India key to internal peace?
By Imtiaz Gul
http://tribune.com.pk/story/419217/india-key-to-internal-peace/
The writer is executive director of the Islamabad-based Centre for
Research and Security Studies
After decades of relentless mutual pin-pricking, India and Pakistan
appear to be moving out of the mutually damaging negative zone that
have characterised their relations so far. A gradual change is
possibly in the air, discernible from the Indian Foreign Minister SM
Krishna's statements in late July: "Friendship between the two
countries has become inevitable … the acrimonious debate and slanging
match between Pakistan and India will not help either country and even
global conditions require that both countries maintain good bilateral
relations".
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar is also enthused by the
positive vibes coming out of New Delhi. "We are encouraged by these
statements and hope to continue the new regional policy that will
ensure smoothening of relations and economic development through
trade," she said in an interview.
The two ministers are likely to meet when Mr Krishna visits Islamabad
in the second week of September, with the possibility of Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh also following up on an invitation by our
president. If premier Singh's visit materialises, it would be a huge
step forward in the history of bilateral relations since 1988, when
Rajiv Gandhi attended the SAARC summit in Islamabad. Thus far, India
had remained rigidly fixated on action against the Lashkar-e-Taiba and
practically held the entire relationship hostage to this singular
fixation. The readiness on both sides to allow investments on
reciprocal basis — i.e., removal of the ban on Pakistani investments
in India and the State Bank's decision to allow some banks to open
business in India — underscore the expanding matrix of
confidence-building measures.
In all probability, the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status for India
this year paved the way for the apparent turnaround in respective
views; Pakistan essentially signalled its preparedness to view India
through a different prism and thus pave the way for a relationship
that promises greater dividends than a policy that has only eaten into
the vitals of the country itself. That means buying into the
relations-via-the trade-route approach that New Delhi has been
insisting upon.
Regardless of the commercial-financial dividends of the newfound
approach of relations via trade, Pakistan expects that rubbing off
frictions with India will eventually ease off tensions with Kabul and
Washington, too. India has considerable clout with the predominantly
non-Pashtun Afghan security establishment and also serves as the prism
through which the US looks at Pakistan. The security establishment
also seems convinced that under the present volatile security and
adverse economic conditions, a vigorous dialogue aimed at reducing
disagreements to normalise and expand ties with India will help repair
fissures that a skewed defence doctrine has created within Pakistan.
India, on the other hand, has realised the futility of linking
relations with every single incident of terrorism. Opening up to
Pakistan automatically opens multiple political and commercial doors
for India.
If Pakistan can convince in a demonstrable way that it is giving up
the Cold War era policy of hunting with proxies, there is no reason
why India and other distrustful nations should not engage with
Islamabad in a more trustful and constructive way. Pakistan needs to
convince outsiders that it no longer pursues or believes in the
questionable and outdated security doctrine of strategic depth. The
burden of political and economic circumstances has created space to
depart from the India-centric policies to a pragmatic, people-focused
security doctrine.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 9th, 2012.
--
Imtiaz Gul
Islamabad, Pakistan
------------------------------------
Editor,
Tariq Khattak.
0300-9599007 and 0333-9599007
Tariqgulkhattak@gmail.com
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