Can’t we too break the wall?

Recently, sometime before the BJP government and the launch of the
Ghauri missile, and much before the Pokharan and Chagai N-tests, I
happened to read the following graffiti on a wall in Delhi: If the two
Germanys can unite, why can't India and Pakistan? It was not clear as
to who would have written this, but it definitely set my mind
thinking.

An idea like this, though, was not new to me, or to many others. It is
just that whenever anybody starts thinking on these lines, one is
confronted with such enormous complexity of issues dealing with
history, religious sentimentality, gross misunderstandings about each
other's communities, and above all, petty motives of our politicians
-that one finally drops the idea as practically improbable.

But I told myself, "What the heck. So what if it is impossible
-nobody can stop me from dreaming about it". So I continued thinking
for quite some time, and came up with many dreams that I would like to
share with others. I am no expert in History, Political Science or
Sociology; what I have here are amateurish ideas and questions for a
dialogue just like an ordinary chat that people in a by-lane cafe
would sit and have, on any topic that fancies them without much
substantial thought to it.

Now, I believe that when you dream about an ideal future, you have to
cut short from a lot of unpleasant memories of the past. Therefore, I
personally want to avoid the obvious debates such as what ideologies
was Pakistan created for, and whether it has succeeded in maintaining
them or not, and why have the two countries become such fierce enemies
etc. I simply want to put forward my idea of an ideal state that
could be conceived by the integration of the two countries, and also
what possible benefits could be achieved from such an enterprise.

Today, both countries spend enormous chunks of their annual budgets on
maintaining their military establishments, which are basically aimed
against each other. On the other hand, the situation of basic public
amenities like primary health, primary education, sanitation, potable
water supply, electricity and roads etc. is quite pathetic in both the
countries, not to mention the high rates of corruption and crimes. I am not
suggesting that all this will be magically reformed within a day if we
unite, but may be if the two countries cease to remain each other's
enemies, at least the military expenditure could be reduced
considerably. Also we could evolve a system of sharing the wealth and
resources of the entire region and hence resolving some of the basic
resource crunch. Here are some suggestions:

Indian Sub-continent comprises of many small regions or states that are
linguistically, culturally and geographically very different from each
other. In the past (i.e. before the British), each of these was
an independent and economically self-sufficient state. In other
words, there seldom has been a centralized power controlling the
entire Sub-continent, as it does in the contemporary India and
Pakistan. Today's centralized governments, in spite of being called
democratic, have stripped the smaller states of their individuality by
trying to homogenize their diverse cultures and natural resources into
one national mainstream. Needless to say, this homogenizing process
has religious overtones too, which, I hate to say, have only worsened
the problems. To cut the story short, I feel that it is this
centralized control of power that frustrates the people of small
states, and hence the contemporary problems of Kashmir, Punjab, Assam,
Pakhtunistan and Jharkhand etc.

I think we can learn a lesson or two from the experiences of USSR and
Germany. My ideal state should be that in which all the culturally
different regions of the Sub-continent are given complete autonomy with
which they could develop themselves to be entirely self-sufficient
(though they can continue to be inter-dependent too) while remaining
united inside one large commonwealth of the Sub-continent. There should
be no centralized government, or even if there is, it should be just like
an observer. I think the localized governments of each state will be
able to manage their land and people, and especially law-and-order
much more efficiently.

Here are some of the possible benefits of breaking down the Wall:
cultural exchange (music, literature, arts, cinema etc.), sharing of
natural resources (water, fuel, electricity, minerals etc.), re-union
of divided families across the border, new possibilities for tourism,
expanded opportunities for education, collaboration on technical and
industrial issues and most importantly, an end to the unnecessary arms
race.

I know my ideas are very personal and subjective, and may also seem
extremely Utopian, but I don't think they are motivated by any
specific political ideology (though if you find any -too bad for
me). I might just be having an Indian perspective, and that is why I
want to know what Pakistanis feel about this proposition. I must have
left in this article many loose ends and unanswered questions -one of
the most important (which to me is the least important) being: Who
will be in power? Whose ideologies will be imposed on whom? What will
be the new conglomerate called?

To which my answer is: Are we never going to apply the lessons we
have learnt in five thousand years' history of the Sub-continent?