Pakistan’s envoy in India, Abdul Basit. PHOTO: AFP/FILE
Cautious optimism marked a curtain-raiser for an event in New Delhi on Tuesday as Pakistan’s envoy anticipated better days ahead for relations between the two archrivals.
“Let the bilateral engagement resume. Our two Prime Ministers have met and all issues were discussed,” Pakistan’s envoy in India, Abdul Basit said. “We hope that things would be carried forward when the time comes,” he added.
Basit was addressing the opening ceremony of the second edition of “Aalishan Pakistan”, an exhibition of Pakistani lifestyle brands in India.
Borrowing from Indian Prime Minister’s election catchphrase, an upbeat Basit said, ‘Acche din aa rahe hain’. Modi has repeatedly used the phrase on the campaign trail, promising better days for India.
Basit expressed hope for improvement in India-Pakistan ties and said the process of granting non-discriminatory market access to the country will begin after the resumption of talks between the two.
The envoy said citizens of both counties had given mandate to their leaders to end years of hesitation. He said that the meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart offered a fresh opportunity to revitalise the moribund peace process, which has been stalled since early 2013.
“I have no reason to doubt for a moment that acche din aa rahe hain (good days are on their way),” Basit said.
Bilateral trade talks have been suspended since last year following escalation in violence at the Line of Control. In 2012, Pakistan had committed itself to giving the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India but missed its own deadline, owing to domestic political pressure.
Highlighting last month’s meeting, Basit said that the leaders have articulated their shared vision for peace and development. However, he added that in an era of globalisation, the South Asian region was still stuck in an outdated narrative.
Modi, who came to power with a brimming foreign policy in-tray, is perceived as a hardliner, however since being elected his administration’s stance towards Pakistan has been somewhat softer than most analysts expected.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2014.
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@salim alvi. No hawala or illicit money there are families on both side of the border that send money, as well as religious shrine donation they send and receive . This apart from legitimate trade taking place between india and Pakistan via importing consumer goods others etc from via Dubai.
Without official trade in 2011, $2.2 Billion were remitted to Pakistan from India. It could hawala and illicit drug money. So the trade is indeed happening, otherwise it might be illegal migration to India from Pakistan.
@Bharat R
I would agree with you if that would solve the problem. Unfortunately, as with troubled children, just ignoring them won't make the problem go away. We have to keep engaging with them and hope that the sane constituency would eventually overtake the majority hate views, reconcile with us, and evolve a genuine identity of their own rather than being pure 'non-India' which is what they pride themselves in being today. In fact, that is the only reason why the whole world is engaging with them today - else, they would have been a pariah long ago.
Trading with Pakistan is just simply too much of a problem and carries with it the risk of a whole host of unwelcome exports being mixed in with legitimate exports. These unwelcome exports from Pakistan into India include narcotics, arms and ammunition, counterfeit Indian currency notes, funding of terrorists under the garb of trade payments and potential for the export of the polio virus not to mention terrorists via the human contact required for trade. It also carries with it threats to the liberty of Indian citizens owing to maliciously capricious behaviour of Pakistani authorities such as that seen in a recent incident where the arrest in India of a Pakistani truck driver whose truck was found to be carrying narcotics resulted in innocent Indian’s being detained.
Government of India should revoke Pakistan’s MFN status, stop trading with Pakistan forthwith.