Economic gains from peace
President Pervez Musharraf has spoken to a largely Indian audience on the advantages of lasting peace and sustained economic cooperation between Pakistan and India with absolute candour.
He has spelt out the economic advantages such a relationship offers to the hitherto estranged neighbours, to South Asia with its 1.2 billion people who are mostly poor, and to the larger region, including Central Asia and West Asia.
He has stressed the futility of the two neighbours wasting their scarce resources and becoming irrelevant to the world by sustaining the tension which was there until recently when the regional peace overtures began prevailing to the glee of the people of the region.
If the current process is sustained, cooperation between the two countries will be in the areas of trade, investment, culture and tourism, apart from people-to-people relations. Its benefits will be in the areas of economics, politics, and culture, and there will grow a feeling among the people in both countries that they belong to a far larger region and can move around freely.
To begin with, the two countries will reduce waste of their precious resources to meet the demands of the heightened tension between them. They can try to reduce their large military expenditure, shrink the size of their standing armies and cut the number of their military establishments spread all over the country and save precious land.
President Musharraf says as a first step Pakistan will reduce the size of its standing army by 50,000 in view of its enhanced fire power. Now India has come up with a new 'war doctrine' which will not rely on massing of its forces on the borders of Pakistan during heightened tension between the two countries and instead rely on its tank formations, navy and air force and electronic warfare. So India too does not need a large standing army of over 1.2 million.
Gen. Musharraf says Pakistan has frozen its defence outlay for the last four years. But India has been increasing its military expenditure which is larger than Pakistan's total budget.
And it has been doing that at a time when poverty in India is increasing and it has been simultaneously exerting pressure on Pakistan and its other neighbours to spend far more on their defence which they cannot afford.
If India and Pakistan can reduce their military expenditure and the size of their standing armies they can spend far more on their economic redevelopment and social sector progress. And they can spend far more on poverty reduction.
Along with reducing their military expenditure they may need to spend less on their border security forces and external intelligence agencies. Above all, their leaders and officials will be pre-occupied less with its immediate external enemy and will have more time for their country and their people.
I once asked a prime minister of Pakistan while he was in office: did he not spend about 60 per cent of the time when he went abroad talking of India, and did he not do the same when world leaders came here? He agreed, and voiced his helplessness as the problem was there.
Our leaders need relief from such a pre-occupation as that deprives them of the time needed to attend to their own country's problems and the people's demands. It is a negative pre-occupation from which the leaders have to be saved.
The regional cooperation will increase as natural gas comes from Iran to Pakistan and India or when the gas comes from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India. Ultimately if necessary, more gas could come from Qatar to India via Pakistan.
When Iranian or Central Asian gas becomes available to the Indians at half the price at which they are getting it now, they will be very happy, and the economic gains to India will be very large. The small and medium industries in India will gain a great deal through such cheap and plentiful gas.
When gas from Iran and Turkmenistan becomes available in India via Pakistan trade between the three countries would increase. In fact, trade in the larger region as a whole can increase steadily.
And Pakistan will be the gainer by the royalty on the gas pipeline from the countries in the west passing through it to India. That could encourage Pakistan undertake further measures for larger trade with these countries.
Foreign investment in South Asia will increase manifold if there were friendly and economically cooperative relations between India and Pakistan. At present, the two countries receive an average of three billion dollars foreign investment annually compared to 50 billion dollars that goes to China which came in the picture later.
Americans and other western countries may prefer to invest in the subcontinent rather than China. But peace and political stability will be the first pre-requisite.
Gen Musharraf talks of the 1.2 billion consumers of the region. Earlier the western investors had spoken of the billion consumers of India but soon discovered the real consumers of the western products were only 200 million in India. On that basis Pakistan's consumers may not be more than 50 million initially -- primarily the people of the urban areas.
But there can be mutual investment by the businessmen of the two countries in each other's country, particularly by the Indian entrepreneurs. Overseas Indians and Pakistanis can also invest in the region.
But trade between India and Pakistan, which has been too small formally, and too large informally, or through smuggling, can increase quickly. And instead of a good deal of trade passing through third countries they could become direct and far more gainful.
Seasonal or sudden shortages in one country could be met by the surplus supply in the other. As a result of shortage of cotton Pakistan imported 500,000 bales of cotton from India this year and 200,000 bales more are being imported now. Pakistan is also to get 500,000 tonnes of rice from India to enable it meet its export commitments.
Pakistan has now a large surplus of sugar following the record four million-tonne crop this year and TCP has been asked by the government to buy 300,000 tonnes to relieve the burden of the sugar millowners.
President Musharraf has also spoken of how tourism can flourish in the region as a result of peace. He expects foreign travel agents sell tourist packages for both countries together on one ticket. That can come to pass if there is peace between the two countries and within each country.
In addition, the people can undertake visits in the other country to see more of the cultural heritage, religious sites and beauty spots. For them visiting the other country is the least expensive form of tourism or amusement.
Then there are the sports exchanges which create a great deal of goodwill and excitement. The first one-day match in Karachi after 15 years showed tremendous excitement.
There will be a similar excitement in India when the Pakistan cricket team visits that country soon. The president of the International Cricket Council Ehsan Mani says cricket was poor without India and Pakistan playing each other directly. He is dead right.
All that happy happenings projected by President Musharraf depends on sustained peace in the region. And that depends on the solution of the Kashmir problem which is the central issue between the two countries, he says which India denies.
He has also said that if India takes one step forward in Kashmir, Pakistan will take two steps forward. He has also spoken of his four-fold approach for the solution of the Kashmir issue which begins with talks on Kashmir.
The centrality of Kashmir issue should be accepted, all solutions not acceptable to the three parties, including the Kashmiris should be taken off the table and finally the most feasible and acceptable option be chosen. "I believe nothing could be fairer than this." The Indian deputy prime minister L.K. Advani now talks of a give-and-take in Kashmir showing some flexibility.
The Indian foreign minister Yashwant Sinha says; "We are thinking the unthinkable." Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has spoken again of a South Asian Economic Union, one currency and a Saarc free trade on which the Islamabad summit agreed in January. Mr Vajpayee has also spoken of "an energy corridor and a transport corridor in the region criss-crossing with India as their hub."
He has also cautioned India against letting terrorism in Kashmir upset the long term goal of an economic union. Mr Vajpayee envisages a great future for India and he does not want that to be clouded by its quarrels with Pakistan and even let the Kashmir issue stand in the way as a stumbling block.
But the visions which President Musharraf has for Pakistan can come true only if there is political stability in the country on a mutually agreed basis, and not through the use of force. When India presents itself as a great democracy despite its many drawbacks Pakistan should not be seen lagging far behind because of executive excesses or military over zeal.
In fact, lack of political stability can also arrest economic progress and hamper regional cooperation. Hence while regional peace and economic stability are important equally important is political stability.