India-Pakistan businessmen and the JuD

The JuD-LeT-JeM-JI rally seemed very far away, as ordinary men and women, quietly undertook the business of life.

To think that the act of making money could spark such anger inside Pakistan.

In Muzaffarabad recently, even as the Jamaatud Dawa (JuD), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the Lashkar-e-Taiba(LeT) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) took out a large protest against Pakistan’s decision to grant Most-Favoured Nation status to India, Pakistani businessmen/women were making the case for better trading ties in a meeting with India’s Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Dawood Jakhora, a leading textile manufacturer from Karachi and vice-president of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), told me about his school principal, a Mr Joshi, in Dwarka, Gujarat, who asked him why he and his family had decided to abandon India in favour of Pakistan.

“Pakistan had been created and the decision was made,” Mr Jakhora said, remembering that the conversation had been carried out in Gujarati. “Now all I want is for both countries to open up as soon as possible, so we can trade with each other and behave like normal countries,” he added.

Mr Jakhora said he dearly wished to return to Dwarka, but that it was going to be impossible on this trip because the visa had only been stamped for Delhi. That meant they couldn’t get out of the capital’s precincts, pointed out Tariq Sayeed, FPCCI president and a top Pakistani businessman. Appointments with Indian traders outside Delhi would have to be cancelled, he added ruefully.

In fact, since the next PIA flight (only twice a week between Delhi and Karachi) had been cancelled for some unknown reason, the group of Pakistani businessmen — who were in Delhi to meet their counterparts at the FICCI and take forward the opening up now decreed by the governments — were likely to be stuck in the Indian capital for more than a week.

Now the trouble with errant airlines can sometimes be overcome with the smell of money and the imaginary sound of ringing coffers, but when even that is absent, it’s not fair to invoke the power of nostalgia. The sights and smells of birthplaces cannot be allowed to bear the burden of an ignoble present.

So Khurram Sayeed, clearly a smart, young and enterprising man, besides being the head of Planet Petrochemicals, was glued to his mobile phone, trying to make his group’s return journey simpler.

But young Khurram wasn’t about to let these teething troubles in India-Pakistan trade daunt him. He explained to me how it was imperative for both sides to open up, that, in fact, Pakistani businessmen had explained to their own government that it would be able to save at least $150 million annually only from the diesel import bill if a variety of petrochemicals could be imported from India.

“You have a oil hub in Bhatinda, which is less than a 100km from Wagah,” Khurram said, adding that a pipeline could be laid, or the oil sent through containers via rail.

Mr Jakhora was, meanwhile, asking Mr Arvind Mehta of India’s ministry of commerce, whether sales tax or octroi had to be paid on foreign goods as they passed through India’s provinces before reaching the final destination.

The octroi existed, the sales tax mostly didn’t anymore and, if it did, it was refundable, said Mr Mehtra. On the side, complaints regarding Pakistani cement containers stuck for several weeks were noted, and Mr Mehta promised this would be resolved soon.

The JuD-LeT-JeM-JI rally in Muzaffarabad seemed very far away, as I watched a little piece of India and Pakistan, ordinary men and women, quietly undertake the business of life in front of my eyes.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2011.