Pakistan-India trade breakthrough
November 6th, 2011
By approving the grant of ‘Most Favoured Nation’ (MFN) status to India, the cabinet in Islamabad has done what it was supposed to do 16 years ago after becoming a founding member of the World Trade Organisation. By staying away from this requirement, it retarded the benefits that were going to accrue from the South Asian Free Trade Area (Safta) of 2004. Trading with India on the basis of a 2,000-item ‘positive list’, Pakistanis kept complaining of India’s non-tariff barriers, only to hear the counter-accusation that Pakistan was withholding the MFN status it had given to all other trading partners in the world. India had sensibly granted that status to Pakistan in 1996.
The opposition in parliament has complained that the decision of opening up trade with India was not taken with the approval of parliament. As per the constitution both in India and Pakistan, only the annual budget is put before the parliament for scrutiny and criticism and voting. Even now, the members can present a motion for the discussion of the MFN status, but unless the opposition has the required numbers in the house, they can hardly do anything. The stance taken by the PML-N is even stranger because its leader Nawaz Sharif has recently expressed enthusiasm for improving relations with India. Outside parliament, there are other offended voices too.
Many other voices are being heard over the media saying the same sort of incongruous things, but the truth is that human memory remembers only one truth: when there is trade there is no war, and vice versa. The world, including Pakistan’s all-weather friend China, has welcomed the inauguration of free trade between India and Pakistan. The world has welcomed the development being aware of the India-Pakistan trade imbalance. Those who lean on this argument project statistics from a period where trade was not liberalised. Looking at Sri Lanka-India figures after the two went into free trade relations would have been more relevant.
One should also recall that Pakistan is ready to allow India passage of goods to Afghanistan through a transit route and that Pakistan is already preparing a ‘negative list’ of tradable goods. On the other side of India, Bangladesh too is moving from a semi-free trade regime with India to a full-dress Safta arrangement. According to estimates, the bilateral trade which grew tenfold from 2000 to 2010, will now touch the figure of $10 billion in two years. There is no doubt that the two sides will have to thrash out the problems faced by all free-trading states and the foremost among these would be India’s non-trade barriers. All the smuggling that goes on and the extra money Pakistanis have to pay for Indian goods because of the UAE route will be removed.
The Saarc Chamber of Commerce & Industry in its 2011 session in Sri Lanka discussed the issues of South Asian connectivity, which is the next step India and Pakistan need to take after they have normalised bilateral trade. It was observed that due to poor connectivity, South Asian countries had failed to tap into 72 per cent of the trade potential of $65 billion available in 2011. The issues of connectivity in the region should not be confined to trade, but need to “reach the realms of not only railway and road corridors but also to inland waterway transport and aviation”.
Another name for avoidance of war is codependency. Any pledge of avoidance of war given in a treaty is not as reliable as the ground reality of benefit derived by neighbouring states from each other. In the coming days, one very important factor of codependency is going to be connected with the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, which India, despite its consistent hesitation, will be in a better position to exploit than Pakistan because of its much larger economy. The transit route Pakistan is now envisaging for India through its territory will be historically transformational for Pakistan itself — though not so much for India — and will change its political stance forever in favour of the vision it has subscribed to under Saarc.
Backwards or forwards?
November 6th, 2011
Even a decade ago, very few in the country were familiar with the rites that make up Halloween, or the other events that many Pakistanis seem to have adopted with equal gusto, such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. To some degree, this is inevitable; we live in a time when the world is becoming smaller and smaller as a result of globalisation. The world — and most notably the US — has entered our lives through TV Channels and the internet, available especially to the elite but also to the common man thanks to cable. Local-level commercialisation also means that black cat masks, red roses, colourful devil’s horns and Santa hats — sold aggressively even by roadside vendors who rush up to parked cars — has spurred the phenomena on to newer and greater heights. This year, Halloween was marked even in the conservative city of Peshawar. Whether the people understand the history and reasons behind these holidays is, of course, uncertain.
Many hail this trend as a sign of progression; as evidence that we are moving on with the world. But is this really true? Perhaps we also need to ask if we are in real danger of losing our own sense of identity. This is especially true as the issue of identity has always been a confused one in our part of the world. Since 1947, we have struggled to decide just who we are in terms of religion and nationality amongst other factors, clinging on to our long subcontinental heritage in many aspects of life — such as the rituals typical of a wedding — but especially since the 1980s, also making a move towards the Middle East, as doubts grow over the meaning of religion in life. Our tradition of music has suffered, with classical music struggling to stay alive in a hostile environment.
We should also ask ourselves what has happened to other practices. The festival of Basant, observed in Lahore for centuries, has vanished completely, chiefly as a result of official narrow-mindedness and a lack of awareness of what impact stealing away the past can have. A generation who may never feel the exhilarating tug of a kite is growing up; even celebration of festivals like Shab-e-Barat and Eid has changed. The impact of all this must be considered, for in many ways keeping heritage alive keeps nations alive.