Despite officially and virtually being in a state of war since 1953, and dangerously close to an actual war in the last few months, North Korea and South Korea have now agreed to walk hand in hand under one flag at the winter Olympics next month.
North Korea’s overt and covert acts of subversion and terrorism against South Korea are well-known. Mutual suspicion and bellicosity between the two states runs very deep, yet they are able to come together from time to time.
In the former Yugoslavia, infamous for ethnic cleansing, Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims and other ethnicities, who were baying for one another’s blood, have now established normal state-to-state relations.
A couple of years ago, traveling by train and bus through the entirety of the former Yugoslavia, where now stand half a dozen independent states, I was pleasantly surprised at the ease with which erstwhile enemies are crossing borders, over lands that were smeared with their blood just over two decades ago. Traveling in Africa, I have been struck by the facility with which people are able to cross borders, despite territorial disputes, historical tensions and tribal animosities, occasionally erupting into violence.
Greeks and Turks have sidelined, if not entirely buried, their age-old differences and territorial disputes to engage in normal interstate relations, including trade, travel and tourism. It is the same in South America. Bolivia accuses Chile of seizing a large chunk of its territory (including its entire coastline and access to the sea) through war and yet there is normal trade, transit and travel between the two countries. And, of course, there are France and Germany, which have fought many a war against each other in modern times, resulting in millions of casualties, and yet now they are the finest example of good neighbourly relations.
Thanks to a shared history, common language, culture and geography, the potential for trade and tourism between India and Pakistan is immense. Add the Torkham border with Afghanistan to the equation, and the sky is the limit, as far as the triangular trade and tourism are concerned
But India and Pakistan living as two normal, friendly neighbours seems inconceivable. Why so, you may ask? For Pakistanis, it is the issue of Kashmir. For Indians, it is cross-border terrorism, also emanating from the Kashmir dispute.
Pakistan’s defence, economic, trade, tourism and human relations policy with regard to its closest neighbour remains hostage to the fate of a few million Kashmiri Muslims under Indian rule, even at the risk of a nuclear war.
India too confuses cause and effect, blaming Pakistan for its problems in Kashmir and Pakistan-based entities for acts of terror in India. A Hindutva-inspired jingoism has now taken hold in India, threatening all manner of punitive actions against its smaller neighbour. For good measure, Pakistani policy-makers keep reminding India of their nuclear option.
The two countries, tied together by a thousand knots and millions of family bonds, have fought three full-scale conventional wars (1948, 1965 and 1971) and three mini-wars (Kutch, Siachen and Kargil) in their brief 70-year history of separate existence. Recently, I visited the Indo-Pakistan border at Wagah and witnessed the famous flag-lowering ceremony which takes place there every evening. It was my second visit there, the first being in 2002.
While the infrastructure at the Wagah border has improved, the symbolism of the ritual is manifestly worse. Instead of one cheer leader in 2002, we now have four: a teenage boy, a young man with one leg and two middle-aged men with bulging bellies.
Instead of patriotic slogans, the cheer leaders (and the very loud, loud speakers) tried to work the crowd into an Islamic religious frenzy. A non-Muslim Pakistani citizen seated there would have wondered if he belonged in this country at all. The whole atmosphere was designed to be more religious than patriotic. It was purposefully confrontational and belligerent.
Even when the gates don’t shut close every evening at Wagah (the only border crossing along a 3,000 km-long border), something comparable to the Berlin Wall divides the two countries. There is hardly any trade. Human movement across the borders is a mere trickle, consisting almost exclusively of elderly members of divided families. Transit and tourist visas between the two countries do not exist.
Thanks to a shared history, common language, culture and geography, the potential for trade and tourism between the two countries is immense, of Himalayan proportions, I dare say. Add the Torkham border with Afghanistan to the equation, and the sky is the limit, as far as the triangular trade and tourism are concerned. Instead of opening up the borders and exploiting the full potential, what we have is barriers, belligerence and bluster, even at the risk of a nuclear war.
While India now has a far stronger and faster growing economy, excellent international relations and linkages, Pakistan appears to have few friends and even fewer options. In the last few days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has delivered a keynote address at the prestigious Davos World Economic Forum with sixty world leaders in attendance. If Chinese President Xi Jinping was the talk of Davos last year, this year it is the Indian prime minister.
Pakistan has lost the United States as a source of financial, economic and military support. A good friend turned virtual foe, Washington is establishing very close economic, technological and military ties with India. Instead of providing the much-coveted strategic depth to Pakistan (vis-à-vis India), Afghanistan now stares down its western border bitter and angry.
Pakistan’s one perennial source of financial aid, namely, Saudi Arabia, is struggling to balance its own budget. Iran has indicated where it stands, by providing India with port facilities at Chabahar for transit of goods to Afghanistan. Islamabad has now rendered itself dependent solely on Chinese support, economically, financially, militarily and diplomatically.
In terms of both hard power and soft power, India is forging ahead at an increasing pace. Pakistan not merely lags behind India in every sphere, but the gulf is growing fast. The prognosis is not good for Pakistan.
Sinking into financial debt, wracked by political instability, rife with religious extremism and bleeding from sectarian violence, with its conventional military inferiority in relation to India now aggravated by a growing gap in electronic and surveillance capability, Pakistan’s policymakers now brandish the nuclear option ever so often.
With Hindutva-driven jingoism growing and revanchist forces becoming dominant in India, an unprecedented level of belligerence and hostility is now gripping both sides. Two neighbours who can profit from good relations in numerous ways are instead engaged in a dangerous dance of death.
The writer is a former academic with a doctorate in modern history and can be contacted at www.raziazmi.com or [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, January 26th 2018.