India Stands Only to Gain from Pakistan Trade Deal Forget the ‘PA-IN’ (Pak-india)
(January 30, 2012 & February 14, 2012)
s India’s commerce minister proceeds to Islamabad to talk trade, it is important to remember that progress on the India-Pakistan free trade agreement has all but stalled. At first glance it is easy to dismiss this as typical subcontinental petty wrangling. The reality is that it is part of a much larger Indian endgame aimed at accruing maximum advantages post the 2014 NATO drawdown in Afghanistan. When one talks of the interests of the “Pakistani business community,” these are three completely diverse streams— in this case working at counter purposes to each other. First are the traders and transporters who comprise 90 to 98 percent of what constitute the “business community”— nonproductive middlemen who actively support the deal as increased trade volumes means increased opportunities for them. Then come the nonmilitary industrialists who will be affected by their lack of competitive economies of scale but see this deal as a very important tool to weaken the army. Lastly there is the army industrial complex, the Fauji Foundation, which according to estimates, controls about 95 percent of everything including industries and land and which stands to lose the most. India has been nudged repeatedly by the West to normalize its ties with Pakistan in order to ease the pressure on NATO in Afghanistan owing to various Pakistani geostrategic imperatives there. The devil lies in the details in exactly which sectors India will accept unilateral disadvantages which could be skewed to support either the military’s or the nonmilitary industrialist’s commercial interests. Of course should both choose to get along (highly unlikely given the current impasse) then it could strike the right balance between the two. Engaging the Pakistan military with an active commercial stake in India is seen as the first step in ridding it of its institutionalized paranoia and bellicosity. This is not to negate the fact that India actually sees real benefits in bilateral trade but it certainly helps India gain good ‘street cred’ with the West. These considerations are however balanced by the more menacing undertones of this deal. Implied in it is the reality that Pakistan’s civilian