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Journalism of Courage
While parties opposed to the Aam Aadmi Party have mounted an attack on its government in Punjab over a proposal by one of its ministers at a meeting in July to reopen trade with Pakistan, more than one leader and party in the state has called for this earlier.
AAP Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal made the proposal at the National Conference of State Agriculture & Horticulture Ministers held in Bengaluru on July 14-15 this year, as reported by The Indian Express.
Trade with Pakistan has been suspended since August 2019, when Islamabad decided to stop the same following the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier too, since the Narendra Modi government first came to power in 2014, trade through the Integrated Check Post (ICP) at the Attari-Wagah border with Pakistan had begun declining.
As of now, India is only trading with Afghanistan via the Attari-Wagah border.
As far back as December 6, 2021, while on a visit to Amritsar as Chief Minister, Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi had said, “It (trade via land route with Pakistan) would propel enormous opportunities of economic prosperity.”
Later, in the run-up to the 2022 Assembly elections, former Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu said: “Why should trade be over 2,100 km via Dubai instead of 20 km between Attari and Lahore?… The trade should happen.”
In its manifesto for the Assembly election, the Shiromani Akali Dal (till not long ago a BJP ally) promised to “strongly take up the demand for opening of the Hussainiwala border and establishment of an integrated check post there to facilitate trade with Pakistan”.
Opening trade between India and Pakistan was one of the main promises made by Simranjit Singh Mann of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) in the run-up to the Sangrur Lok Sabha by-election this year, which he won in a stunning victory.
However, local units of AAP and the BJP in Punjab have always maintained reservations over the issue. Following the row in the state over his proposal, Dhaliwal has refused to take any queries on the matter.
The Attari-Wagah land route was first opened in 2005, and truck movement on this route in 2007. The ICP at Attari was inaugurated on April 13, 2012, under the UPA government, with facilities for fast and cost-effective land trade.
In 2013-14, the India-Pakistan trade through the ICP stood at Rs 5,443 crore, up from Rs 4,800 crore in 2012-13. In 2014, a government calculation put the trade potential at $10 billion (approximately Rs 6,300 crore then).
However, the figures started declining as soon as the BJP, which takes an aggressive stand towards Pakistan, came to power under Modi. After falling consecutively, the ICP trade figures stood at Rs 3,970 crore by 2016-17. While 2017-18 and 2018-19 saw a slight rise – to Rs 4,148 crore and Rs 4,370 crore respectively – it was nowhere close to the estimated potential.
The killing of 40 CRPF personnel in the attack in Pulwama, Kashmir, on February 14, 2019, further hit trade, with the Modi government imposing a 200 per cent Custom duty on all goods imported from Pakistan. Then, on August 9, 2019, Pakistan imposed a complete trade embargo following the scrapping of J&K’s special status.
In the first nine months of 2022, the total trade via the Attari-Wagah border – of goods bound or coming for Afghanistan — has been only Rs 1,180 crore. As part of a humanitarian gesture, India sent wheat to Afghanistan from the Attari ICP earlier this year.
A recent study by the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, an autonomous institute supported by the government’s Indian Council of Social Science Research, on the ‘Economic Implications of Trade Curbs between India and Pakistan through Wagah Border’ noted: “… eventually this may provide the transit-route to Middle East. This would be possible if both India and Pakistan acknowledge the economic rationale of trade through this route, and the north-western states of India and the Punjab state of Pakistan persuade their national governments to encourage and promote trade through this route”.
However, it is unlikely the AAP government will follow through given the backlash over Dhaliwal’s proposal.
Following the Express report, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala called AAP “PPP—Pak Parast Party”. “AAP’s Pakistan Parasti parallels Congress pak prem! Much like Congress AAP had questioned surgical strike, demanded Balakote proof, blamed Pulwama on India,” he tweeted.
Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Manish Tewari asked how trade was possible between India and Pakistan when they had not even “restored” respective High Commissioners yet.
However, while the issue might find resonance in national politics, anti-Pakistan rhetoric has little ground in Punjab, which shares deep language, cultural and heritage links with its divided half.
Both Amarinder Singh, former Congress CM, and Sukhbir Singh Badal, ex-Akali Dal deputy CM, visited Pakistan during their tenures, raising hopes for revival of economic relations. The Kartarpur Corridor, essentially used by Sikh pilgrims, was opened in 2019 despite the rough patch in India-Pakistan relations.
