NEW DELHI: This is with reference to your editorial “Visa matters” (September 2). The ideas put across in the editorial are welcome. Good relations between countries, as between individuals, derive from good behaviour from both sides. There are several points in the editorial, which lend themselves to criticism, e.g., the Pakistani interior minister who flies off at a tangent at the slightest pretext and often without pretext. If men like him remain in decision-making places in Pakistan, there is no doubt that throwing spanner in the works shall become the norm. Even then, we hope for the best.
As an Indian citizen, I cannot get rid of the fear of the propensity of some people in Pakistan to go in for shortcuts like the use of terror — nothing else seemed to work against India. Unfortunately, terrorist activity hardens attitudes and makes peace hard to achieve. We are accustomed to the spectacle that whenever Pakistan-India relations show signs of easing up, some terrorist outfit in Pakistan launches terrorist attacks in India, making nonsense of all efforts for improvement of relations and takes things back to square one. My fear is that now that a visa agreement is about to be signed, we, in India, should look out for enhanced terrorist activity. If anything of that kind happens, the visa agreement shall not be worth the paper on which it will be written. We live in the hope that better counsels may prevail on both sides.
Dr VC Bhutani
Published in The Express Tribune, September 4th, 2012.
