Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Anshul Vipat
India has for years maintained the rigid position that it would hold no talks with Pakistan, until the issue of cross-border terrorism is resolved
More than seven of every 10 respondents (71 percent) said they completely distrust Pakistan, and 6 percent said they somewhat distrust it
India and Pakistan, born 75 years ago out of the bloody division of the British Raj, are deeply troubled neighbours, at odds. Disputes over their shared border and the territory of Kashmir have been a recurrent source of conflict between the two countries over the course of their histories, and new geopolitical alignments, changes in conventional and nuclear military capabilities, and deep mistrust continue to forestall any normalisation of ties. Repeated terror attacks, particularly the 2019 Pulwama incident and strong public opinion that followed it has forced New Delhi to stop any attempt of normalisation of ties with Islamabad.
A couple of years down the line, and it seems that the public opinion hasn't changed much. According to a recent survey conducted by the New Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF), majority of the respondents agreed with India’s policy of not engaging with Pakistan. Close to 58 percent said that this policy is beneficial for regional peace and stability, and a far lower 24 percent of respondents responded to the contrary.
The lowest proportion of respondents who said India’s policy vis-à-vis Pakistan is beneficial (39 percent) was seen among those who finished up to primary education. Age, income, gender, and geography have had no obvious impact on the responses to this survey question.
Major distrust towards Pakistan
More than seven of every 10 respondents (71 percent) said they completely distrust Pakistan, and 6 percent said they somewhat distrust it. Only 2 percent of the respondents completely trusted Islamabad.
Similar trend was seen in the CVoter-Centre for Policy Research (CPR) survey that was conducted in the run-up of both the countries completing 75 years of independence. Just 3.2 percent of the respondents said they trust Pakistan a lot while 11.2 percent said they trust it a little. A huge majority of 77.5 percent of the respondents were categorical that they don’t Pakistan at all.
The current situation
India has for years maintained the rigid position that it would hold no talks with Pakistan, until the issue of cross-border terrorism is resolved. This is reflected in the low trade numbers between this two countries.
Before the suspension of trade in 2020, India's exports to Pakistan was about $2.17 billion, which was just 0.83 percent of India's total exports. The main products exported to Pakistan were vaccines and other pharmaceutical products, raw sugar etc, while majority of Pakistan's exports to India included tropical fruits, alcohol and other nuts.
In 2020, Pakistan had exported $2.42 million worth of goods to India. During the last 25 years the exports of Pakistan to India have decreased at an annualized rate of 10.8 percent, from $42.5 million in 1995 to $2.42 million in 2020. Similarly, Indian exports to Pakistan dropped by a whopping 60 percent in 2019-20. India had also withdrawn the most-favoured-nation (MFN) status for Pakistan in February 2019. It imposed a 200 percent tariff on all imports from Pakistan after the Pulwama terror attack. However, it didn’t ban either exports to or imports from Pakistan.
Deep mistrust between the two neighbours continues, not just at government level but at the public level as well. If the survey results are to be taken seriously, a complete resumption of relations between India and Pakistan is going to be a long, time consuming and difficult process.
