Free trade and people to people interaction is anti-dote to tension between India and Pakistan for which Kartarpur Sahib Corridor sets the tone

 

 

Free trade from Attari-Wagha border can be anti-dote to tension between India and Pakistan

 

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

 

Kartarpur Sahib Corridor is at one level Corridor to Peace in the framework of teachings of Guru Nanak of universal brotherhood and egalitarianism.

Venom spitting politicians should visit the Kartarpur Sahib shrine where Baba Nanak spent  his last more than 17 years and demonstrated his model of ideal society based upon his teachings of love and human dignity cutting across all barriers.

The devotees going to Kartarpur Sahib are welcomed by common people including women and children with abundance of love.

This is the place where one forgets the present tense relationship between India and Pakistan. Kartarpur Sahib is island of peace.

This is personal experience of this writer too and one is overwhelmed from the love received there and this love is not sponsored by the ISI.

Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu too was speaking in this background during his visit to Kartarpur Sahib when he addressed Pakistan Prime Minister and former cricketer Imran Khan as his ‘Bade Bhai’. Their relationship otherwise dates back to their cricketing days and there is nothing unusual about it.

It is pertinent to mention here that even Indian journalists at one time used to boast of their relationship with the Pakistani leaders.

Aam Aadmi Party leader Raghav Chadha who is also incharge of Punjab affairs  hit at Sidhu for showing his love for Imran Khan in his tweet saying, “Deeply worrying that Punjab’s ruling party chief and Chief Minister are professing their love for Pakistan PM and Pakistan – a country that exports terror, executes terror modules, sends tiffin bombs and drones arms/drugs into Punjab. Do Sidhu and Channi not value the martyrdom of their jawans?”.

This vocabulary is normally associated with the BJP and its affiliates.

The problem of Congress MP Manish Tiwari who too had reacted is different and part of power struggle within the party.

Punjab is the only state in India whose socio-political dynamics is different from all other states and even the period of turbulence lasting for about decade and a half when some of the political formations too extreme positions failed to disturb social relations here. The brotherhood has remained intact.

Those spitting venom should know that ISI had been making interventions in Indian Punjab for years when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee accompanied by journalists and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal rode a bus to Lahore from Amritsar on February 19, 1999.

The Punjab police at one time exhibited the modern arms and ammunition seized from the militants over the years and the amount was huge, more than enough to weaponise a battalion.

One has to go back to the police record or even newspaper reports from 1979 and 1980 immediately before militancy was triggered in Punjab to understand the smuggling of drugs and weapons from across the Radcliffe Line.

This is not a new phenomenon.

Moreover, weapons to Punjab during militancy used to be smuggled even from Gujrat.

Forget the latest confiscation of the biggest ever haul of drugs from a Gujrat port.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi too had made a surprise landing in Pakistan on December 25, 2015.

The politics of hate is rooted more in political class on two sides of the border.

This is not the case with people in Amritsar and Lahore.

The traders from the two cities want free trade.

The Punjab government has been pressing for opening up of even Hussainiwala as the second route for trade with Pakistan.

Why should  the bicycle manufactured in Ludhiana travel to Lahore via Mumbai or some port in Gujrat to Karachi and then Lahore? Why not the truck from Ludhiana  go to Lahore directly that would cut costs too?

Of course, free trade from the land route would directly impact the business of ports in Maharashtra and Gujrat in India and Karachi and other ports in Pakistan.

Free trade from Attari-Wagha border would open up the entire Central Asia to Indian Punjab for trade. Why should surplus wheat from Punjab not find markets in Pakistan and other countries?

The problem is that the politics of hate has become part of the electoral narrative.

AAP  is now perceived to be adopting the same outlook at the BJP and this outlook is not acceptable to the people in Punjab.

It should not be overlooked that it is the Punjabis on the two sides of the Radcliffe Line who have paid the highest cost for the freedom of India but they now look forward to era of brotherhood.

The tension suddenly started building up when people to people interaction between the two Punjab was peaking and people wanted visa free travel.

These are the basic issues from the prism of people to people relationship and prosperity.

There is yet another aspect that relates mainly to the Sikhs. Pakistan is the land of birth of Sikh religion as Guru Nanak was born at Nankana Sahib. It is for this reason that he Sikhs in their Ardas (Prayer) seek unhindered access to their shrines in Pakistan.

Kartarpur Sahib Corridor shows the way to peace and prosperity.

Follow its spirit rather than being ritualistic.

Free trade and people to people interaction could be the best anti-dote to politics of tension on the two sides.

Punjab does not have space for politics of hate.`