FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
FOR AN INDO-PAKISTAN TREATY OF PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP
TO MARK 50th ANNIVERSARY OF INDEPENDENCE
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the birth of Pakistan and India's Independence, the Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy has proposed that India and Pakistan sign a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation and thus put 50 years of fruitless hostility and pointless confrontation and conflict behind them and begin a new chapter in their relations.
Though a promising beginning has been made with the resumption of dialogue between the two countries, following the meeting between the Prime Ministers Gujral and Nawaz Sharif in Male in May 1997, no one, not even the most optimistic "dove" in India and Pakistan expects the bilateral problems which have bedevilled the relations between them to evaporate overnight and usher in a new dawn of goodwill. Yet there is an increasing surge of public opinion in both the countries for normalisation of relations, for peaceful coexistence as good and friendly neighbours. A treaty would not only reflect the common aspirations of the people of the two countries but provide a framework, a vision of the future which can serve to electrify the people of the Sub-continent and accelerate the process of its transformation into a Zone of Peace and to spur even the most hostile minds, to the vision to move with the caravan - forward and not backward.
PARTITION: INTERNATIONALISATION OF HINDU-MUSLIM PROBLEM
Undoubtedly both countries suffer from many complexes as indeed the two major religious communities of the Sub-continent, the Hindus and the Muslims, do. In a way, in their bilateral relations, India and Pakistan have, even at a government-to-government level, maintained the content, the tone and the style of pre-independence Congress-Muslim League politics. As I have written elsewhere, Partition, far from solving the Communal Problem, as it was called, has only internationalised it! Most Pakistanis continue to believe that India has not accepted Partition and are apprehensive - that it will try to undo Partition. Many Indians believe that the establishment of Pakistan is the first step towards restoration of Muslim rule over India, possibly, with the backing of the Muslim world. The suspicions in the Pakistani mind are fuelled both by the hostile postures of the Hindu Rashtravadis and their ever-continuing emphasis on Akhand Bharat and the unthinking effusions of those who prescribe the immediate formation of an Indo-Pakistan confederation. We in India must be ever conscious of the sensitivities of Pakistan. We must strictly avoid questioning the legitimacy of Partition and pushing the logic of commonalities to territorial unification. We shall only be reviving Pakistani fears of cultural submergence, of losing its religious identity. We must commit ourselves to the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan. We must shake hands as good, friendly neighbours, without appearing to bring down the boundary walls or cut down the separating hedge, so long as we can see and speak across such dividing lines.
The suspicions in the Indian mind are strengthened not only by the jingoistic expressions used by the Pakistani establishment but also by the impulsive manifestations of pan-Muslim extremism within the country like the Milli Parliament and the SIMI's Khilafat campaign. Of course, both Indian and Pakistani governments anxiously monitor the fire-power of the armed forces of the other side and the budgetary allocations for defence, explicit and implicit, direct and indirect, even the movement and deployment of their existing defence capacity.
FRIENDSHIP IN MUTUAL INTEREST
People of India and Pakistan need to be reassured of each other's good intentions. Both have to be told that in the world of today, the days of foreign conquest, as also of minority dominance are over. No armed night - external or internal - can prevail against the will of the people. There can be no question of unification of the Sub-continent by force of arms.
In the national interest India and Pakistan need each other as friends; they cannot afford to be enemies; the people of the two countries have paid a high price during the last 50 years for the policies of hostility in terms of the pace and content of their economic and social development. While the world has been moving forward, they have remained relatively stagnant and, therefore, underdeveloped and backward, deprived of the means to upfill their minimum human needs. As a result, South Asia has remained one of the poorest and the most deprived regions of the world in term of the percentage of population living between the poverty line, of villages and towns not enjoying the minimum infrastructure like drinking water, primary health service, primary educational facility, communications and road links.
It is not difficult to tote up the enormous resources dissipated in building up and maintaining military establishments and armed forces - largely poised, honestly speaking, against each other or to work out the quantum of economic and social development that the same resources, applied to positive, nation-building endeavours, could have generated. Are they going to continue wasting their scarce resources in the same manner, to the detriment of their people and their future. Shall they continue to justify themselves only on the basis of the continuing dispute over J&K and a possible design of one or the other to "conquer" the other or to give it a black eye!
INTERNATIONAL TRENDS AND KASHMIR PROBLEM
After the Berlin wall has fallen, after the USA and Russia have been forced out of Vietnam and Afghanistan, after Germany and Vietnam have been reunited, after Israel and the PLO have begun negotiating with each other, the world is simply tired of India-Pakistan confrontation over Jammu and Kashmir.
It is indeed time for both to be realistic, cut costs and not mortgage the future of their people to endless struggle for the whole of the State as it existed on 15 August, 1947. Neither India nor Pakistan can achieve this goal by force of arms. Nor can Kashmiris achieve independence against the will of India and Pakistan and against the common interest of all the people of the Sub-continent. Is it impossible to work out an honourable solution which would mean a gain not only for India and Pakistan but for the people of the Valley over the present situation? However, even if such a solution is hammered out it may take time for the two governments to sell the solution to the peoples, particularly the 'hawks' in the political establishment and the mass media. But shouldn't they begin the process? Don't they owe it to their own people?
COMMONALITY OF DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
The problems faced by India and Pakistan in the field of development are the same and they can well learn from each other's experience. With hundred years of uninterrupted British rule, all the people of the Sub-continent have the same political culture, the same social attitudes, the same economic aspirations. Whether it is a question of administering the country, of managing the economy, of running the political system, of building a modern state, of universalising education and health services, of harmonising the relations among the Legislature, the Judiciary and Executive, of patronising the fine arts and culture in all their diversity, of promoting science and technology - no two countries are or can be closer to each other than India or Pakistan. A comprehensive treaty can provide for cooperation and exchange in all conceivable fields of social endeavours at governmental, institutional and individual levels, in order to learn from each other through cross fertilisation and diversion of labour.
It should be possible for the two countries, therefore, to take positive steps without in any way undermining their sovereignty or territorial integrity and without prejudice to their stand over the Kashmir question. Even in the field of defence, they can take a page out of SALT I and II and work out a series of graduated reciprocal steps to build mutual confidence without jeopardising their security at any stage, thus reduce their defence expenditure and plough back the savings in economic and social infrastructure. They can accelerate movement of people, of goods of culture, education and information, of trade and investment. Government and non-governmental institutions can enter into dialogue and cooperation with each other. So can universities, trade unions, political parties, research institutions. Even the Supreme Courts and High Courts and Central and State Legislatures. Both countries can upgrade their performance in the field of human rights and even minorities rights to internationally accepted and recognised levels.
REGIONAL IMPACT IN SOUTH ASIAN PERSONALITY
One fact has been recognised by all political analysts in India and Pakistan. So long South Asia remains a divided house, it shall continue to lose in the current movement towards the evolution of a world order, based on well-defined regions. Only when India, Pakistan and all the other SAARC States speak with one voice in the world forum, they can make themselves heard, felt and taken seriously. And once they do, even the boundaries of South Asia shall extend to include Iran, Afghanistan and the Central Asia Republics. The multi-splendoured mansion of Asian Personality can then be built on the foundation of inter-regional cooperation between West Asia, South Asia and SE Asian and East Asia. Converting the 21st Century into the Asian Century as the 20th was the European.
PIPFPD: Proposal for Pakistan-India Peace Treaty
Talks between the two governments on the range of issues identified at Islamabad should be pursued with tenacity of purpose and in a constructive and cooperative spirit. The eventual goal of peace, friendship and cooperation between the two countries, so earnestly desired by the common people on both sides, should not be lost sight of, at any stage. It would be a uniquely appropriate gift to the peoples of both countries, and indeed to the peoples of all South Asian countries, if the two governments were to sign a comprehensive peace treaty to mark the golden jubilee of the two countries' independence.
LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVE
Pakistan may well be apprehensive that if this movement gathers momentum and becomes a torrential flow, its very survival as a separate, sovereign state may be jeopardised and its case over Kashmir relegated to the back burner for ever. My answer is that in the short run such apprehension are farfetched. And in the long run, if the people of the Sub-continent voluntarily adopt the European model, why not? However, my own view is that if the Sub-continent is reunited, it shall not be a Federation or Union or Confederation of the existing States, as the existing boundary lines - internal and external - in the Sub-continent will have to be replaced by more rational boundaries which respect the ethnic identities that one sees surging in both India and Pakistan and in other States of South Asia. But this is not the distant future on which we should pass sleepless rights. There are historical movements which take time to gather momentum and which are quite independent of the slow movement of State-to-State relations.
Indo-Pakistan detente, to sum up, makes human, national, regional, continental sense. It also makes sense, in their common struggle against poverty, illiteracy and disease, deprivation and degradation. It makes economic, social and cultural sense. It makes sense for both majority and minority communities in both countries. It makes strategic and tactical sense even for national defence and security through mutually balanced arms limitation, as distrust gives plan to confidence.
National glory does not lie in military hard-ware that we make or purchase but in the quality of life that we provide to our people. So on the 50th anniversary of our birth as independent states, let India and Pakistan reconsider the strategy of na' on-building that we have adopted and strike a new course, away from hostility towards amity, from arms race towards political, economic and cultural cooperation, from rivalry towards complementarity, from legitimate competition towards positive cooperation. Let them clear the mental cobwebs of yesteryears and banish the unnamed fears and suspicions and build up mutual trust and confidence.
New Delhi
1 August, 1997
