The Asian context for India-Pakistan relations

May I cordially welcome everyone present and thank all for their presence? On behalf of CDR – and I think I can also say on behalf of civil society in this city and country --, I especially thank all the participants from Pakistan for making the not-so-easy journey and joining this dialogue. We are really glad to have you.

I would like all of us to recognize that this dialogue, and the series of which it is a part, has been made possible because of a grant from the European Union, and because of the role played by CDR’s valued partner, the German foundation, Friedrich Naumann Stiftung. I express CDR’s sincere thanks to the EU and to FNS.

I am sure that all of us would want our conversation to be frank and honest. Participants should know that their remarks will remain private unless they wish otherwise. 

The border crossed by our Pakistani guests to participate in this dialogue is certainly an important one. It is hard to cross, for one thing. Apparently it also brings about a fundamental difference in human character. This border that many here have successfully crossed – that small line on the map of the subcontinent – turns all who live on one side of it into wonderful people -- frank, generous and broadminded men and women -- while simultaneously turning all those who live on the other side into mean-spirited, untrustworthy, aggressive human beings.

Did we know – did our forebears know – that one thin border would possess such power?  Presumably we will discover in the coming two days how completely different one half of us are from the other half!

We meet for a bold aim. We wish to explore an India-Pakistan partnership. I don’t think any of us expects such a partnership tomorrow or any time soon. But perhaps it is useful to realize that problems within India (there is no need to spell them out) and problems within Pakistan (also quite well-known), are tougher than the problems between India and Pakistan, with Pakistan’s internal situation being even harder, it would seem, than India’s. If we are willing to face our formidable internal challenges, then we clearly have the strength to face our relationship with each other. 

What is the heart of the problem? Let me mention what I saw recently in, of all places, Ukraine – in the capital, Kiev, and also in Sevastapol in the Crimea, the port city that Tolstoy made famous. In both Kiev and Sevastapol, the young men and women who had invited me to their country were asking their compatriots to observe “One Week of Trust.” Not a risky month-long period of trusting persons previously suspected, not a trust involving all your possessions or all your family, but just a simple trust, only for a week, in a person or persons you have hitherto resented or mistrusted. If the trust was abused, you could always return to the world you were used to -- the grey world of suspicion and recrimination--, proclaiming to yourself and others, “I told you so.” 

But perhaps, said Ukraine’s young women and men, you would find that the trust was not abused; that the hand hesitantly or cheerfully extended was grasped; and a partnership was triggered. Their invitation to seven days of trust was joined, I should add, by a suggestion for reflection on the question, “Am I, is my group, trustworthy?”

Can Pakistanis and Indians trust one another? I won’t go into the much tougher question of whether Pakistanis can trust each other, or whether Indians can trust fellow-Indians. Let’s stick to the simpler question of whether Indians and Pakistanis can trust each other, and whether they can also demonstrate to each other their trustworthiness. 

Governments and civil society both have to face this question.  Are our governments ready to face it? We should realize that but for an interest from both governments in normalizing relations a get-together such as this could not take place – visas and clearances could easily have been withheld. Yet it seems plain that despite the pleasant words uttered in Thimphu, our two governments and the two establishments are not going to develop a partnership in the very near future. 

Influential individuals in each government will indeed continue to propose path-breaking initiatives. But suspicion and prejudice run deep in both countries, as does caution when it comes to political risks. Moreover, in both countries powerful elements exist for whom enmity between India and Pakistan is the oxygen for survival and growth. Such elements will undermine, sabotage, or even frontally oppose initiatives for normalization.

This means that civil society will need to be ready to move forward on its own in exploring Pak-India partnerships – the plural here may be more useful than the idea of a single partnership. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, businesspersons, trade unionists, students, artists and others, including politicians, can all think of partnerships across the mighty border. “With governments if possible, without them if necessary” will have to be our mantra.

Pak-India relations do not exist in a vacuum. Saarc is one setting for these relations. We should recognize the part played by Saarc’s latest host, little Bhutan, in raising spirits for this dialogue, and we must also remember Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Afghanistan.

Which brings me to my third point – an experiment with trust was the first point, and the responsibility of civil society was the second. The third point is that India-Pak relations exist in a context wider than Saarc. For a few years now there has been talk of this century turning out to be the Asian century, but we rarely reflect on the meaning of Asia – the geographical, cultural, economic and strategic meaning of the vast continent to which India, Pakistan and Saarc belong.

We don’t reflect on it but Europe is deeply conscious of Asia and what it implies. I might add that I was there very recently, visiting Norway, Romania and, as I have already indicated, Ukraine. To Europe, Asia means youth and energy. I saw that Europeans contrast their aging and in most cases diminishing native populations with Asia’s growing numbers, increasing youthfulness, and strengthening economies.

Norway, I found, has many more Pakistanis than Indians, the opposite of the pattern in most Western countries. The growing number of persons of Asian-origin in Europe underlined for me the reality that European colonization of Asia has been followed by an Asian colonization of Europe, if we think of a colonizer as a settler from a far place rather than a ruler. Whether Indians, Pakistanis and other Asians settled in Europe (or Africa) will in the future be remembered more lovingly than Europeans who in the past lived in Asia and Africa is a pertinent question for enthusiasts of an Asian century.

For India’s policy planners, “Look east” has for some time been a favourite slogan, most understandably so. But what about the remarkable recent rise, to our west, of Turkey as a people and a state, the equally remarkable vibrancy of the people of Iran, and the impressive social strides in several parts of the Arab world, catching up with its wealth?

Let us for some moments extend our Saarc eyes westward until Turkey, which happily has both European and Asian connections, and also in a southeasterly direction towards Indonesia, a democratic country with the fourth largest population in the world. I venture to suggest that India-Pak relations today are being played out in this wider Asian context. I venture to suggest also it is not too early to start thinking of a small-scale, unofficial, non-state, civil-society driven, quiet initiative to cultivate an Asian community beyond Saarc, involving people from Indonesia, the Philippines, Iran and Turkey, and elsewhere. 

The fact that the EU, in some ways representing the European Community, is supporting this dialogue encourages me to express here this idea of cultivating and nursing the plant of an Asian community. I suggest that it is in proximity to such a plant, if not in the shade of such a tree, that India-Pak relations and Saarc will prosper.

Let me clarify right away that I am not requesting this gathering to discuss this picture of a potential Asian community. I have no wish to introduce a fresh agenda item – far from it. Yet having aired the notion of cultivating an Asian community, largely of civil society to begin with, let me very briefly amplify it. Since such a community would require a set of principles, I will try to identify a few of them.

•    One, any disputes that remain or arise between parties will be resolved peacefully and through dialogue. 
    
•    Two, members will make a commitment to the values and institutions of democracy. 
    
•    Three, there will be no domination or intimidation, within or between parties, by the large over the small, the strong over the weak.
    
•    Four, on all sides there will be a firm rejection of extremist pressure and an equally robust articulation of inclusive and pluralist perspectives.
    
•    Five, no religious or sectarian views will be imposed by any one on any one, and minorities will be free to practice and profess their beliefs.
    
•    Six, we will respect our common region, which means a preference, when facing a question like Afghanistan or other similar questions, for regional rather than global “solutions”.
    
•    Seven, we will harbour a pro-poor and pro-woman tilt, a will for empowering the weak, a focus, in other words, on bijli, paani, sarak, school and dawa. Call this placing need over greed, or bread over bombs.
    
•    Seven, there will be an attentive ear towards neglected or oppressed groups.
    
I share these thoughts for the backs of your minds. In due course you can reject, improve upon, or merely forget them. 

I will end by saying this: Let the notion of listening, dialogue and partnership escape from this chamber and go out to all of civil society in India and Pakistan, and if possible also to agencies of the state, armed and unarmed. May many more Indians in all parts of India listen patiently to the real stories that Pakistanis can tell, painful and troubling stories but also stories of remarkable accomplishment ; and may many more Pakistanis hear, face-to-face, similar stories related by Indians. We may then learn that on the border’s two sides we are not all that fundamentally different in character, or in our fears, or in our hopes.  

I trust that Pakistani friends here will feel free, if so inclined, to share their anxieties. 

We can be sure that the discussions about to commence here will be valuable. Any final statement – if all here wish to make one – may also be important. Useful ideas for next steps too may emerge. But perhaps it is the creation or renewal of person-to-person links that will remain the most important outcome. 

Thank you.