India’s Rise Is Not Dependent On Pakistan

India’s Rise Is Not Dependent On Pakistan

Even if Pakistan gets the IMF programme, which will unlock several billion dollars from its friends, it will only last a few months. Pakistan’s economy needs to be rethought and restructured.

To accomplish this, Pakistan must abandon some of its pernicious foreign, defence, and security policies towards India.

A few Pakistanis – some who are sensible – have been expressing the need for Pakistan to reach out to India and reconnect its economy with that country. Sadly, few take advantage of this advice in Pakistani society and the system.

Many advocates of enhancing trade, commerce, and investment relations with India have some somewhat unrealistic expectations. They think switching on a switch is as easy as flipping a switch.

An India desperate for normalization will rush to clasp Pakistan’s hand once it offers normalization. Pakistan must follow the example of China and India, where trade and economic relationships run parallel with political and territorial disputes.

There is a growing desire to decouple India’s economy from China’s gradually, but the Pakistanis seem unaware of the severe strains in the India-China relationship.

Despite their political hostility and export of terrorism, they believe they can maintain their irredentist claims over Kashmir with a flourishing economic relationship with India.

It is also assumed that normalization is as much in Pakistan’s interest as in India’s. Thus, it is a win-win situation since India should not have to contend with a failing, tottering and hostile Pakistan since this would slow India’s growth and hinder its advancement.

In Pakistan, a belief that regions prosper, not countries, has taken hold. The result is that India will never be able to realize its ambitions if it turns its back on Pakistan. However, the Pakistanis don’t grasp that regions can flourish even if some countries don’t join a regional bloc.

For instance, countries outside the European Union (EU) benefited less in Europe than those who did. Pakistan is not part of the bloc of countries in the subcontinent cooperating and prospering through economic cooperation.

Compared to Pakistan, India offers a greater chance of developing stronger economic relationships with other subcontinental countries, some of which already benefit from India’s relationship.

India cannot function without Pakistan, as Pakistanis claim. Recently, Pakistanis have been disabused of the belief they are too essential to fail and too dangerous to fail. As a result, its geostrategic location has also lost its importance.

A failed Pakistan threatened global security even as they were coming to terms with their growing irrelevance robbing them of their rents derived from their location.

However, they are nurturing another delusion that India needs them just as much as they do. Nonetheless, this will also hit the rocks of reality at some point.

Pakistan must normalize with India to climb out of the hole it finds itself in, not the other way around. It is pretty irrelevant to the story of India that Pakistan exists. As far as India is concerned, it is a bit player at best.

India and Pakistan are unconnected politically, economically, socially, culturally, and psychologically. Geo-economics is slipping into their new paradigm without opening the eyes of Pakistanis, who keep preaching about their geostrategic location.

Their locational advantage earlier was their ability to observe Soviet forces in Afghanistan during wars. This equation is no longer relevant. We are living in a time when connectivity is in vogue.

However, Pakistan must connect with India, the fifth-largest economy on earth. The Pakistani economy is separate from India, which means it will not benefit from India’s growth.

How does Pakistan position itself as a bridge, and to what does it connect? The bridge isn’t connected to India, so a bridge between what? Due to the severance of trade, Pakistan cannot be a manufacturing base for businesses seeking to sell to Indian consumers.

As a result, trade and economics will play out exactly as expected. Pakistan must be connected to India to easily reach markets in Afghanistan (a small, insignificant economic player) and Central Asia (not India’s most important market), which are safer, more secure, and less expensive.

Aside from connectivity, the development trajectory in both countries since the 1990s reveals a different story to Pakistan’s assertions about India’s importance.

Despite sound economic policies and good economic management, the gap between India and Pakistan has widened over the last three decades. This period has been hardly notable for the relations between India and Pakistan.

Despite these challenges, India’s growth story remained unaffected. Indian trade with Pakistan was rather anaemic compared to its over-foreign business with the rest of the world.

After the Jammu and Kashmir Constitutional reforms in 2019, Pakistan severed its trade relations with India out of spite. During this time, India has traded over $1.5 trillion worth of goods and services abroad.

The total amount of Indian foreign trade with Pakistan was less than one-quarter per cent. How can this be of complete impotence to India’s growth story?

There is no way Pakistan could ever stop or assist India’s growth, regardless of the grossly exaggerated and highly unrealistic studies. For India, trade with Pakistan contributes very little to its economic development.

There is nothing wrong with trade and connectivity with Pakistan, but this is to dispel the myth that Pakistan can backtrack on India’s progress.

As Pakistanis declare that normalization can only occur after the Kashmir conflict is settled (to their liking and satisfaction), the lunacy becomes even more pronounced.

The Pakistanis seem to think India is responsible for establishing trade and economic relations with Pakistan and not the other way around.

Suppose India is willing to contemplate reducing its more than $100 billion trade with China due to Chinese aggression.

In that case, it is unthinkable that it will not resist normalizing with Pakistan if it compromises territory or sovereignty over an integral part of the country.

Pakistan must stop being obsessed with Kashmir, dismantle the jihadist infrastructure, reverse its people’s anti-India and anti-Hindu indoctrination, and stop hostile propaganda and hostile actions that seek to destabilize India if it wants to benefit from the India story.

Normalization of relations and economic cooperation can only proceed with it. The Pakistani government might believe that it still has nuisance value that it can use to blackmail India into resuming trade and commerce with it.

Pakistan will lose this nuisance value as the gap between their comprehensive national power widens, actually at a terrible cost. Will Pakistan use its current crisis to smell the coffee and normalize with India, or will it keep digging the deeper hole it finds itself in?

In light of Pakistan’s obsession with Kashmir, its objection to India hosting the G20 event in the Union Territory (UT) isn’t surprising since it has raised this issue repeatedly at every forum, regardless of its relevance to the agenda.

Though Islamabad’s Kashmir narrative is virtually unheard of and sometimes even embarrassing, it still refuses to accept that it has few supporters.

In light of Pakistan’s objection to the G20 meeting in Kashmir this year, one must ask whether it can prevent India from holding G20-related events and the summit.

A simple reason for the current situation and developments across the border suggests an apparent ‘no’, even to amateurs. As far as Islamabad is concerned, J&K is an integral part of India, regardless of Islamabad’s claims.

Additionally, Islamabad lacks diplomatic leverage to persuade G20 members to boycott meetings in J&K or to support Kashmir.

Even though the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) issued a vague statement supporting Pakistan, all its members (except Pakistan) have maintained highly cordial relations with India, regardless of whether or not the international community forced New Delhi to restore Article 370.

The UAE has signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with the Jammu and Kashmir governments regarding several infrastructure development projects.

Finally, a bankrupt Pakistan can never leverage the G20 to force New Delhi to relocate the G20 events from Kashmir using the financial aid ‘carrot’ of monetary grants or aid.

Shehbaz Sharif has admitted that Today when we go to a friendly country or make a phone call, they think of trying to get money.

Lastly, videos on social media have gone viral of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s citizens scrambling for rations and protesting against the non-availability of essential commodities.

A lack of protests and stone-pelting by unruly mobs in Kashmir Valley indicates that locals are satisfied with the measures taken to ensure their security.

After Article 370 was repealed, Pakistan projected a doomsday scenario for J&K. According to Pakistan’s Foreign Office, Islamabad may consider military action if the illegal steps lead to another blood bath, as Imran Khan predicted.

To support separatist activities in Kashmir, the Pakistan Army would go to any extent to support the then Chief of Pakistan Army, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Consequently, hosting G20-related events in J&K is an excellent way for New Delhi to affirm the region’s integral relationship with the Indian Union.

This will show delegates that Kashmir Valley’s Muslim-majority population takes immense pride in being Indian. Islamabad’s brazen lies about Kashmiris being systematically marginalized and persecuted in the UT of J&K will be exposed.

By holding G20 events in Kashmir Valley, Pakistan will debunk its false propaganda that its Muslim majority suffers from institutional neglect and is constantly under siege by restrictions and curbs.

Islamabad is nervous about hosting G20 events in J&K because G20 delegates interact with locals and can learn firsthand about the prevailing situation. In a country where all 28 states are represented, 56 G20 meetings will be held across all 28 states of India under New Delhi’s chairmanship.

As the primary platform for economic cooperation, global governance and architecture are highly responsible for shaping and improving international economic policies and management.

Therefore, despite Islamabad’s frantic efforts, G20 members will neither be willing nor able to humour Pakistan by diverting from the Kashmir issue.

According to the UN, Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan and must be resolved mutually without outside interference. Nonetheless, Islamabad’s latest attempt to internationalize the Kashmir issue ignorantly will result in another humiliation for the country!

edited and proofread by nikita sharma