Moody's warning

Moody's assessment that the hovering war clouds could adversely impact economic prospects, especially for Pakistan, needs to be attended to. India's war-mongering has put the entire region on tenterhooks, with the situation badly tilted towards an imminent conflict. The New York-based global rating agency fears that sustained escalation in the ongoing tensions would hamper Pakistan's growth and derail the ongoing fiscal consolidation measures, besides rolling back the little attained macroeconomic stability. Islamabad, under a highly-dictated IMF programme, has inched towards improving its socio-economic indicators and forex reserves, besides witnessing an ease in inflation.

With India now choking flow of water into Pakistan, which forms its lifeline as an agrarian country, and suspending the minimal trade and commerce the two sides enjoyed, an annihilative policy is at work. Thus, Moody's sees that it could impair Pakistan's access to external financing, as remittances and exports are likely to fall, making things difficult in the context of external debt repayment. The rating agency, however, sees little impact on India as it sits at the pinnacle of high growth and is buoyed with strong public investment and healthy private consumption.

India's obsession to pull Pakistan into a war is part of its horrendous hegemonic designs meant to destabilise its archrival, and make it subservient from an economic perspective. This is tantamount to economic genocide and is in contravention of civilised norms of neighbourhood, despite Pakistan's willingness to cooperate in counter-terrorism protocols and to be part of any neutral probe into the Pahalgam killings. But India needs to keep in mind that any misadventure could come back to toil it in the long run. Moody's projection is that higher defence spending could impact New Delhi's fiscal strength, and it is quite unlikely that this offensive approach towards its small and lower riparian neighbour will remain conventional. Pakistan is clear that in case of an existential threat, the spectrum will be full blown with a finger on nuclear option. Time for India to step back from the madness of assured destruction.