7/31/2017 An India-Pakistan Thaw?

by Shashi Tharoor - Project Syndicate

WORLD AFFAIRS

SHASHI THAROOR
Shashi Tharoor, a former UN under-secretary-general and former Indian Minister of State
for Human Resource Development and Minister of State for External Affairs, is currently
an MP for the Indian National Congress and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing
Committee on External Affairs. He is the author of Pax Indica: India and the World of the
21st Century.

APR 8, 2012

An India-Pakistan Thaw?
NEW DELHI India and Pakistan are enjoying one of the better periods in their turbulent
relationship. Recent months have witnessed no terrorist incidents, no escalating rhetoric,
and no diplomatic lashpoints. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari just made a successful, if
brief, personal visit to India (mainly to visit a famous shrine, but with a lunch with Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh thrown in). Sixteen years after India granted Pakistan most-
favored-nation (MFN) trading status, Pakistan is on the verge of reciprocating. The peace
process is resuming, and the two sides are talking to each other cordially at all levels.

And yet it is important to understand that the problems that have long beset the bilateral
relationship will not be resolved overnight. Even if, by some miracle, the Pakistani civilian
and military establishment suddenly saw the light, concluded that terrorism was bad for
them, and decided to make common cause with India in eradicating it, the task would not
be accomplished with a snap of the ingers. Extremism is not a tap that can be turned off at
will. The proliferation of extremist ideologies, militant organizations, and training camps
has acquired a momentum of its own. As Satyabrata Pal, a former Indian high commissioner
to Pakistan, put it:

These jihadi groups recruit from the millions of young Pakistanis who emerge from
vernacular schools and madrassas, imbued with a hatred for the modern world, in which
they do not have the skills to work. So while young Indians go to Silicon Valley and make a

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bomb for themselves, young Pakistanis go to the Swat Valley and make a bomb of
themselves, the meanness of their lives justifying the end. Pakistan has betrayed its youth,
which is its tragedy.

This is not a counsel of despair. It is, instead, an argument to offer a helping hand. A
neighboring country full of desperate young men without hope or prospects, led by a
malicious and self-aggrandizing military, is a permanent threat to India. If India can help
Pakistan transcend these circumstances and develop a stake in mutually bene icial
progress, it will be helping itself as well. Therein lies the slender hope of persuading
Pakistan that Indias success can bene it it, too that, rather than trying to undercut India
and thwart its growth, Pakistan should recognize the advantages that might accrue to it in
partnership with an increasingly prosperous India.

Such an India can build on the generosity that it has often shown for example, with its
unilateral assignment of MFN status to Pakistan by offering a market for Pakistani traders
and industrialists, a creative umbrella for its artists and singers, and a home away from
home for those seeking refuge from the realities of Pakistani life. Creating more points of
contact back-channel diplomacy conducted by special envoys (a formula used effectively
by Singh and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf), direct contact between the two
militaries (of which there is little), and extensive people-to-people contact is
indispensable to the peace effort.

Unfortunately, India responded to the November 2008 Mumbai attacks and other Pakistani
provocations by tightening its visa restrictions and restricting other possibilities for
cultural and social contact. This might be an area in which risks are worth taking, since the
advantages of enhancing opportunities for Pakistanis in India outweigh the dangers; after
all, the Mumbai terrorists did not apply for Indian visas before sneaking ashore with their
guns and bombs.

I strongly favor a liberal visa regime, which would require India to remove its current
restrictions on which points of entry and exit Pakistani visa-holders can use, the number of
places that may be visited, and onerous police reporting requirements. For starters,
prominent Pakistanis in business, entertainment, and media could be made eligible for
more rapid processing and multiple-entry visas.

Some would argue that Pakistan will not reciprocate such one-sided generosity. That might
be true, but India should not care. Parity with Pakistan would lower Indias standards. India
should show a generosity of spirit that might persuade Pakistanis to rethink their attitude
towards Indians.
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7/31/2017 An India-Pakistan Thaw? by Shashi Tharoor - Project Syndicate

Concessions might also be made on issues that do not involve vital national interests.
Speci ic problems like trade, the military standoff on the Siachen glacier, the territorial
boundary at Sir Creek, the dispute over water lows through the Wullar Barrage, and many
other disagreements are amenable to resolution through dialogue. It seems silly that public
passions in Pakistan are being stirred by false claims that India is diverting water from the
Indus River; candid and open talk to the Pakistani public by Indian of icials would help
dispel such suspicions.

More immediately, India should seize upon Pakistans newfound willingness to reciprocate
Indias grant of MFN trade status by taking concrete steps to reduce non-tariff barriers,
such as security inspections and clearances, that have limited Pakistani exports to India.
Indias inancial-services industry and its software professionals could offer their skills to
Pakistani clients. They would gain a next-door market, while providing services that
Pakistan could use to develop its own economy. These are all easy wins waiting to be
pursued.

The big questions the Kashmir dispute and Pakistans use of terrorism as an instrument of
policy will require much more groundwork and step-by-step action for progress to be
achieved. By adopting a position of accommodation, sensitivity, and pragmatic generosity,
India might be able to shift the bilateral narrative away from its 65-year-old logic of
intractable hostility.

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