Indo-Pak Relations

Can India ever have good relation with Pakistan?The answer to this question cannot just be a simple yes or no.There are long-standing territorial and religious differences between South Asian neighbors India and Pakistan that have existed since 1947, when the Indian subcontinent was partitioned and the two countries became independent of Great Britain. As most of us know, the partition was very traumatic for millions of families. During the partition as many as 3 million people lost their lives. Even after the partition, the Kashmir issue was always the reason for the war between both the countries. Violent outbreaks occurred in 1947-48, 1965, and 1971 when the two nations went to war. In spite of all these, the citizens of both the countries want peace. During a visit to South Africa, Our then president, Sri APJ Abdul Kalam said “European countries fought each other for over 100 years. But today there is European Union and there is common currency. Like that one day will come it will happen here. We (India and Pakistan) too will become friends". I personally am not very confident about it but as truly said by him, we truly can become friends. But, there are certain key areas which need to be concentrated in order to speed up the peace process. Let us now look at certain key areas which need to be worked up to have good relations with Pakistan.
Encourage The Bilateral Trade: India and Pakistan should agree to strengthen their trade links as a means to normalizing relations between the two countries. Already there are steps being taken in that direction. The two countries agreed to increased cooperation on banking, freight transport and key goods such as tea and rice. In 2004, Pakistan scrapped duties on 13 commodities from India similarly India imported onions in 2005 from Pakistan. These show that both the countries are truly interested in having a good relation with each other.
Should the Peace Process Be Going Faster? In spite of huge optimism, many feel that peace process can gear up and certain terror issues should not come in between the process. It is true that without solving the Kashmir issue, we cannot have a friction-free relation but only talks can resolve the Kashmir issue and not the weapons.
Being Serious about solving Terrorism. The terror attacks were always a hindrance in the peace process between both the countries. The delay in the peace process is due to the lack of transparency between the countries regarding the terrorism. Being fairer in this regard would make the peace process go at double the speed. If there is strict action taken by the governments, there wouldn’t be any terror attacks in the future.
Entertainment Industry can act as a catalyst: The release of epic movie, ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ in Pakistan in 2006 was welcomed by all. It is clearly seen as a catalyst in India-Pakistan relations.
The article just gave 4 areas which are to be concentrated in order to achieve our ultimate dream. There are uncountable such ideas and areas present which leads us in the direction of peace. As each drop creates an ocean, a small step forward by any country would surely results in the start of an everlasting relationship between India and Pakistan. Finally I would like to restate my statement that India and Pakistan can surely have good relations like with any other country or in fact even a better relation.