An Indo-Pak
Dilemma: Politics vs. Realpolitik
By Dr. Dawood Khan
Chicago, IL
It looks like a ‘Bollywood’
movie (and I cringe at the coined label and its
popular permutations!): a family, separated somehow,
siblings growing in different environs to be different
people, melodramatic speechifying, gratuitous
violence, the usual song-and-dance, and the near-misses.
This make-believe takes about three-and-a half
hours (read, a life-time; perhaps more than one).
The denouement still out there somewhere, perhaps
after some other song-and-dance.
This is what, I feel, the Indo-Pak political situation
boils down to, with periodic sprinkling of water
or oil, as the case may be, to keep things going.
This still seems to be what I’d call ‘the
sub-continent psyche’, about 58 years (over
2 generations) after the Partition. It could easily
continue, but can we, as neighbors, each with
its own set of some still-unresolved basic problems,
afford it in the 21st century?
Considerable room exists for ‘triangulation’
in this neighborhood of three nuclear powers,
and it could get too hot, too suddenly. Complexity
is the middle name of international politics,
but it is hard to understand why a culture that
seems determined to blindly follow anything Hollywood
(or the West) continues to miss what Western countries
and cultures have also done: That is, to go beyond
merely taking care of life’s very basic
problems and make their neighborhoods mutually
pleasant by reducing their differences, increasing
mutual trust and understanding, without putting
national integrity or anything else at risk.
That kind of selectivity reflects our culturally
schizophrenic attitude: On the one hand, there
is eagerness to return to our pre-Raj days and
proudly change Bombay to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai
and Calcutta for Kolkat, and on the other, great
pride in playing second-banana to Hollywood, even
to the point of reducing the industry to ‘Bollywood’
(not Mollywood for Mumbai, though), ‘Lollywood’,
and other such imitations.
The subcontinent has at least two sets of Western
examples it can consider and follow: US-Canada
and the European Union (EU).
The US has a huge border (total 12,034 km): it
shares, 8,893 km with Canada to the north (including
2,477 km between the US Alaska and Canadian Yukon
and British Columbia), and 3,141 km with Mexico
to the South. The “new reality” emerged
four years ago, on 9/11. For obvious reasons,
there’s a heightened sense of security under
the “Smart Borders” policy (created
in 1997 – before 9/11/01), but the daily
commerce and civilian flow of traffic continues
unabated, and you would still not find armed,
military face-off at either border (quite unlike
the Indo-Pak counterpart).
Going from US to Canada used to be so easy: you
would drive into a border crossing, a minute or
so later (sometimes the INS officers would just
check your driver’s license and ask a couple
of questions about any fruit/drug import, but
mostly a routine, problem-free formality), you
are barreling down a Canadian highway. About the
same to and from Mexico. Both borders also used
to be notoriously ‘porous’; quite
a few entry-points, totally unmanned and in deserted
unprotected property. This was a major concern
on the southern border; NOT on the northern one,
despite it being nearly 3x longer and having,
traditionally, much lighter monitoring. Besides,
part of the Northern border also goes through
waters of the 4 out of 5 Great Lakes straddling
the US-Canada border (Lake Michigan being entirely
on the US side), and a portion of the St. Lawrence
river, a primary outlet of the inter-linked lakes.
Any border problem or disagreement between the
countries could have disastrous effects for both.
Because of concerns over illegal Mexican immigration,
you see a lot more INS officers today at the southern
border, per unit length, than on the northern
one, but the traffic (civilian and commercial)
moves fairly smoothly every day at the southern
border, just as it does across the northern one.
And, except for lnger lines and consequent delays,
the daily traffic (both ways) at almost every
border crossing, northern or southern is just
like you faced before 9/11. The ‘smart borders’
collaboration merely tries to ensure that the
“border remains open for business but closed
to terrorists and criminals” and mutual
economic security.
Canada and the US enjoy the largest bilateral
trade relationship in the world, one being the
biggest customer of the other. According to government
estimates, US$1.2 billion in goods and services
and 300,000 individuals moved across the border,
daily in March 2005 alone. Eastern Border Transport
Coalition (EBTC) serves about 50 million people
and about 75% of the total US-Canadian surface
trade flows through the eastern US-Canadian borders.
In 2000, the surface trade between them amounted
to $400 billion, according to EBTC figures. In
fact, more commerce flows between Windsor, Ontario
and Detroit, Michigan than through any other border
crossing in the world. Similarly, US is Mexico’s
biggest trading partner: According the 2003 figures,
about 88% of Mexican products were imported in
the US, mostly by surface borders.
The second example is EU, which may offer a far
closer comparison to the Indo-Pak situation. One
could even contrast the trends over nearly the
same time frame, i.e., the past 60 years. Immediately
after two World Wars, European political pundits
knew that to prevent a recurrence of such conflict,
they’d have to bring the two warring countries
(France and Germany) closer. Then, starting in
1951 (only 6 years after WWII), they formed a
regional economic agreement among six neighbors.
From then on, they worked through various arrangements
to EU today, a super-national organization of
25 European member-nations (10 joined in 2004).
EU is far more than a mere free-trade association
(like ASEAN, NAFTA, or Mercosur). Actually, it
has many attributes of independent nations —
its own flag, own currency (Euro), own anthem.
Euro, used all over EU (except UK, Sweden and
Denmark), was launched on January 1, 1999, over
six-anda-half years ago or about 55 years after
the end of WWII). Another unifying measure of
the EU is its Constitution: although its ratification
was recently defeated by the French, it’s
unlikely that EU or the decades-year old desire
and spirit behind it is so damaged that it would
disappear suddenly. Even the ‘Euroskeptics’
would concede that much. Some more palatable clauses
can lure back the French, the co-founding members.
After all, it was a French Foreign Minister (Robert
Schuman) who in 1950 (within 5-6 years after the
end of WWII and France’s own occupation
by Nazi Germany) had initiated efforts to try
to unite French neighbors (including West Germany),
for an eventual union of all Europe. As an entity,
EU already has several ongoing terms and functions
with other nations and international agencies
(common foreign and security policy).
EU countries are an economic powerhouse, with
highly favorable economic and mutually beneficial
arrangements among the member nations. It is a
highly competitive force for the US and Japan
in the world market. EU, with a combined population
of nearly 457 million (or 1. 67x larger than the
US population; July 2005 estimates), with fairly
stable European economy and strong Euro (about
US$1.22 = 1 Euro), allows a lot of ground to compete.
A good number of EU members are former combatants
in WWII (and/or WWI), who had (or still have)
various national disagreements and conflicts,
and some of these differences have been going
on as long as or longer than the conflicts between
India and Pakistan. EU countries share 11,215
km of borders among themselves, and the people
can freely travel in other EU countries. EU is
another example, rather another boat, that the
Indo-Pak subcontinent has missed.
Comparison with the Indo-Pak situation would show
that, other than a bus-link across the border,
cricket-diplomacy and a few cultural-political
exchanges, including those of ‘Bollywood-Lollywood’,
the nuclear neighbors still have a huge reservoir
of mutual distrust, which keeps their borders
tingling with high-energy alertness. Since independence
in 1947, about what India and Pakistan have to
show for is: two wars over an issue that is an
old-standby for keeping the pot simmering (a third
one, unrelated that resulted in splitting East
Pakistan off as Bangladesh), recurring border
skirmishes, and little mutual trust, to speak
of. No mutual commerce worth a mention and very
limited travel across the border! With China,
Indian relations have gone from ‘Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai’
to the 1962 war and minor adjustments on disputed
territory. India-Pakistan-China borders offer
fertile ground for Clintonian ‘triangulation’.
Quite apart from my own personal, widely expressed
appreciation, over the past decades, of the US-Canada
border as a highly relevant comparative example
for Indo-Pak situation, I was pleasantly surprised
by some confidential diplomatic revelations in
a recent book (2001) by Dennis Kux, “The
United States and Pakistan (1947-2000): Disenchanted
Allies.” Kux, a veteran South Asia expert,
worked for 20 years on Indo-Pak issues at the
US State Department. He also served in Pakistan
(1957-59; 1969-71), and has had access to a lot
of confidential State Department material, some
of which he included in the book.
In this book, he refers to a private meeting in
March, 1948 that Paul Alling (the first US Ambassador
to Pakistan) and his wife were invited to at Jinnah’s
beach cottage by the sea. Jinnah (then, 71) and
Alling discussed many things on their walk on
the beach. When Alling mentioned that the US would
like to see India and Pakistan as friendly neighbors,
Jinnah is quoted as saying “nothing”
was “closer to [his] heart.” Then,
reporting on internal memos on that meeting, Kux
says: “What he [Jinnah] sincerely wished
was an association similar to that between the
United States and Canada. Jinnah said he had told
Gandhi and Nehru that “Pakistan desired
a defensive understanding with India on a military
level… with no time limit, similar to perhaps
to the [US arrangements with Canada.” Why
have his successors in Pakistan or those of Gandhi
and Nehru in India not followed or thought along
these lines? If the US-Canada pattern doesn’t
seem acceptable, how about the EU model ?
A ‘Bollywood’ movie would make you
wait till the very last minute of a three-and-a-half-hour
movie (that is, another life or more) to let you
see the survivors living happily ‘thereafter’.
Hope we don’t have to wait that long !
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