are equally important to both New Delhi and Islamabad.
For India, embarking on a roadmap for peace — difficult as it seems looking through the current blood-splattered, terror-stained prism — would enhance its international stature and cement its role as a regional power. It would be viewed globally as the action of a mature state, not insecure about its neighbourhood and willing to rise above petty domestic constraints to win larger security dividends.
"In the long run the obstacles may be insurmountable, but India needs to resolve not just Kashmir but Pakistani irredentism in order to manage its own complex relationship with China and its own troubled regions," says Stephen Cohen of the Washington-based think-tank Brookings Institute.
One area where dividends will be visible is trade and a loosening up of the stringent regimes and complicated border trade rules will benefit farmers and medium traders on both sides. Currently, apart from an odd truckload of tomatoes, a few sacks of chillies and perhaps a few thousand bales of cotton, very little gets past Attari or the other two trading points. And annual trade is a miniscule amount of a few hundred crores. Businessmen say that ironing out rules that force traders to unload goods at the border and re-load them on trucks of the other side are unnecessary impediments. Of course, the post-26/11 fears that every truckload of goods is bringing plastic explosives and/or is being driven by suicide bombers doesn't provide the best backdrop for boosting trade.
The guns and butter argument is always too simplistic and analysts know that monies diverted from a softened defence budget do not immediately flow into making of schools and health centres. But for both India and Pakistan with more than 1 billion extremely poor people between them, lowering temperatures is enough to give planners a chance at least to think along these lines. A calculation by Farrukh Saleem of the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad illustrates how a small air sortie during the Kargil misadventure would have dented the exchequer by sucking out nearly Rs 1 million in fixed costs, fuel
expenses and the bill for bombs and ammo.
While that aspect of the dividend may be open to debate what's settled is that ending hostility would save more than 3,000 soldiers on either side of the Siachen faultline from the frostbite zone where more than 1,000 lives have reportedly been lost by each side, mostly from cold-related causes, avalanches and chopper crashes.
The biggest benefactor of peace would clearly be Kashmir, where cross-border terrorism combined with homegrown azadi aspirations has torn asunder life. Peace would help ease restriction on the gateway to PoK where many of the divided families live, help trade and give Kashmiris a chance to reorganize their lives. "It's vital, though not sufficient to have peace with Pakistan for stabilizing the situation in Kashmir, as there are several associated issues that will also have to be broached and settled, most notably that of water resources," says Ayesha Jalal, a historian of South Asian affairs at Tufts University.
Apart from these, there are some obvious low-hanging fruits of peace. The contentious water flows problem can be discussed with less rancour, fishermen from both countries will be able to ply their trade without fear of arrest and harassment once the demarcation in Sir Creek is completed and even cheap natural gas from the fields in Iran could flow into Indian cities through Pakistan. And on the issue of energy, cooperation could also enter uncharted territory. The discovery of 100,000 sq km of coal reserves on the Pakistani side of the Thar could be a huge source of power and a filip to industrialization not only there but across the border in Rajasthan.
The low-sulphur reserves, estimated at 200 billion tonnes, have not yet been touched since the discovery in 1991. Observers say thermal power could reduce Pakistani energy insecurity by reducing dependence on hydel power and electricity produced could be sold across the border
Regards
From the icy Himalayan heights of Siachen to the scorching sands of the Thar, military
boots dot the landscape and at great cost. Ripped out from their families and all of civilizations, soldiers on both sides of the border spend months in these hostile frontiers. If on the Siachen, many of these soldiers go back with frostbite and end up with severed limbs, the desert leaves the sentinels scarred with much more than sunburns.Putting balm on the sunburns and frostbites is the smallest of the peace dividends that would cascade once the hostility cedes. The biggest among them would be restoration of normal life in Kashmir, a trade windfall for businessmen on both sides of the border, a chance to plough some of the millions of dollars spend on guns towards butter for the poor citizenry and even lighting up homes in the Thar.
"Friendship between Pakistan and India is intrinsically related to the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. There can be no two opinions about how definitely it impacts life in our state," says Mehbooba Mufti, leader of the People's Democratic Party in J&K. "Everything has been tried to resolve Kashmir without of course anchoring a resolution in the space that can be created only by good relations between the two neighbours.
While it's necessary that the relations between the two are normalized, it's equally important that Kashmir is viewed both at the level of the cause and consequence of bad blood. The two objectives go hand in hand and cannot be seen in isolation," says the Kashmiri leader. It doesn't take much to see the obvious benefits of peace along the concertina-wire wrapped, land-mined frontier. But the more intangible ones are equally important to both New Delhi and Islamabad.
For India, embarking on a roadmap for peace — difficult as it seems looking through the current blood-splattered, terror-stained prism — would enhance its international stature and cement its role as a regional power. It would be viewed globally as the action of a mature state, not insecure about its neighbourhood and willing to rise above petty domestic constraints to win larger security dividends.
"In the long run the obstacles may be insurmountable, but India needs to resolve not just Kashmir but Pakistani irredentism in order to manage its own complex relationship with China and its own troubled regions," says Stephen Cohen of the Washington-based think-tank Brookings Institute.
One area where dividends will be visible is trade and a loosening up of the stringent regimes and complicated border trade rules will benefit farmers and medium traders on both sides. Currently, apart from an odd truckload of tomatoes, a few sacks of chillies and perhaps a few thousand bales of cotton, very little gets past Attari or the other two trading points. And annual trade is a miniscule amount of a few hundred crores. Businessmen say that ironing out rules that force traders to unload goods at the border and re-load them on trucks of the other side are unnecessary impediments. Of course, the post-26/11 fears that every truckload of goods is bringing plastic explosives and/or is being driven by suicide bombers doesn't provide the best backdrop for boosting trade.
The guns and butter argument is always too simplistic and analysts know that monies diverted from a softened defence budget do not immediately flow into making of schools and health centres. But for both India and Pakistan with more than 1 billion extremely poor people between them, lowering temperatures is enough to give planners a chance at least to think along these lines. A calculation by Farrukh Saleem of the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad illustrates how a small air sortie during the Kargil misadventure would have dented the exchequer by sucking out nearly Rs 1 million in fixed costs, fuel
expenses and the bill for bombs and ammo.
While that aspect of the dividend may be open to debate what's settled is that ending hostility would save more than 3,000 soldiers on either side of the Siachen faultline from the frostbite zone where more than 1,000 lives have reportedly been lost by each side, mostly from cold-related causes, avalanches and chopper crashes.
The biggest benefactor of peace would clearly be Kashmir, where cross-border terrorism combined with homegrown azadi aspirations has torn asunder life. Peace would help ease restriction on the gateway to PoK where many of the divided families live, help trade and give Kashmiris a chance to reorganize their lives. "It's vital, though not sufficient to have peace with Pakistan for stabilizing the situation in Kashmir, as there are several associated issues that will also have to be broached and settled, most notably that of water resources," says Ayesha Jalal, a historian of South Asian affairs at Tufts University.
Apart from these, there are some obvious low-hanging fruits of peace. The contentious water flows problem can be discussed with less rancour, fishermen from both countries will be able to ply their trade without fear of arrest and harassment once the demarcation in Sir Creek is completed and even cheap natural gas from the fields in Iran could flow into Indian cities through Pakistan. And on the issue of energy, cooperation could also enter uncharted territory. The discovery of 100,000 sq km of coal reserves on the Pakistani side of the Thar could be a huge source of power and a filip to industrialization not only there but across the border in Rajasthan.
The low-sulphur reserves, estimated at 200 billion tonnes, have not yet been touched since the discovery in 1991. Observers say thermal power could reduce Pakistani energy insecurity by reducing dependence on hydel power and electricity produced could be sold across the border
Regards
No comments:
Post a Comment