Time to trade across the LoC

Second, more than the political impact, the psychological implications of cross-LoC trade are immense. Today, the Valley is connected with the rest of the world through the Jawahar tunnel. The route via Kargil and Leh into Himachal is circuitous and is open only for three months. The Mughal route linking the Valley with the rest of India through Poonch and Rajouri districts, cutting across the Pir Panjal, is being planned, but will take a while to materialise. Historically, Kashmiris are connected to the outside world through the Jhelum river and the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad-Rawalpindi road. The fact that today the link to the outside world is only through a tunnel and an undependable mountainous road, has a negative impact psychologically. In 2007, the Jammu-Srinagar road was closed more than once due to landslides. Even the air traffic becomes a problem during winter, due to poor weather.

Finally, opening the LoC has the potential to improve the economic situation inside the Valley. This region, although it lacks industry, earns from horticulture (apples, almonds and walnuts). It also produces carpets, shawls and furniture, which can be traded across the LoC. Today, the entire movement of goods from the Valley takes place though the Jawahar tunnel, reaching Jammu first and then Delhi. This process takes anything from two to four days. Almost 75 per cent of the Valley’s population is dependent on horticulture. Cross-LoC trade is therefore essential.

However, the economic success of opening the LoC for trade depends on an important question. Will the cross-LoC trade be allowed only between the two Kashmirs, or will the goods from Valley be allowed to reach Rawalpindi and beyond via Muzaffarabad? If the intra-Kashmir trade is only between the Kashmir Valley and PoK, there won’t be much benefit. The supply of one day’s apples from Kashmir will flood PoK’s markets for an entire month.

If cross-LoC trade is to be a success, it cannot be Kashmir-specific but include all the regions of J&K, including Ladakh and the Northern Areas. Two, it has to extend beyond PoK, into mainland Pakistan. In an economic sense, Jammu has been traditionally linked with Sialkot, the nearest Pakistani city, on the other side of the LoC, hardly 40 km away. Today the Jammu region, from Samba to Bari Brahmana, has organised itself marvellously in terms of its industrial output with an annual turnover of Rs 10,000 crore in the organised sector alone. If the cross LoC/IB trade is allowed through the Jammu-Sialkot road, goods from Jammu will reach Pakistan’s Punjab faster than it would Amritsar or Ludhiana. Goods from Jammu could reach industrial centres like Sialkot, Lahore and Wazirabad in two to four hours.

In the Ladakh region, cross-LoC trade through the Kargil-Skardu axis will immensely benefit the Kargil, Leh and Zanskar regions. With the mighty Zoji La closed for more than half a year, the Kargil-Skardu road provides an ideal alternative for the movement of goods at a faster pace throughout the year. Skardu is further linked to Gilgit, which lies in the middle of the Karakoram Highway, connecting Kashgar in Sinkiang with Gwadar Port in Balochistan.

In every sense then, allowing cross-LoC trade will strengthen the Indo-Pak peace process as indeed the internal peace process between New Delhi and J&K.

The writer is visiting fellow, Centre for Strategic and Regional Studies, Jammu University

subachandran@gmail.com