For India, friendly relations with Pakistan are immensely beneficial ... Imagine what will happen if Pakistan genuinely gives up the hostilities and becomes friendly with us. The cross-border militancies will be replaced by cross-border movements of peoples and ideas, goods and services, investments in physical and human capital and cultural exchanges. There will be enormous gains from the peace dividend.

If there is a preferential trading arrangement  between India and Pakistan, removing the tariff and non-tariff barriers, there will be a substantial increase in trade for both, without hurting trade with other countries ...

Pakistan has not given us MFN status because it fears that if India is given the same treatment as to the US, Japan or Korea, Indian goods would flood its market. It is a wrong policy for its part, but that does not mean that we should also follow that wrong policy ...

A better policy would be to let Pakistan develop enough vested interests through exporting to India under MFN, and building capacities and profit lines tied to the Indian markets.

The peace dividend that may accrue to us from improved relations between our two countries (will) increase the scope for reducing our defence expenditure. The benefits of reduced tension would, of course, go beyond (this) to a radical change in our environment leading to the elimination of terrorism altogether.

Our efforts have to be to convince the people of Pakistan that friendship with us can be enduring and beneficial for them.

For a long time, Pakistan's military and their fundamentalist supporters argued that Indians never accepted Pakistan. But 50years after Indians of different religions, cultures and ethnic groups have stayed together, this has little credibility among most Pakistanis ...

But the Pakistani military and fundamentalists still exploit the Kashmir situation. People in Pakistan still believe that Kashmiri Muslims are subjugated by India by its military, bureaucracy and an unpopular government ...

The answer to that is not convincing when it is given in terms of constitutional procedures ...

Nor is it acceptable to them that if Kashmir is not kept as a part of India, secularism will be at stake or India's federal structure will fall apart. The only fitting answer will be if we can demonstrate that Kashmiri Muslims would be happy to live in India, they would live with freedom and human rights and they would prosper economically and socially, benefiting from its huge market and enjoying its functioning democracy, much more than if they were in Pakistan. This is not a difficult task.

The bond between the people of Pakistan and India can become so strong that the divisiveness fomented by the military and the fundamentalists can be completely defeated ... (Source: The Times of India, 25 September, 1999)