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Resolve Kashmir, and focus on development

The unusual warmth and bon homie which was the highlight of the interface between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan when they met under the aegis of the seven-nation South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation recently in the Maldives could be the precursor to an overdue thaw in Indo-Pak relations.

Not that high hopes have not been raised in previous summit-level meetings between the prime ministers of these two tiresomely bickering nations whose leaders have thus far exhibited a pathetic poverty of imagination in resolving their bilateral disputes and getting on with the task of making life easier for their utterly poor and wretched populations. But this time around political pundits detect the beginnings of a sea-change in Indo-Pak relations. 'It is obvious that a potentially significant shift in their respective governments' approach towards each other is underway, ' commented one editorial writer.

Prime Minister I K Gujral set ambitious goals for the SAARC nations calling upon them to establish a South Asian Free Trade Areas and a South Asian Economic Community on the pattern of the European Economic Community. Yet the immediate gain of the Maldives summit was that Gujral and Pakistan Prime Minister Sharief agreed not only to revive foreign secretary-level meetings between the two countries but also to constitute working groups which will address problems and disputes in areas such as the issuance of visas, development of bilateral trade and the elimination of non-tariff trade barriers.

Yet as always, a jarringly discordant note which nearly ruined the bon homie of the Maldives summit was struck over the status of Kashmir issue which has poisoned Indo-Pak relations for almost half a century. While the Pakistan foreign minister announced that a working group will also be constituted to negotiate the Kashmir issue, the Indian foreign ministry announced that Kashmir was beyond the scope of the agreement to set up bilateral working groups.

Quite clearly the Indian foreign ministry's position that the Kashmir issue which is the prime cause of the five-decade-old Indo-Pak impasse is beyond negotiation, is foolish and untenable. Though shortly after his return from Male (Maldives) Gujral was forced by the BJP and other jingoists in Parliament to issue the mandatory statement that Kashmir is an integral part of India, it is high time the Kashmir issue is seriously negotiated and resolved once and for all.

The Soviet empire has crumbled, the Berlin Wall has fallen, a new Palestinian state has been established in the Middle East, Bangladesh is a reality. But India and Pakistan have not budged an inch from their 1948 positions on the status of Kashmir. With such a poverty of statesmanship in these two nations, it is hardly surprising that both of them are at the bottom of the heap among the world's least developed nations.

The intransigence of several generations of politicians in India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue has cost both the nations dear. It has triggered three subcontinental Indo-Pak wars and an arms race which has caused both these pitifully poor nations to be listed among the largest markets for armaments in the world. India's Rs 300 billion plus annual expenditure on defence is on a par with this desperately poor and illiterate nation's annual outlay on education.

According to statistics cited in the Human Development Report 1996, published by the United Nationals Development Programme (UNDP), while India's military expenditure was 2.8 per cent of GDP in 1994, Pakistan's was an astronomical 6.9 per cent. Moreover Pakistan's per capita military expenditure is $27 (against India's $ 8) with expenditure on the imports of conventional arms of the two nations being estimated at $ 819 million and $ 773 million respectively in 1994. Nor is there any evidence which indicates that this crazy spending on military equipment by both nations has since abated.

This unabated arms race in the subcontinent has taken a heavy toll on development outlays, particularly expenditure on education in both the nations. In Pakistan annual expenditure on education is a pathetic 2.7 per cent of GDP (India: 3.7 per cent) against the global norm of 5 per cent. The consequence has been visited most cruelly upon women in both the countries. Only 24 per cent of the women in Pakistan and 46 per cent of female population of India is literate. Little wonder the subcontinent is confronted with the prospect of runaway population growth!

The imperatives of compassion for the hundreds of millions of the poor and disadvantaged in India and Pakistan if not statesmanship demand that the arms race in the subcontinent is called off. A necessary precondition is the bilateral resolution of the five-decade-old Kashmir issue. Neither nation has a water-tight legal case in their claim to Kashmir. With a small measure of goodwill and intensive negotiations, the status of Kashmir can be resolved. Indeed it must be resolved so that the slothful governments of India and Pakistan can begin to attend to their primary duty of developing the long-neglected human resources of these unfortunate nations.