‘Rapprochement will only benefit Pakistan and India’

Former Indian minister Salman Khurshid speaks about Indo-Pak peace prospects, reasons for Congress’ electoral failures and its future plans

Karachi

The position of our Pakistan and India vis-à-vis the world will certainly improve once we sort out our differences and begin to cooperate with each other economically in a spirit of amity.

This was stated by Salman Khurshid, a former external affairs minister of India and presently a Congress member, while speaking at the launch of his book, “The Other Side of the Mountain”, on Saturday, the second day of the 7th Karachi Literature Festival (KLF). 

Khurshid pointed out that a sustained policy of rapprochement between the two could enhance their respective GDPs at least two-to-three folds, as it would allow both countries to reign in certain heavy expenses.

“If Pakistan and India actually do manage to mend fences, both sides will be able to cut back on their defence expenditure which has been claiming a heavy toll on the liquidity of both countries,” he said.

Besides, Khurshid added, normalised trade between the two neighbours would go a long way towards reducing the chronic economic crises faced by both countries.

He said that it was cruel irony that while countries the world over were softening their borders, India and Pakistan were further consolidating them and making them as impregnable as possible.

To a question from Ghazi Salahuddin, who was moderating, as to whether the defeat of the Congress in the last elections meant a verdict against the charismatic personalites, Khurshid said, “We started going downhill after the elections because the young under-35 voters in India felt that it was time for change, and that there had to be fresh blood, fresh leadership.”

He said that now there was a realisation, especially among the young, that we should switch back to the Nehruvian model of a socialist economy and felt that the market economy ushered in by former prime minister, P V Narasimha Rao, had miserably failed to achieve its objectives.

Another reason he cited for Congress’ defeat was, “While we were fighting a parliamentary campaign, our opponents, the BJP, were fighting a presidential campaign.”

He said that Sonia Gandhi’s son, Rahul, was of the view that we should have a democratic dispensation.

Replying to a remark by Ghazi Salahuddin to the effect that he seemed to be influenced by Rahul Gandhi, Khurshid said that Rahul’s plan was to infuse fresh blood and a reversion to the leftist, socialist economy.