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India, Pakistan must move beyond history for better ties

Salman Sufi, a recipient of Mother Teresa Award for his work on women empowerment in Pakistan, is fairly active on Twitter. Quite often he comes across as a connoisseur of traditional food of interior Lahore. But one of his recent tweets offered food for thought. It was an image of a notice published in a leading Pakistani English language newspaper, The Pakistan Times, in its issue of January 31, 1948 - a day after the assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who led India's independence movement. "The offices of The Pakistan Times will remain closed today as a mark of respect to Mahatma Gandhi's memory." Apt comes to my mind another bright spot in the history of the media of the two countries. Indian newspaper
The Hindu's editorial of September 13, 1948, titled 'Mr Jinnah', published two days after the death of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, remembered him as, "next to Gandhiji, the most powerful leader in undivided India." The paper said, "Mr Jinnah at his bitterest never forgot that firm friendship between the two states [Pakistan and India] was not only feasible but indispensable if freedom was to be no Dead-Sea apple."
Indeed, the friendship is indispensable and so, in its absence, a poverty crisis continues to persist in the neighbouring South Asian countries even seven decades after independence. Limited resources have forced millions of people to live on the roadside without enough food to feed their families. Out of the 850 million hungry people in the world, 300 million are from India and Pakistan alone, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017 report. A sustained dialogue between the two countries is a must to alleviate poverty. A few people-centric steps may require political will but it can lift at least a few millions out of the poverty morass.
Take trade, for instance. Trade between Pakistan and India is valued at a little over $2 billion, but has the potential to be as high as $37 billion, says a World Bank report. That is, if both countries agree to teardown artificial barriers. Instead, political frictions have perpetually influenced mutual trade relations. Consequently, the volume of trade between the two countries has suffered a major dent. Intra-Kashmir and cross-border trade offer an opportunity for enhanced economic interdependence and greater interaction between people. It will be beneficial to even return to the pre-February 2019 situation in trade. Sanjay Kathuria, lead economist at the World bank, believes that trust promotes trade, and trade fosters trust, interdependency and constituencies for peace.
The same goes for religious tourism. A great potential lies in the faith tourism. Almost limitless. Yet it remains untapped due to restrictions despite an international convention and 1953 and 1974 bilateral agreements being in place. International law binds India and Pakistan to freely grant visas and facilities to the neighbouring countries' nationals who wish to make religious pilgrimage to shrines and places of worship. And so does the 1953 agreement that makes it mandatory for the two states to protect, preserve and maintain the places of worship.
The bilateral Protocol to visit Religious Shrines, 1974, is also supportive of such moves. India and Pakistan have agreed to build a corridor that connects Sikh shrines of the Indian city of Dera Baba Nanak with the Pakistani town of Kartarpur, allowing Sikhs to travel to places of worship across the border without a visa. There has also been some movement on establishing a corridor that will allow Hindu pilgrims from India to visit ancient Sharda Peeth in Azad [Pakistani-administered] Kashmir. Building on the international convention and their own agreements, the two countries can grant followers of different faiths an easy access to the places of worship and reverence they want to visit.
Also dependent on the relationship between the two countries are prisoners, especially the ones who have completed their jail terms but often languish behind bars for months, if not years, afterwards. According to the lists exchanged by both sides in January, there are 347 Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails, 249 of whom are civilians and 98 fishermen. There are 537 Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails, 483 of whom are fishermen. Pakistan has released 200 Indian prisoners out of the 360 it has announced to free this month. India should reciprocate, too. The two countries should ensure prisoners are freed as soon as they complete their sentence. Their families' economy depends on them.
But improving ties may be tough and not sustainable in the absence of a formal dialogue. Pakistan and India should talk to resolve critical issues, sooner the better - for their people, especially the poor.
Waqar Mustafa is a print, broadcast and online journalist and commentator based in Pakistan