Subject: Bilateral Relations

Pakistan’s Finance Minister has stated that the government may consider importing vegetables and other edible items from India following the destruction of standing crops due to the massive floods in the region.

Why in news?

• This statement comes after three years when Islamabad downgraded trade ties with New Delhi over the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir in 2019.
• The fundamentalist country sees ties with India as against the spirit of religion and betrayal to the so-called Kashmir cause.

A U-turn by Pakistan

• Pakistan’s double U-turn on resuming trade with India highlights the internal differences within the country.
• There are huge differences between business and political communities, and the emphasis on politics over economy and trade.
• It also signifies Pakistan cabinet’s grandstanding, linking normalisation of ties with India to Jammu and Kashmir.

What is the news?

• Pakistan has sought to import only three items from India, namely cotton, yarn and sugar.
• It has no consensus on resuming bilateral trade completely.
• This is based on Pakistan’s immediate economic needs and not designed as a political confidence-building measure to normalise relations with India.

What changed Pakistan’s mind?

(1) Decline of Textile sector

• For the textile and sugar industries in Pakistan, importing from India is imperative, practical and is the most economic.
• Yarn, cotton cloth, knitwear, bedwear and readymade garments form the core of Pakistan’s textile basket in the export sector.
• By February 2020, there was a steep decline in the textile sector due to disruptions in supply and domestic production.
• This is definitely due to dumping of cheap Chinese goods.
• When compared to the last fiscal year (2019-20), there has been a 30% decline (2020-21) in cotton production.

Do you know?

Pakistan is the fifth-largest exporter of cotton globally, and the cotton-related products (raw and value-added) earn close to half of the country’s foreign exchange.

(2) Crisis in the sugar industry

• When compared to cotton, the sugar industry’s problem stem from different issues — the availability for local consumption and the steep price increase.
• The sugar industry has prioritised exports over local distribution.
• Increased government subsidy and a few related administrative decisions resulted in the sugar industry attempting to make a considerable profit by exporting it.
• As a result, importing sugar from India would be cheaper for the consumer market in Pakistan.

In a nutshell

• Clearly, the crises in cotton and sugar industries played a role in the ECC’s decision to import cotton, yarn and sugar from India.
• It would not only be cheaper but also help Pakistan’s exports.
• This is also imperative for Pakistan to earn foreign exchange.

Why all these have made headlines these days?

• Pakistan is closer to bankruptcy like any other Chinese vassal state.
• The second takeaway from the two U-turns — is the supremacy of politics over trade and economy, even if the latter is beneficial to the importing country.
• For the cabinet, the interests of its own business community and its export potential have become secondary.
• However, Pakistan need not be singled out; this is a curse in South Asia, where politics play supreme over trade and economy.
• The meagre percentage of intra-South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) trade and the success (or the failure) of SAARC engaging in bilateral or regional trade would underline the above.
• Trade is unlikely to triumph over politics in South Asia; especially in India-Pakistan relations.

The Kashmir link

• The third takeaway is the emphasis on Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan to make any meaningful start in bilateral relations.
• This goes against what it has been telling the rest of the world that India should begin dialogue with Pakistan.
• Recently, both Pakistan’s PM and the Chief of Army Staff, Qamar Javed Bajwa, were on record stating the need to build peace in the region.
• Bajwa even talked about “burying the past” and moving forward.
• There were also reports that Pakistan agreeing to re-establish the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) was a part of this new strategy.

Conclusion

• The latest statement by Pakistan’s cabinet that unless India revokes the 2019 decision in Jammu and Kashmir, there would be no forward movement.
• This position also hints at Pakistan’s precondition to engage with India.
• Pakistan has been saying that the onus is on India to normalise the process.
• Perhaps, it is New Delhi’s turn to tell Islamabad that it is willing, but without any preconditions, and start with trade.
• It may even allow New Delhi to inform Pakistan’s stakeholders about who is willing to trade and who is reluctant.

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After months of what appeared to be a go-slow, the Union government has pushed up its interest in using Iran’s Chabahar port to connect to Afghanistan and Central Asia for trade, with the visit of the Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways to the port.

Chabahar Port

• In 2016, India signed a deal with Iran entailing $8 billion investment in Chabahar port and industries in Chabahar Special Economic Zone.
• The port is being developed as a transit route to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
• India has already built a 240-km road connecting Afghanistan with Iran.
• All this were expected to bring cargo to Bandar Abbas port and Chabahar port, and free Kabul from its dependence on Pakistan to reach the outer world.
• Completion of this project would give India access to Afghanistan and beyond to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Europe via 7,200-km-long multi-modal North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

Why is Chabahar back in the news?

• The visit is a chance to strengthen ties and the maritime relationship between the two countries.
• Due to pandemic, there were less number of visits from India to Iran and vice-versa and the pace of the project is also allegedly slower.
• This visit will also highlight the importance of Chabahar as a gateway for Indian trade with Europe, Russia and CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries.
• India is keen in developing the Shahid Beheshti port as a “a transit hub” and link it to the International North South Trade Corridor (INSTC), that also connects to Russia and Europe.

What is India’s strategic vision for Chabahar?

When the first agreement for Chabahar was signed by then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003, the plan had a three-fold objective:

1. To build India’s first offshore port and to project Indian infrastructure prowess in the Gulf
2. To circumvent trade through Pakistan, given the tense ties with India’s neighbour and build a long term, sustainable sea trade route and
3. To find an alternative land route to Afghanistan, which India had rebuilt ties with after the defeat of the Taliban in 2001

• Subsequently, PM Manmohan Singh’s government constructed the Zaranj -Delaram Highway in Afghanistan’s South.
• It would help connect the trade route from the border of Iran to the main trade routes to Herat and Kabul, handing it over to the Karzai government in 2009.
• In 2016, PM Modi travelled to Tehran and signed the agreement to develop Chabahar port, as well as the trilateral agreement for trade through Chabahar with Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani.

Commencement of operations

• Since the India Ports Global Chabahar Free Zone (IPGCFZ) authority took over the operations of the port in 2018, it has handled 215 vessels, 16,000 TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) and four million tons of bulk and general cargo.

Why is it gaining importance?

• In the last few years, a fourth strategic objective for the Chabahar route has appeared, with China’s Belt and Road Initiative making inroads in the region.
• The government hopes to provide Central Asia with an alternate route to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through Iran for future trade.

Why is the Chabahar dream taking so long to realise?

• India’s quest for Chabahar has hit geopolitical road-block after road-block; the biggest issue has been over Iran’s relationship with western countries, especially the United States.
• In years when western sanctions against Iran increased, the Chabahar project has been put on the back-burner.
• However, the nuclear talks resulted in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015 came into being, the Chabahar port has been easier to work on.
• In 2018, the Trump administration put paid to India’s plans by walking out of the JCPOA and slapping new sanctions on dealing with Iran.
• This led to the Modi government “zeroing out” all its oil imports from Iran, earlier a major supplier to India, causing a strain in ties.
• India also snapped ties with Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, which put an end to the humanitarian aid of wheat and pulses that was being sent to Kabul via Chabahar.
• When India restarted wheat aid this year, it negotiated with Pakistan to use the land route to Afghanistan instead.

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As part of his visit to Thailand for the ninth India-Thailand joint commission meeting, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar visited a temple in Bangkok.

Why in news?

• The temple is the Royal Brahmin Office of the Thai Royal Court and is the official centre of Hinduism in Thailand.
• It highlights the long history of cultural contacts between India and Thailand.

Making of ‘Greater India’ in Southeast Asia

• India and the Southeast Asia region share a long history of cultural and commercial relations.
• The classical Sanskrit and Pali texts from India carry references of the region using various names such as Kathakosha, Suvarnabhumi (the land of god) or Suvarnadvipa (the golden island), indicating that this was a region that attracted Indian merchants.
• Trade in spices, aromatic wood and most importantly gold is known to have flourished.
• In more recent times, European and Indian scholars have referred to Southeast Asia as ‘Farther India’, ‘Greater India’, or ‘Hinduised or Indianized states’.

What one mean by ‘Farther India’?

• The first person to do an in-depth study of the process of ‘Indianisation’ in Southeast Asian countries was a French scholar named George Coedes.
• He coined the term ‘Farther India’ to refer to those states that experienced “the civilizing activity of India’.
• Geographically, it refers to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and the Malay states.
• The Sanskrit, Buddhist, and Jain texts indicate that interactions between the two regions go back more than two thousand years ago, mainly through sea voyages and that trade played an important role.
• They were also accompanied by Brahmin priests, Buddhist monks, scholars and adventurers and all of them played an important role in the transmission of Indian culture to the natives of Southeast Asia.
• Some of the merchants and Brahmin priests married the local girls and were often employed by the local rulers.

Limitations to Indian influence

• Indian expansion into Southeast Asia cannot be compared to European colonization since Indians were not complete strangers to the population of Southeast Asia and had pre-existing trade relations.
• In the early 20th century, the nationalist historians of India frequently referred to the ancient Indian kingdoms in Southeast Asia as its ‘colony’.
• Historian RC Majumdar noted that the Hindu colonists brought with them the whole framework of their culture and civilization.
• This was transplanted in its entirety among the people who had not emerged from their primitive barbarism.
• More recently the colonization theory has been rejected on the ground that there is very little evidence of conquest or direct political influence in the ancient Southeast Asian kingdoms.

Visible cultural influence

• The first Indian kingdom to come up in Southeast Asia was Funan, which is the predecessor of modern Cambodia and Lin-yi in southern Vietnam, both of which came up in the second century CE.
• Contemporary Southeast Asian society carries several pieces of evidence of the cultural impact of these interactions.
• Many local languages in the region, including Thai, Malay, and Javanese contain words of Sanskrit, Pali and Dravidian origin in significant proportions.
• The Thai language is written in script derived from Southern Indian Pallava alphabet.
• Perhaps the most important influence of India on Southeast Asia was in the field of religion and how Shivaism, Vaishnavism, Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism and later Sinhalese Buddhism came to be practised in the region.
• The political and administrative institutions and ideas, especially the concept of divine authority and kingship, are largely shaped by the Indian practices.
• For example, the Thai king is considered as an incarnation of Vishnu.
• The episodes of Ramayana and Mahabharata are regularly featured in puppet shows and theatre events.
• In terms of architecture, monuments like Borobodur Stupa in Java, the Angkor Vat temple in Cambodia, My Son temple in Vietnam are some of the best examples of Indian influence in the region.

India’s religious links to Thailand

• In the early centuries of the Common Era, Thailand, which was historically known as Siam, was under the rule of the Funan Empire.
• Following the decline of the Funan Empire in the sixth century CE, it was under the rule of the Buddhist kingdom of Dvaravati.
• In the 10th century, the region came under Khmer rule, which is also known to have links with India.
• A Tamil inscription found in Takua-pa testifies to trade links between the Pallava region of South India and southern Thailand.
• A mercantile corporation of South Indians called Manikarramam had established a settlement here and built its own temple and tank, and lived as a ‘self-contained’ colony.
• It is important to note that Brahmanism and Buddhism existed alongside each other in Thailand in the pre-Sukhothai period of the 13th century.

Cult of Rama

• The Ramayana known in Thailand as Ramakriti (the glory of Rama) or Ramakien (the account of Rama) — has provided an outlet of cultural expression in Thailand for both the elite and the common man.
• Episodes from the epic are painted on the walls of Buddhist temples and enacted in dramas and ballets.
• Although there is no archaeological evidence of the story of Rama in Thailand, certain towns in the country have legends related to Rama’s life connected with them.
• For instance, Ayutthaya in Central Thailand, which emerged in the 10th century CE, is derived from Ayodhya, birthplace of Lord Rama.
• Desai writes that “from the 13th century onwards, several Thai kings assumed the title Rama, which has become hereditary during the present dynasty.”

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