The bus service from Delhi to Lahore has been plying since July. Air services between India and Pakistan were re-established on January 1. Important as these developments are, nothing quite symbolises the marked improvement in relations between the two subcontinental neighbours than the Lahore-bound Samjhauta Express which will flag off from Attari tomorrow. That is because of the multiplier effects that this service has always had, not just in terms of the number of passengers transported but in terms of trade between the two nations. This is precisely why this train service has always been a fairly accurate barometer of the cordiality levels between India and Pakistan. If the diplomatic breakthroughs during the time of the Shimla Agreement in 1972 had breathed life into it, there were many events that occurred subsequently that have threatened it. Both nations have used it to send out political signals to each other — as indeed the Indian government did in response to the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001, by stopping the service. All that is history. The merits or demerits of that intervention can be debated ad infinitum but the important point is to avoid being derailed by a contentious past and to move on. What both India and Pakistan need to do at this juncture is to learn from the experiences of the past three decades and maximise the potential of an indubitably important transportation link between them. This would also mean that care must be taken to ensure that the train is not used by unscrupulous elements on both sides of the border to smuggle contraband or indulge in ruthless profiteering at the expense of the hapless passengers and business people who patronise the service. This had unfortunately been the case earlier. It’s easy to perceive the aggrandisement of popular goodwill through such a link. Many passengers have termed it the “mohabbat di gaddi” and the description is an apt one since it facilitates the reunion of families, the visiting of religious shrines, even as it creates employment opportunities to thousands in this stretch. However, the real test of this train would be in terms of its ability to help improve trade and economic relations between India and Pakistan in substantive terms. As Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha had pointed out during the launching of the India-Pakistan CEO’s Forum in September, the current trade figure of $200-250 million is “unnatural”. Both India and Pakistan need to better leverage the undoubted potential for business ties and economic cooperation that exist. The Samjhauta Express may actually help the two economies to discover the complementarities that exist between them.
