Virendra's Blog

Britain & France bitterly fought Germany & Italy for many years.
India and Pakistan have been fighting over Kashmir valley for over 5 decades.
Do you know what is common between the two scenarios?

Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost in the European wars and roughly the same numbers in the Indo-Pakistani one.
Do you know what is not common between the two scenarios? Britain, France, Germany and Italy are now part of EU, sharing common currency, economy, trade, emigration procedures etc., while India and Pakistan are still fighiting that stupid war.
I was reading a few articles about Indo-Pak trade. I feel what differentiates East and West is their attitude towards money and pride. We cling on to our pride (hamari izzat) while sheepishly trying to earn money in any manner. They cling on to the money claiming it is a step towards the pride. Any white man knows, it is a good idea to earn money together and get rich rather than keep fighting and starve.
Japan crushed Pearl Harbour and US nuked Japan – they are each others’ biggest trade partners for years now and the richest two countries in the world. This despite the fact that the Japanese car industry destroyed Detroit. West has learned that lesson a long time back.
Meanwhile in our own courtyard, India and Pakistan, two nuclear capable countries with zillions of malnourished and starving people, continue to fight over a bunch of unscaled mountain peaks.
Just for your information – Pakistan purchases wheat from Canada and pays hefty freight charges to bring it across over 5000 kms, rather than buy it from India. Pakistan will buy tea at double the price from Kenya but shun cheap Indian generic drugs. Indians, on the other hand, are crying foul over why Pakistan is not offering Indian the MNF status and why Indian firms are not allowed to bid for Pakistani companies. They relate any trade talks with Kashmir and we relate any trade talks with cross-border terrorism and MNF status.
I say, let Pakistan not import Indian goods. We can’t make them see anything other than Kashmir. Atleast India can buy things that are cheaper there. What are we going to lose?
I think this is two pronged strategy – we are spending less and making their industry reliant on our imports. We have been trading with all our neighbours – even China (one of the biggest trade partner). At some point of time even they were not willing, but look now.
From my point of view, there is no solution for Kashmir. Some day the two countries will get fed up with this issue. But on the trade front we need not wait that long. World is already much ahead of us. Is anybody listening?