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Journalism of Courage
NEAR the massive crowd that had gathered to listen to Indian Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, a local tapped my shoulder. 8216;8216;Sardarji, ikhathe hona ki nahin Mr Singh, do you wish to be united or not?8217;8217; he asked. Taken aback, I reply with a diplomatic, 8216;8216;Depends on you8217;8217;.
But he is undeterred. 8216;8216;Border kholne ki nahi Will you open the borders or not?8217;8217; he asks. Slightly more confidently, I reply that we are always ready, but doesn8217;t it cause the two-nation theory go for a toss? He laughs heartily, then replies, 8216;8216;The entire global roadmap has already been laid.8217;8217;
8216;8216;Who8217;ll pay for it?8217;8217; our driver Zulfiqar Butt asked repeatedly. 8216;8216;Will the Sikhs pay for the road, or will your government?8217;8217;
At the Lahore Chambers of Commerce, Amarinder proposed Wagah as a free trade zone. 8216;8216;Our goods travel from Amritsar to Mumbai, from where they are transported to the Gulf,8217;8217; he said. 8216;8216;Why can8217;t we use the Karachi port? Or even Lahore as a dry port? Then the Export Processing Zone at Amritsar can use Lahore as a base.8217;8217;
Even as land prices rose in Amritsar8212;45 minutes away from Lahore8212;in anticipation of softer borders, Amarinder8217;s remarks created quite a flutter at the Lahore Chambers, where 8216;Indian goods8217; raise a bogey similar to 8216;Chinese goods8217; in India. The balance of trade is the most-bandied term, and businessman have figures on their fingertips. 8216;8216;In the last year, Pakistan8217;s trade to India was 94 million and its imports 382 million,8217;8217; said Jameel Mahmood, a Lahore-based industrialist.
8216;8216;This trade could go upto a billion dollars in one year, and five billion in five years,8217;8217; said CII North president Rakesh Bharti Mittal, pinning hopes on accessing the expressway to reach Karachi port.
Already, there are industrialists keen on tapping markets in Pakistani Punjab8212;and beyond. Gujarat Ambuja8217;s Suresh Neotia8217;s recent view that a joint committee be set up to explore opportunities8212;his own eyes being firmly set on the construction activities in Afghanistan8212;found several takers.
8216;8216;I buy cotton from Egypt, I could as well source it from Pakistan,8217;8217; said Rajinder Gupta, owner of towel-makers Trident Industries.
But there are bottlenecks that can8217;t be wished away just yet. 8216;8216;Why does Delhi interfere with Punjab?8217;8217; asked Misbah ur Rehman, vice-president of the SAARC business forum. 8216;8216;For years, I8217;ve been asking why there are more legal formalities at Wagah than at Delhi, and why every visitor to Punjab has to go to Delhi as well.8217;8217;
The writer, whose parents were born in Pakistan, was in the land of his ancestors recently
