On Thursday 11 Dec 2008 11:13:59 pm Alok G. Singh wrote: > I was just > trying to understand your original point about its effect on Pakistan.
India granted Pakistan "MFN" status, Pakistan has not granted that to India Despite that there is a huge balance of trade difference in favor of India. If India resorted to protectionism vis a vis imports from Pakistan - there would be virtually no trade - but only smuggling. Smuggling between Pakistan and India is risky business. Getting shot is a likely outcome if one does not have political patronage or use third party routes. Both of these exist and are likely to come under pressure after an event such as the Mumbai attacks. But I digress.. The commonly expressed fear by Pakistan regarding free trade is that it will be flooded with Indian goods and Indian cultural influences that put the core idea of Pakistan (as different from India) at risk. Integral to the idea of Pakistan is the concept of "homeland for Muslims" of which Kashmir is symbolic, but from the Indian viewpoint Kashmir is the thin end of the wedge. But I digress again... Pakistan does not want free trade with India despite all the obvious advantages that free trade will purportedly bring. Free trade with India is a threat to Pakistan. One needs to look at who is stopping free trade and why they are doing that in order to understand where the Pakistani viewpoint comes from. Liberal secular Indians are too smug in their views of Pakistan to even start thinking about how Pakistan feels threatened by the very "We are equal. We are same-same only" lovey-dovey rhetoric of liberal secular Indians. In the flush of this love (after all who can oppose such noble sentiments about Pakistan?), no thought is given to how this attitude is actually threatening to a Pakistan that is getting increasingly intimidated and dysfunctional. Indians like to say "Oh we are all similar". Few Indians who say that understand that in order to have a separate and distinct "Pakistani" identity one must not be Indian. The Indian identity is so secure that an Indian can reject his own background and yet get back that identity whenever he wants. Pakistanis are seen as Indians even when they insist they are not. Worse - many who want to be recognised as Pakistani are forced to hide behind an Indian identity in this day and age - such is the reputation Pakistan has built up. "We are all the same" is not as pleasant an idea for the patriotic Pakistani as liberal secular Indians imagine. "We are equal" (Equal in our corruption. Equal in our love for each other. Equal in the way we are misled by our governments.Equal in all ways) is another statement that hits at the heart of Pakistani identity even as Indians cheerfully push this smugly satisfying story of equalitis India is too big and too threatening to Pakistan in a way that Indians do not seem to understand even as Pakistan squeals in agony and turns dysfunctional trying to change that. The original Pakistan never wanted to be "equal" to India. Pakistan was meant to be superior to India in every way. Being Indian was an insult. A disgrace. A nation of caste ridden bigots and poverty was not what Pakistan was meant to be. But a rudderless Pakistan frittered away its independence in fighting to get Kashmir in 1947 and again in 1965. But even then Pakistan was an "Asian Tiger" of sorts - Pakistanis prided themselves on their superiority over India. 1971 was the big blow. Pakistani notions of "superiority over India" were replaced by the chilling reality of not being able to control or subvert a huge India. Indian progress in recent years has made the idea of saying "We are equal" a sarcastic jibe in which Pakistanis feel hurt and angry at reality. If being "equal" to India is an insult, being seen as "inferior" to India in any way is intolerable. Most Indians are too happy with their own lovey dovey perceptions of Pakistan imagining that they are the "Friendly Indians who relate to our Pakistani brothers and sisters, holding the fort against Indian fundamentalists" Unfortunately that is a completely ignorant and delusional view. Indians are a threat. Period. Indian who say "We are same. We are equal" are insincere sarcastic threats to Pakistan. Indians who openly oppose Pakistan are obvious threats. shiv
