Opinion Trading across the Radcliffe and Durand lines
Few in New Delhi might have noticed a memorandum of understanding signed by the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan during early May in Washington about regional trade and transit.
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Few in New Delhi might have noticed a memorandum of understanding signed by the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan during early May in Washington about regional trade and transit. But that piece of paper has become the target of intense political hostility in Pakistan.
The media campaign,which appears to be inspired by Pakistans security establishment,has been railing and ranting against the dangers of Islamabad letting overland trade in goods between India and Afghanistan.
Here is one recent gem: It is a huge security concern for the Pakistan Army to quietly watch Indian-made Tata trucks rumbling through Pakistan and traveling on Pakistani freeways. Indian arms have flooded the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Swat region; how many more Indian arms will be tolerated by Islamabad?
What should strike you is not the degree of paranoia,but the fact that this absurd argument has persisted in the face of repeated official clarifications from Islamabad that there will be no unilateral economic concessions to India.
Clearly,the prospect of even limited movement on triangular economic cooperation between Afghanistan,Pakistan and India has triggered off alarm bells in the Army Headquarters at Rawalpindi.
In fact,the memorandum of understanding signed by Presidents Asif Ali Zardari and Hamid Karzai on May 6 during a trilateral interaction with the Obama Administration does not mention India. It does,however,promise that Zardari and Karzai will negotiate a regional trade and transit agreement by September 2009.
It is no secret that New Delhi has repeatedly called for open trade and transit arrangements between India,Pakistan and Afghanistan. Do recall the musings of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a few years ago on having breakfast in Delhi,lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul.
Despite the PMs desire to reconstruct the Silk Road between Delhi and Kabul,through Pakistan,no one in the UPA government was betting on its realisation.
Dr. Singh knows that Pakistans civilian leaders like Zardari and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif fully share his vision for economic cooperation in the northwestern subcontinent.
The PM is also aware of the strong opposition from the Pak Army to free trade and open borders along the Radcliffe line that divides the Punjab and the Durand Line that separates Pakistan and Afghanistan.
What has given the PMs regional vision a boost and generated anxiety in the Pak GHQ may be the Obama Administrations emphasis on promoting transit trade within the subcontinent and between south Asia and central Asia as part of the newly minted Af-Pak strategy.
As it prepares for the next round of meetings with the leaders of Pakistan,Afghanistan,and the United States in July,New Delhi must put on the table a range of new proposals for regional trade and economic integration.
If New Delhi can make these proposals attractive and actionable unilaterally by India,it is bound to win some new friends in Lahore,Peshawar,Kandahar,Kabul and Washington.
(C. Raja Mohan is a Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,Nanyang Technological University,Singapore)
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