08-03-2009, 12:02 AM
<b>
Train across South Asia</b>
By Dr Ijaz Ahsan | Published: July 31, 2009
In an intriguing move, Indian authorities have suggested a trial railway link between Pakistan and Bangladesh through India and Nepal. Incidentally, before partition, someone had suggested a ten-mile wide corridor across India linking East and West Pakistan, but that of course was a quite hare-brained idea and no one took it seriously.
Relations between India and Pakistan have seen many ups and downs. One is told that before Ayub's 1965 war, young men used to go over from Lahore to Amritsar to see an odd movie. But the war created such antagonism that those neighbourly relations became a thing of the past. Incidentally, both the 1965 and 1971 wars were fought between the two countries when a military dictator was in charge over here. Even the 1999 Kargil misadventure was a brainchild of General Musharraf, although it can be debated how much Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif knew about it.
Many years ago I said to our younger generation how nice it would be if the two countries had cordial relations, so that like any other neighbouring countries we could take a train from Lahore to Calcutta or Madras, and they could go across Peshawar and Kabul. With one voice, each one said: "I don't want to go to India!" Yet I had not suggested that we leave next day; I had only expressed a desire that we had cordial relations with each other, so that we could do that if we wanted.
This set me thinking. We have many disputes, the waters of our rivers being by far the most important to my mind. But it is not just that. In each country a section of the establishment wishes to keep matters this way. It suits them that things remain as they are, else we would not need to spend half the country's budget on them. Our industrialists feel the same way; they fear being swamped by Indian goods. They do not consider the matter from the other side: if our system improved and we could reduce our cost of production to compete, we would have a market of a billion people with a large middle class for our goods.
Train across South Asia</b>
By Dr Ijaz Ahsan | Published: July 31, 2009
In an intriguing move, Indian authorities have suggested a trial railway link between Pakistan and Bangladesh through India and Nepal. Incidentally, before partition, someone had suggested a ten-mile wide corridor across India linking East and West Pakistan, but that of course was a quite hare-brained idea and no one took it seriously.
Relations between India and Pakistan have seen many ups and downs. One is told that before Ayub's 1965 war, young men used to go over from Lahore to Amritsar to see an odd movie. But the war created such antagonism that those neighbourly relations became a thing of the past. Incidentally, both the 1965 and 1971 wars were fought between the two countries when a military dictator was in charge over here. Even the 1999 Kargil misadventure was a brainchild of General Musharraf, although it can be debated how much Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif knew about it.
Many years ago I said to our younger generation how nice it would be if the two countries had cordial relations, so that like any other neighbouring countries we could take a train from Lahore to Calcutta or Madras, and they could go across Peshawar and Kabul. With one voice, each one said: "I don't want to go to India!" Yet I had not suggested that we leave next day; I had only expressed a desire that we had cordial relations with each other, so that we could do that if we wanted.
This set me thinking. We have many disputes, the waters of our rivers being by far the most important to my mind. But it is not just that. In each country a section of the establishment wishes to keep matters this way. It suits them that things remain as they are, else we would not need to spend half the country's budget on them. Our industrialists feel the same way; they fear being swamped by Indian goods. They do not consider the matter from the other side: if our system improved and we could reduce our cost of production to compete, we would have a market of a billion people with a large middle class for our goods.