By Arvind Lavakare on January 16, 2013
The entire nation is furious about Pakistan’s latest assault of Indian territory and mutilation of two of our soldiers. But so dumbstruck is this nation of 120 billion that not one so-called ‘strategic affairs analyst’ has come up with an idea to give our age-old enemy a bleeding nose once and for all without firing a single bullet and without pushing the nuclear button.
Mercifully, the Prime Minister (sic) Manmohan Singh has not called for a five-Test cricket series with Pakistan as a strategy to defuse the crisis. For all you know however, the timid man may still do exactly that soon enough and ask theek hai?
It must be said in his defence, though, that all our Prime Ministers since Independence in 1947 have believed that diplomatic talks will bring our intrepid, immature neighbour to its senses. Even the glorious exception Indira Gandhi returned some 90,000 Pak prisoners under the terms of the Shimla Treaty of 1972 that really gave Pakistan only one more excuse to hate us and kill us, ever so slowly, with its mission of bleeding us to death with a thousand cuts delivered at times of its choosing.
Engaging in endless rounds of talks with the enemy has failed us. Why? Because Pakistan grasped, long ago, that India is a soft state with Mahatma Gandhi’s cancer of non-violence still frozen in our veins. And assured of the ever-reliable support from Islamic kingdoms, Pakistan has kowtowed to USA’s largesse first and to China’s later to be emboldened in its mission to finish off the entity it calls Hindustan — the label which, ironically, is rejected by our own large army of liberal secularists.
All our previous Prime Ministers were not economists and may therefore be forgiven for not thinking of economic strategies to silence Pakistan. But Manmohan Singh is an economist by profession and training. He has also spoken about ‘out of the box thinking’ a couple of times. So why in the name of Sonia Madam has he not thought of the economics of Pakistan offering us a strategic weapon with which India can strike its wicked neighbour?
Consider our trade ties with Pakistan to which we gave a valuable concession some years ago by granting it the Most Favoured Nation clause benefit under which we agreed that customs duties on our imports from Pakistan will not be different from the rate applied to other nations. In short, no discrimination against Pakistani imports. Pakistan has not as yet reciprocated that MFN benefit. We have done absolutely nothing against that insult to our self-esteem When four years ago, the then Commerce Minister suggested stopping all trade ties with Pakistan, Manmohan Singh reportedly declined it without giving us a reason for the decision.
In the process, it’s the Pakistan Army which has gained more muscle because, as R Vaidyanathan, Professor of Finance and Control, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, tells us, more than 75 per cent of Pakistan’s economy is owned/controlled by its Army through institutions like Fauji Foundation and a significant portion of Pakistan’s GDP is due to army-controlled entities. As the Professor says, “Pakistan Army is the only Army in the world owning a country.”
It follows therefore that any continuation of so-called economic cooperation with Pakistan will only benefit its Army which has long had a pathological hatred for India.
It again follows therefore, that it would be in India’s interest to destabilise the Pakistan Army through economic tactics. Do that and Pakistan itself is destabilised.
To accomplish this without causing a nuclear conflict demands that we act like Chanakya and use brains rather than brawn or rhetoric.
For example, take the trade route. Since we cannot now withdraw the MFN treatment we gave to Pakistan under the World Trade Organisation covenant, we will have to go on the export path. Nothing prevents us from making Pakistani exports costlier for other countries. So let’s do it.
Let us totally remove any export tax on Indian products that compete with Pakistan’s in the world market. Let us even subsidise the export of goods that internationally compete with those of Pakistan. Basmati rice, textiles, carpets and tea come readily to mind in this regard. In short, do everything to hurt Pakistan on the export front.
Further, let us put a ban on export of sugar to Pakistan. Let the price of sugar go up in that country. In fact, let’s ban all export to Pakistan. If our exporters complain, so be it, because a sacrifice here and there to debilitate our incorrigible enemy is worth that price.
There are other economic measures through which we can make things difficult for Pakistan without ending up in a war of any sort. Arm twisting foreign investors providing aid or arms to Pakistanis one way. Opposing IMF and World Bank loans to Pakistan is another.
The jugular, however, is Pakistan’s dependence on India for water for agricultural purposes.
Water from tributaries of the Indus river is the Pakistan economy’s lifeline. Farmers of the area have used Indus waters since prehistoric times. Irrigation from the Indus tributaries makes possible the cultivation of the arid land along their courses. Besides irrigation, the Indus Basin generates almost half of the electricity produced in Pakistan.
Admittedly, the flow of river waters into Pakistanis governed by the Indo-Pak Indus Water Treaty of 1960, under which all the waters of Indus River’s eastern tributaries, Sutlej, Beasand Ravi taken together, shall be available for the unrestricted use of India. And all the waters of Chenab and Jhelum tributaries and of any tributary which in its natural course joins the Sutlej main or the Ravi main after these tributaries have crossed into Pakistan shall be available for the unrestricted use of Pakistan.
But — and this is the critical issue — the flow of river water into Pakistan lies in India’s hands! It is in the India-controlled part of Kashmir where lie the origins and passage of the five river tributaries because the Boundary Award of 1947 meant that the headworks of the chief irrigation systems of Pakistan were left located in Indian territory. Pakistan has been apprehensive that in a dire need India would use its strategic advantage and withhold the flow to choke Pakistan’s agriculture. In fact, an issue of Pakistan’s defence weekly five years ago cited a particular Water Resources Minister of India as saying that if India decides to scrap the treaty, Pakistan will face a drought and Pakistanis will beg for every drop of water.
India must now act on that fear of Pakistan. It is believed that a unilateral termination of the Indus Water Treaty is not legally permissible and that such an action might well be considered a legitimate justification for war. Fine, but we can use filibuster tactics to delay the whole issue and prolong the hearings till Pakistan experiences the pains of parching fields and throats.
In any case, there are enough Chanakyas in our land who can stop the Jhelumand Chenab waters from flowing downward west to Pakistan without terminating the water sharing treaty. It is these Chanakyas who must be tapped when going for Pakistan’s jugular. Merely twiddling our fingers and raging in in silence will not do.
http://www.niticentral.com/2013/01/we-must-go-for-pakistans-jugular.html