- The teleconference on regional trade just latest example
India and Pakistan have become so used to their mutual confrontation that they have apparently refused to recognize the unprecedented challenge that is posed to both by the Covid-19 pandemic, and their establishments continue playing their games of one-upmanship irrespective of the dire need for cooperation that both need to come through the challenge with minimum damage. The latest evidence that the spirit of one-upmanship is alive and well was shown by Pakistan’s boycott of the teleconference of South Asian trade officials on the ground that it had been convened by India and did not involve the SAARC Secretariat. It was vociferously argued by India that the meeting flowed from the meeting of the heads of government, and that had not involved the SAARC Secretariat. There have also been Indian allegations of cross-border infiltration by Pakistani agents.
It is almost as if the establishments will keep on playing their games until the pandemic kills them all. Though the moment of decision is still not yet upon them, it is only a matter of weeks before India and Pakistan will need help from each other in the pandemic. The establishment’s competitive priorities have led to spending priorities which have produced assets that are of no help in combating the pandemic. Both have ramshackle healthcare infrastructures woefully ill-equipped for the pandemic. The coronavirus is going to be unimpressed by nuclear weapons, submarines, jet fighters, missiles, or tanks or infantry. Nor is it going to care about whether India scored one off Pakistan by having FATF blacklist it, or whether Pakistan had its case postponed some months.
Because neither has spent enough on health, there will be a need to pool resources, with neither country experiencing the surge that is likely to come. As there is a difference in peaks, it is likely that Pakistan will experience a surge first, and thus equipment and healthcare professionals will be more pressingly needed here than in India. But it is possible that before the peak has died down, there will be a surge across the border.
The pandemic is probably not permanent. Both countries must understand that these games should be suspended, for without cooperating at a human level, survival is not certain. And to play at one-upmanship, one needs to be alive.