East and West Punjab need trade corridors: Indian writer
By Khalid
Hasan on April
20,2007
WASHINGTON: India and Pakistan need a “corridor” for economic and
trade cooperation and can start with establishing one at their
Wagah-Attari border in Punjab, a visiting Indian economist said here
this week.
Tridvesh Singh Maini, author of a book on how the two Punjabs can
forge closer trade, economic and cultural links, was speaking to a
group of interested South Asians at the World Bank on Tuesday. He
said East Punjab was stagnating economically and its agriculture,
which once helped feed the rest of India, was in bad shape. Drug
addiction has emerged as a serious problem and the traditionally
hardy Punjabi farmer has stopped working, letting migrant labour
from Bihar to do the job he once did with such vigour and
efficiency. He said the two Punjabs, if they cooperate, can make
this region the pride of the subcontinent and an example of the kind
of cooperation that was the vision of SAARC when it was founded.
Maini called for free trade between the two Punjabs. He said instead
of staging “jingoistic and ultra-nationalist” drills at their border
posts, the two parts should open up to each other, which would be
the beginning of a co-prosperity zone stretching from India, through
Pakistan to Afghanistan and Central Asia. He said the proposed
Wagah-Attari corridor should be replicated between the two parts of
Kashmir and between Sindh and Rajasthan. India-Pakistan relations
should move beyond their “Kashmir-centric” fixated position. He
suggested that India should set up the same kind of corridors with
its other neighbours, one such corridor being between Tamil Nadu and
Sri Lanka.
Maini said the mindset of Indian and Pakistani bureaucracies must
change because it could not produce results as the past 60 years had
shown. Businessmen from India and Pakistan are keen to do business
with one another but find themselves hampered by all kinds of
restrictions. The time has come to remove those restrictions and
throw open the doors. Other means of stepping up Pakistan-India
cooperation are promotion of “spiritual tourism”, since both Muslims
in Pakistan and non-Muslims in India – Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists –
are keen to visit their respective holy places to which to date they
have been given little or no access. Another facet of cooperation,
he added, lies in “medical tourism”. Instead of spending large sums
of money and seeking medical attention in Europe, it would be much
simpler and much cheaper for Pakistanis, for example, to go to India
where some excellent medical facilities exist. He also proposed
university exchanges involving both academics and students. He said
already there was talk of setting up a joint agricultural research
fund and facility between the two Punjabs with investment form those
residing abroad. Pakistan’s Agriculture University at Faisalabad is
an established institution of specialist knowledge in food and
agriculture and some exchanges have already taken place between that
university and the University of Punjab on the Indian side. They
need to be enlarged and stepped up.
Maini paid tribute to the present chief minister of Pakistani Punjab
and the former chief minister of East Punjab who had taken a number
of resolute steps to bring the two Punjabs together in various
areas. The holding of the All Punjab games had been a great success.
Stressing the worth and value of cooperation, Maini pointed out that
the price of one kilo of potato seed bought by Pakistani Punjab’s
farmer from elsewhere cost Rs 70 while the same seed cost only Rs 24
if bought from India. Similarly, the price of scooters and
motorcycles in Pakistan is very high, compared with what they cost
in India. He said good economics was also good politics. Until now
what exchanges have taken place between the two Punjabs have been
sporadic and haphazard. There have been more obstacles than
opportunities. The national governments in the two countries have
not been “comfortable” with Punjab as a trade and business
“corridor”. There are far too many visa restrictions and what travel
takes place between the two parts is fraught with difficulties and
despoiled by “security checks” and “clearances”. Not much attention
has been paid, he said, to this aspect of India-Pakistan relations
by US think tanks either, which have concentrated on Kashmir and
nuclear issues. He noted that the shooting up of land prices in
areas of the Punjab such as Hussainiwala showed that some farsighted
lobbies were anticipating increased economic and other cooperation
between the two Punjabs.
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