Pakistan should drop opposition to India's growing ties with Central Asian states: Shankar

Member Indian Parliament, Mani Shankar Aiyar says Pakistan should drop its political opposition to his country's increasing ties with Central Asian states, for India enjoys historic relations with Pakistan. He urged his government not to see Pakistan's growing relations with West Asia as a threatening development to its interest in the region.
Giving a lecture with eloquence and command to prescribe a peace remedy for both nations to unite with religious, ethnic, linguistic and political diversities during the International Conference on "The Situation in South Asia Global and Regional Implications" at SZABIST.
He observed where Islam united Pakistan as a nation, the rapid Islamization divided it at the same time. But, disregarded the opinion that India had a Muslim nation within, saying his country had grown up with the passage of time on nation state lines.
He urged both governments to continue negotiations, despite hurdles, saying no other country should be allowed to interfere in the peace talks. Giving a tinge of his government's political colour, he however showed interest in including China in the Saarc for it had the Tibetan region as part of its country, which also India claims as its territory.
He said the Sub-Continent would be united with all its diversities. He added that any attempt made in South Asia to make a state on a single religious ideology met an ultimate failure. He said all the countries were now democratic and their nations also had the same demand of freedom to choose own governments.
Shankar said a respectful diversity was the emblem of the united India, which according to him, was now the West was trying to attain to grow united. He in clear terms called Dr Allama Muhammad Iqbal, along Rabindranath Tagore the author of South Asian renaissance, to shed the long inferior mentality against the British rule and bring forth a notion of self-esteem.
The bureaucrat-turned-politician said Pakistan for its own interests should strengthen ties with India, as it only had paths to join the Central Asia with the rest of the continent. He said allowing gas pipelines projects through its territory could help it earn million dollars a year as royalty. He said Afghanistan and Pakistan had a greater leverage in the region for their being key strategic lands.
He said the approach towards trade should be sensitive. He said both countries should allow investment opportunities for each other's business communities and if it fortunately occurred within a family as one was a Pakistani citizen and the other Indian, then its prospect of growth was phenomenal. He said such a policy would also increase chances of welfare in the respective societies, adding that capital account was better than the current accounts. Joint business ventures could also be affective to boost trade within the sub-continent, Shankar suggested.
However, he dispelled the fears of Pakistani business community, saying trade between both nations would always show imbalance for India had a greater economy while Pakistan had relatively smaller economy. He gave preference to the regional trade amongst the nations over the bestowing of MFN status to any country for the same purpose.
He said Islam spread after Muhammad Bin Qasim's assassination through "soft-power" with the message of equality which later became a prominent part of the modern Hinduism opposing the cast and class system. He cited British census of 19th Century saying Muslim ruled 666 years as kings of India but only 24 percent people of the total population had willingly converted into Islam, showing a class of unity amongst all religious groups and the rulers. He said Muslims greatly left their prints on Hinduism in the region and also got influence from Hindus.
Former Foreign Secretary, Najamuddin Shaikh said Asia was rising which greatly reflected from the US approach wanting to have better ties with the continent states. He said Pakistan had peace problems with Afghanistan and India. He said Pakistan was carefully negotiating with India protection of its interest, adding that there should also be a good will from either side to succeed the talks. He urged all nations of Asia not to allow external influence in their affairs.
He said Pakistan would not see Afghanistan beyond a small-size market for its products and would intend to have better ties for the same community of Pukhtuns living either side, which shared common grounds of culture. Prominent Economist, Dr Kaiser Bengali observed that India's policy to punish Pakistan for Mumbai terror attacks had failed. He linked trade in Pak-India context to politics of both nations. He said India's policies continue to undermine civil society in Pakistan and damaging the efforts of peace lobby here. He said India's aggressive policies had greatly strengthened the warmongers in Pakistan and the anti-peace groups.
To a question, he said Pakistan had no capacity to carry out assessments of Indian imported products whether it had been supported through over or covert subsidies by the exporting country's government under the WTO rules to apply for anti-dumping duty. He said the process of examining the imported items was very difficult for Pakistan.
Bengali made it clear that establishing peace for Pakistan was not an option rather it was necessary to go forward with prosperity and economic growth. He said if Thar coal project was started in 90s. It would now be producing 20,000 MW of electricity and Pakistan could also export this electricity to India and earn precious foreign exchange.
He said if Pakistan increased healthcare and education budget five times, the citizens would even then be unable to reap the benefits for the system was chocked and rendered unproductive. He said even the current nominal healthcare and education budget was properly utilised, a large number of citizens would feel relieve from the better services, urging overhauling of the system.
President Peace Coalition Sindh, Dr Tipu Sultan suggested both countries could get benefits from each other's expertise and technology to serve the humanity in a better way. He said Pakistan and India had lower per capita incomes in the South Asian region.
He said the government had spent huge money on producing PhDs in Pakistan, instead of strengthening the primary education system of the nation, which always remained neglected by all the governments. He said the healthcare facilities in the country were also nominal.
He said 85 infants die every year out of 1,000 births while under age of five 103 children perished out of 1,000, adding it was an alarming state of mortalities. He said 90 percent of the population could not have access to the clean drinking water and hygiene. He said Pakistan was amongst 22 countries where 80 percent TB patients existed.
However, Dr Sultan pointed out that Pakistan had some good hospitals where excellent professionals continue to carry out difficult surgeries on global standards regularly. He said Pakistan was amongst the top 10 countries producing 60,000 to 70,000 doctors every year, but showed regrets of their flight to abroad to serve healthcare sectors in West and Middle East.
He said India was an exporting country of medicine, medical manpower and echoingly to South Asia and Africa. He demanded medical tourism to India for equipping the Pakistani doctors with knowledge of high tech surgeries. He said transfer of technology would benefit both countries. He said South Asian countries lacked clean drinking water and primary healthcare facilities. Economist Iffat Ara said trade within Saarc countries was nominal. She said Pakistan export strength was textile but in non-textile items it could lose edge over India. She urged India to offer some trade concessions to Pakistan to offset the impact of trade imbalance between the two states.