By Arshad M Khan
India is holding elections. A massive undertaking, the process is expected to take five weeks to allow the 800 million eligible voters an opportunity to vote. But the issue that can bring Armageddon to the subcontinent is not open to debate. Relations with its nuclear-armed neighbor have not improved, despite attempts by Pakistan's newly elected President Mamnoon Hussain in the last year, because no party would like to appear soft on Pakistan prior to the election. However, the post-election period could present an opportunity.
The next Independence Day will celebrate 67 years of self-rule for India and Pakistan. Yet the two countries are unable to resolve their differences, and extremism is on the rise in both. What a shame, because the cultural roots are identical, and the peoples lived in relative harmony for a millennia until proactive colonial policies sundered the fabric of a multi-religious, multi-ethnic society. But there are ways to leave differences behind, which the two countries can learn from the experience their own colonial power.
In 1906, the border between the US and British Canada was demilitarized when the British withdrew the last of their troops. It has remained so. Except for a nominal passport and customs check, people travel back and forth freely. How did this happen when the US and Britain had been intense rivals, fighting three wars in the previous century?
The road to peace began with a dispute (in the 1890's) between British Guyana and Venezuela, when the British Admiralty informed their government they could not spare the resources to take on the US opposition to the British position. The British backed off and agreed to arbitration.
In return, the US softened its stance on several issues. Fishing rights were agreed upon, then the Panama Canal, which had been opposed by the British. Finally, the Alaska/Canada border was settled. Much of this was behind the scenes, and kept secret from the British public and even Parliament - the opposition would have skewered the government because public sentiment was strongly anti-American, given that the two countries had been at war off and on for more than a hundred years.
Thereafter, in 1898, Britain was the one major power that supported the US in the Spanish-American War. By 1903, US president Teddy Roosevelt was likening a war with Britain to fratricide. The special relationship was born.
How long standing rivals become friends is the subject of Charles A. Kupchan's last book, How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace. It is noteworthy that while the agreements with the US were being cemented, Britain also signed a treaty with Japan. It was not successful because cultural dissimilarities prevented the two sides from overcoming fear and mistrust. Between the US and Britain, cultural similarities eased the transition, and one can envision a future where they will for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Returning to 1906, it was also the year when the Muslims in India, out of fear, launched a party to defend their interests, and the Muslim League was born. A decade later in the middle of the Great War, a young Muslim lawyer by the name of Mohammad Ali Jinnah prepared a proposal, supported by both the Hindu-dominated Congress Party and the Muslim League under the Lucknow Pact, for a post-war self-governing India as a dominion of the British Empire, not unlike Australia, New Zealand and others. Had the British agreed and cooperated, the fearful, frenzied and needless slaughter of millions of innocents during partition in 1947 would have been avoided, and India would still be whole.
Why is this so important? It is important because the problems the subcontinent will soon face - if the scientists are right - are extremely complex, and handled better as a federated whole than as fragmented units acting out of fear, suspicion and mistrust. Climate change cannot be handled individually by nations that share a space. And the worst-case scenario of severe water depletion from the increased ablation of the Himalayan glaciers threatens the granaries of the Indus and Gangetic plains.
India's growth rate has been encouraging (although lagging lately), and the exploits of some of its businessmen make Indians abroad proud. That the Jaguar dealer a mile down the road from me sells cars made by an Indian-owned company brings a smile to the lips of anyone of Indian extraction. And Pakistan keeping up with India's per capita gross domestic product, plus developing a hundred-bomb nuclear arsenal, merits some admiration. The fact is, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh share the same culture, and like the US and Britain, have within them the seeds of a lasting peace.
There are, however, other reasons why coming together is important. Consider India and China: They both started at about the same place in the late 1940s. But a comparison now is embarrassing for the subcontinent: Pakistan is to an extent a client state; India lags far behind. Quite aside from Beijing's stellar Olympics, showcasing Chinese skills to the world, and the distressing Indian act to follow in the Asian games, the economic statistics confirm the obvious.
For 2013, China's nominal GDP per capita as reported by the International Money Fund (IMF) was US$6,569 as compared with India's $1,414, Pakistan's $1,295 and Bangladesh's $899. Countries like Singapore ($52,918), South Korea ($23,838), Taiwan ($20,706) and Malaysia ($10,429) are all substantially higher, which is sobering when we consider that the subcontinent achieved independence first.
China is now the world's second-largest economy, but the subcontinent lags far behind. Transportation is the backbone of a modern economy, and China's arterial roads are modern, its railways comparable with and sometimes superior to those in the West. The fast growing high-speed rail network is connected by 250 mph trains with record speeds under favorable conditions above 300 mph.
Television coverage of disasters is a window into rural lives rarely encountered by the urban elite or economic statisticians. Lately, such coverage leaves the impression of a burgeoning rural middle class in China, well-fed villagers in Pakistan and destitute farmers in many parts of India. A cogent statistic confirming this intuition is the percentage of low-birth-weight infants across Asia and the Pacific, as reported by UNICEF for 2008. China at about 2% of live births had the least, beating even New Zealand, Australia and Japan. Pakistan was at 18%, and Bangladesh at 22%, while India was dead last at an off-the-chart 30%. Low birth weight increases the chances of infants succumbing to illnesses, and such suffering surely deserves to be alleviated.
Unfortunately, in the growing middle classes' headlong rush to consumerism, nobody seems willing to look over their shoulder at the ravaged detritus of policy folly left in their wake. As Mahatma Gandhi is reputed to have said: "There is always enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed."
The crippling expenditures of India and Pakistan's wars - proxy or otherwise - and preparations for possible war do little to enhance security in the face of a mutual nuclear threat. Endless war means endless suffering and endless waste. Pakistan is faced with insurgencies in Baluchistan and the Frontier Province; India has kettles building up steam in the north, northeast, east, south and center.
Then of course, there is Kashmir, that cauldron of discontent where democratic delusion came face to face with reality in the summer of 2010. And thousands of unmarked graves have been discovered. The latest farce is the penalty imposed on university students for cheering a Pakistani cricket team - not surprising in view of the heavy-handed military presence there.
We started with the case of Britain and the US, and how cultural similarity abetted the relationship. Let's also consider the long-standing, bitter and often bloody Franco-German rivalry. If one travels that border now, one only notes its absence. Not only is it undefended, but it no longer has customs or passport controls.
How that happened might well be a lesson for the subcontinent. It was a story of economic cooperation leading to a customs union, while maintaining political independence, as well as adequate safeguards for weaker economies. This European Community model could be one answer. An autonomous Kashmir within such a framework is a logical way of finessing that problem, and the money flowing to India and Pakistan from tourists on their way to the valley should quiet any cries of protest. We are past feudalism, and both countries have to realize that land belongs to the people who till it.
Imagine a prosperous subcontinent freed from the fear of war and nuclear apocalypse, on its way to joining the First World. It is a vision worth fighting for, in which a worthy people rid themselves of their painful legacy of colonialism.
Dr Arshad M Khan, a retired professor based in the US, is an occasional contributor to the print and electronic media.
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