What an irony - more than 35 percent of the world poor live in India and Pakistan, the two that were some of the biggest importers of weapons of war. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), over the last five years (2007-2011) while India imported arms almost 10 percent of the global arms imports, Pakistan with 5 percent of the arms imports was the third in that category.
These figures stand mocking at the governments of the two countries, who seem to be relegating their primary responsibility of improving the quality of life of their people to join the arms race in the region. In Pakistan, seven years after the earthquake, satisfactory rehabilitation of the affected people is not yet in sight. Add to this, the lingering misery of hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were devastated by floods in recent years. With every passing day, more and more people in Pakistan are joining the swelling ranks of the malnourished, as price hikes make regular calls on these disadvantaged and unprivileged people. The same scenario is unfolding in India, perhaps at much larger scale given the country's huge population. New Delhi announced yet another whopping 17 percent raise in India's defence allocation stunning independent observers over the blatant disregard for betterment of its people. According to the UNDP figures, over 37 percent of Indians, are hence almost one-third of the entire world's poor live in India.
Justifying the huge raise in the defence budget, India's Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the allocation was based on the "present needs" broadly hinting that should the forces need additional funds these would be made available - leave apart huge chunks of money that go undisclosed, camouflaged under innocuous titles. Not less than 17 billion dollars are allocated for capital expenditure that's for upgrading the Indian air force and navy by inducting a whole lot of modern jet-fighters and blue water warships. India's arms imports now come mostly from Western sources, unlike the Cold War era when its almost exclusive source of sophisticated weapons was the erstwhile Soviet Union. Now the US-led Western governments are keen on arming India adequately enough to face up to China which is now the emerging superpower and perceived threat to the West. With Shah's Iran lost as the regional policeman, India fits the bill to stand in for requirement. But is it a realistic assessment on the part of New Delhi's new patrons that India faces threat of a major conflict with China, with the Great Himalayas standing in-between?
History tells us that ever since the border conflict in 1962, there has been no mentionable clash between the forces of these two neighbours along their 3,380-km common border. But in the meantime, there were two major wars and many clashes between India and Pakistan. If India ever faced any threat it is from Pakistan, the rest of its borders are secure and historically undisturbed. Obviously, any additional expenditure, be it in terms of border deployments or acquisition of latest weaponry fully resonates with the Pakistani leadership - and that triggers the arms race. Yet, confronted with the matching threat perception Pakistan spent only half of what India did over the last years in arms imports.
But that much both for India and Pakistan is too much, when millions are hungry and social sector development remains stagnant if not declining in both the countries. How and why the strategic players of the two don't think in terms of giving the diplomatic option a fair chance, there is no answer. Of course, the channels of communication remain as narrow as ever, and no question that war-mongering is still the best pastime for the two. But it's against the spirit of the new era in international politics. Armed to teeth with nuclear weapons, the erstwhile Cold War warriors have gone to sleep and the Berlin Wall has fallen. Pakistan and India must revive and reconstruct a viable relationship. They must resume the face-to-face dialogue instead of still relying on the back-channel operators for some trigger. To begin with, issues like Siachin and Sir Creek where some tangible progress already had been made can be taken up. Once resumed, the talks should result in concrete results, igniting hopes for resolving more contentious issues like Kashmir, water disputes and even the no-war pact. Otherwise, the arms race will heat up justifying more and expensive war weaponry - at the cost of keeping millions poor and hungry.