“Liberal visa policy will improve relations between India and Pakistan,” former Indian state minister says

Shashi Tharoor was speaking to Arab News on the sidelines of Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai. (AN photo)

DUBAI: India should be “unilaterally liberal on visas” for certain people from Pakistan, such as businesspeople, journalists, artists and musicians, according to a prominent Indian MP, author and former minister.
By creating a “de facto open border for large numbers of people” this would promote better bilateral relations, Shashi Tharoor told Arab News, at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.
He said India and Pakistan have “a tremendous amount of mutual synergy” and a “shared culture.”
Tharoor, who chairs the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, said it was sad that the two countries did not share the closeness of the US and Canada, which have open borders.
The fundamental problem lies with the Pakistani Army’s control of “the largest share” of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), he said.
“Until and unless Pakistani civil society can reduce the predominant space occupied by its army, there will always be a very strong constituency of people who would want to see hostility, not just with India but also with Afghanistan, because that justifies the army’s disproportionate privileges,” he added.
“Unfortunately, in recent years India… feels that you can’t have normal relations with a society from where attacks keep coming across the border,” said Tharoor.
“Pakistan could easily help… by making an example of these terrorist groups (and) arresting some of these terrorists.”
Referring to his book, “Inglorious Empire,” Tharoor said the British Raj took away a lot more than it left behind. “What they (British Raj) left behind was only created to enhance their own power, to increase their own profits, or to perpetuate their own control. It was not about benefiting the Indians.
“They came to India because they found in India an extremely rich country. They exploited and ruined it, depopulated the industrial towns. Dhaka and Murshidabad became the first cities in the modern world to actually lose population in the beginning of the 19th century because their weaving industry had been destroyed by the (British) East India Company.”
It has become fashionable among historians to argue that the British helped India through the building of the railways, but he added: “Railways were brought in as a big colonial scam, major profits made by the Brits, run for the interest of the Brits, designed to exploit resources in the hinterland and bring them to the ports as well as to move soldiers in to quell the unrest. It was not designed the help the Indians to get around.”
“Indians financed not only the British government in India, and some very lavish salaries and pensions, but British imperial adventures elsewhere. Indian soldiers died in many of these British campaigns in foreign countries including the two world wars.”
Tharoor believes that social media has been an effective tool to reach the people directly. “Social media is indispensable. It’s a means to reach the public directly and not having to go through the media who may misinterpret, misspelt, misquote whatever you are saying. In many ways it becomes valuable to be able to reach people directly through the social media.”
Also, by being able to use social media to project as many aspects of "my personality, my ideas, my beliefs and my convictions, I give the voters a chance to see the whole me before voting for me. That I think on the whole will turn out to be a positive,” said Tharoor, who has pioneered the use of on social media in Indian politics.