Azhar Karimjee (52), an exporter based in Karachi, is eyeing the “huge market”, comprised of the Indian middle class, for his Bermuda and cargo shorts and chino pants once trade links open between Pakistan and India.

Having done business in Europe since the 1980s, Karimjee considers Pakistan’s decision to accord India the long awaited Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status by October 2012, to be a harbinger of prosperity.

“While India has a monopoly over ladies’ garments (made of finer quality fabric) we have an edge over them in men’s clothing, made of twill and canvas,” Karimjee told IPS.

Although India granted Pakistan MFN status back in 1996, Pakistan hitherto only allowed India to trade some 2,000 items.

Yusuf Raza Gilani said his government planned to remove restrictions on Indian imports by 2013. New Delhi, for its part, has assured Pakistan it will not oppose preferential trade access to Pakistani products in the European Union.

Current bilateral trade stands at 2.7 billion dollars, tilted heavily in India’s favour. But if restrictions are removed, trade can be expected to increase to as much as 6 billion dollars by 2014. However, informal trade through ‘third-party’ countries (the United Arab Emirates or Sri Lanka for example) is estimated at 10 billion dollars.

Controversy over ties with India

The news has stirred a round of passionate debate in the country as to why Pakistan needs to trade with a country long held to be its “enemy”.

For the longest time, Pakistan’s political leaders held the view that there was to be no business with India until the Kashmir dispute was resolved. The current government led by President Asif Ali Zaradari, considered one of the weakest in recent years, seems to have separated the Kashmir issue from the trade issue and opened the country’s market to India.

“Delinking trade from a resolution of Kashmir is a betrayal of the pledge we have made to the Kashmiri people,” Asif Ezdi, a former member of the Pakistan Foreign Service, told IPS. “We must keep alive the flame of azadi (freedom) that burns in the hearts of the Kashmiri people, not extinguish it for dubious trade benefits,” he added.

At the time of independence in 1947 almost three-fifths of Pakistan’s exports were directed to the Indian market and one-third of its imports came from India. Trade relations were severed following the 1965 war between the two countries and the 1971 debacle in which Pakistan lost its eastern province, which is now Bangladesh.

Relations between the two nuclear-armed nations slipped further in 1999 after the Kargil war. Then in 2001, after an attack on the Indian parliament by Kashmiri terrorists allegedly trained in Pakistan, there was renewed tension, which peaked during the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai.

Abid Qamar, a senior economist with the State Bank of Pakistan, told IPS that a “stressed relationship” between the nuclear-armed neighbours resulted in low trade.

Today, however, the “sheer logic” of economic benefit attached to open bilateral trade has made the option too attractive for political leaders and businessmen to pass it by, said Asad Sayeed, a Karachi-based economist.

Benefits outweigh risks

The push for opening trade barriers gained ground after five major political parties (comprising 90 percent of representatives in the parliament) endorsed trading with India at an event organised by the Pakistan Business Council last April, Sayeed said.

“Pakistan is in dire need of improving its trade and India, being a large economy sitting next door, is a great opportunity,” said Qamar. He said if countries like the United States and Brazil were so enthusiastic about trading with India, Pakistan could not afford to miss out. He cautioned that according India MFN status does not ensure “trade will pick up” between the two and “it in no way means any special treatment to India.”

Still, there are others who are sceptical of trading with the “enemy” country.

Ezdi, for example, feels opening up trade links makes no “economic sense”. “There will be a sharp rise of Indian imports that will destroy our industry and jobs. There will be no gain for Pakistani exporters or Pakistan’s economy,” he said. Many experts like Ezdi are apprehensive that this may lead to items such as chemicals, machinery, vehicles, base metals, plastics, precious or semi precious metals and stones flooding Pakistan’s market.

Others, like Sayeed, believe in Pakistan’s economic resilience, arguing, “If our local producers have not been ruined by (the entrance of) industrial giants like Germany, UK, the U.S., China etc (with whom we trade freely), then India does not stand much of a chance!”

In the short term it may hurt the industry; but in five years’ time, Pakistan’s economy can expect to benefit, acknowledged Qamar. “More exports mean more economic activity and more employment in the country. We also benefit if we substitute our expensive imports with cheaper imports from India, assuming similar quality,” he added.

“If Pakistan can import machinery or pharmaceutical raw materials or steel from India at a cheaper rate (and lower transport cost) than it does from Germany or the U.S. then it is in Pakistan’s benefit,” Sayeed said, adding: “A bilateral trade deficit with India may still result in a smaller aggregate trade deficit for Pakistan.”

Ironing out the wrinkles

However, there are certain contentious business hurdles that need to be crossed before a just and fair trade relationship can develop. While India has given MFN status to Pakistan and allows all items to be exported from Pakistan into India, Amin Hashwani, a prominent Karachi-based businessman, pointed out that there are many non-tariff barriers that “prevent Pakistani goods from entering (Indian) markets.”

Pakistan’s goods in the Indian market amount to less than 0.1 percent of its total imports, according to Hashwani. “We want to enter into an agreement with them that is open and fair to both sides and allows Pakistani goods to enter into the Indian market in a meaningful manner,” he told IPS.

Most experts believe trade can also help reduce political tensions. “Increased trade between India and Pakistan will make it harder for the two to go to war,” Hashwani speculated.

“When the two countries have substantial economic stakes, it will actually motivate them to keep their relationship normal,” said Qamar. After all, sparring nations like the U.S. and China; Iran and Iraq; and Saudi Arabia and Iran keep their political differences from affecting their economic relationship.

“Imagine you have dual nationality, say Haiti and the United States. You go to apply for a visa at a foreign embassy in Washington, but are told that you can’t use your U.S. passport unless you renounce your Haitian nationality. If you don’t, you must apply and travel using your Haitian passport.”

Salman Noman, a 34-year-old American based in Chicago, uses this hypothetical scenario to illustrate the reality that he and an estimated 500,000 other dual American- Pakistani citizens face when it comes to applying for an Indian visa.

India and Pakistan have agreed to ease mutual visa restrictions, but until they actually do so, American citizens with dual Pakistani nationality will continue to face what they allege is discrimination by the Indian visa authorities.

“To top it all,” Noman told IPS, “Your adopted country, where you live, vote and pay taxes, doesn’t take up your case with the country that is so blatantly discriminating against you.”

Noman, a Georgetown University alumnus who runs his own software company, was naturalised as an American citizen in 2007. He is frustrated with India’s visa policies, as well as with the U.S. Department of State, which he contends does not take up this issue with sufficient vigor.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Noel Clay told IPS the State Department is aware that the Indian government “imposes different policies and requirements” when issuing visas to U.S. citizens of Pakistani ancestry.

He said that the department “has raised its concerns with the Embassy of India in Washington” and that the U.S. Embassy has also discussed the issue with Indian government officials in New Delhi.

“Unfortunately, the State Department is limited in its influence on foreign government visa and immigration actions,” he said. “Visas for travel to India are issued only by Indian authorities and are entirely under the purview of Indian laws, regulations, and procedures.”

This answer was exactly the same as a response Noman had received on Facebook from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs in response to a question regarding Indian visas.

Frustrated by Washington’s “non-committal stand”, Noman initiated a petition entitled, “Ask India to End Discrimination Against U.S. Citizens/Businesses”.

“If U.S. nationals of Pakistan origin, cannot use their U.S. passports while traveling to India, they lose their privileges as U.S. citizens, including U.S. consular access, trade treaties with India, business opportunities, when traveling in India,” the petition points out.

Such restrictions, imposed after the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks facilitated by David Headley, an American citizen of Pakistani origin, affect more than just Americans with Pakistani connections.

A new visa rule imposed in May 2010 requires American citizens of Indian origin to produce a Renunciation Certificate to demonstrate that they are no longer citizens of India.

In addition, all travelers with multiple entry tourist visas are allowed “re-entry to India only after a period of two months between visits” – a curb that appears to be aimed at preventing more Headleys from going in and out of India as the terrorist did several times while on reconnaissance for the Mumbai attacks.

“India has every right to secure its borders from people like Headley,” argues Noman, “but let’s remember that it was lack of background checks and inefficiency in vetting visa applicants that led to his falsified visa application being accepted.”

Headley should not be used as an excuse to generalise about all U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin, he adds. “It feels terrible to be flagged without any reason,” he told IPS, “just because someone who shared similar background as you did something terrible.”

India and Pakistan have mutually restrictive visa policies, reminiscent more of a cold war situation than of two neighbours with so much cultural and linguistic affinity.

Both countries grant visas to each other’s citizens usually after drawn out processes. The visas are usually single-entry permits valid for a few weeks at most, and also for a limited number of cities. Visitors must enter and exit from the same points, using the same mode of transport, and report to the police within 24 hours of arrival and departure.

Until 2009, expatriate Indians and Pakistanis with foreign passports were exempt from these restrictions, even though their visa applications often took longer. American citizens of Pakistani descent had the same rights and privileges as other American travelers.

The new restrictions are based more on “bureaucratic processes” than on security concerns, believes Ibrahim Sajid Malick, a New York-based technologist and former journalist of Pakistani origin, married to a woman of Indian origin.

He calls on India to “streamline the process” and “identify the individuals who may pose a threat”, pointedly asking, “If the Western Union can check up on an individual within minutes, why can’t embassy officials?”

Malick, who is familiar with ‘know your customer’ information gathering tools, told IPS, “The only people who can fool the system are those who are part of the system,” as was Headley, who was a paid informer for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

He questions whether India is trying improve security or simply keep Pakistanis and people of Pakistani origin out of the country, although he also points out that Pakistanis are received in the “most heartwarming way when they do visit India, and vice versa”.

“And yet both countries try their best to keep the people apart.”

The Indian Embassy in Washington did not respond to repeated phone calls and emails from IPS regarding questions raised by these issues.

Recent news does offer some hope, however. India and Pakistan have both agreed to a newly finalised draft that revises a bilateral visa agreement from 1974. The proposed easing of visa rules is aimed at normalising trade ties by the end of the year.

Until that actually happens, however, American Pakistanis wanting to visit India will just have to put up with the inconvenience of being dealt with by the Indian Embassy as Pakistanis, not Americans.

If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then the path to peace between India and Pakistan may lie in the commonalities in their cultures and cuisines.

Poppy Agha, Pakistani chef on the 'Foodistan' reality TV show. Credit: NDTV

So when Poppy Agha, a renowned Pakistani chef, was recently served up kebabs made of okra (lady’s finger) and biryani (rice), followed by firni (dessert), the misgivings she had about India melted away.

“I was brought up in a very patriotic household with the usual Pakistani stereotypes in my mind towards India. This feeling has now changed completely,” she tells IPS from the Indian capital of New Delhi, where she has gone to take part in a reality show on food.

“You don’t have to think poorly of Indians to be a patriotic Pakistani!” said Agha, who runs a professional culinary institute in Pakistan, ladling out aromatic delights to entice the judges.

The Indian television channel NDTV Good Times, through its cookery show ‘Foodistan’, has diverted South Asia’s archenemies away from a nuclear race by pitting chefs against each other to a gruelling “cross border cook off”.

The 26-part series has 16 professional chefs, eight from each side of the border, who show what the “two most culturally rich and fascinating countries” in Asia can do with their respective cuisines.

“Cookery can be a terrific friendship builder,” said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physicist and peace activist. “It can transcend manmade boundaries.”

And that is exactly what the programme producers are hoping to achieve.

In an email exchange, Smeeta Chakrabarti, chief of NDTV Lifestyle, told IPS: “India and Pakistan have many common passions such as music, cricket and yes, fabulous food. The boundaries are just political, and the reality is that in many ways, the people of the two countries live and think in a similar fashion.”

“I wish the real wars were over,” said Vir Sanghvi, an Indian judge on the programme. “But, until we can be sure of that, the best way of ensuring peace is for our people to interact with each other in arenas such as Foodistan,” he told IPS.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 and a traumatic partition on the basis of religion. Their relationship since then has resembled a rollercoaster with moments of understanding punctuating hostilities over the possession of the province of Kashmir.

Mani Shankar Aiyar, an Indian diplomat turned politician, told a roomful of Pakistanis that both nations had a choice to either continue living in “simmering hostility” or engage proactively and prosper. He said 90 percent of the people on either side of the border did not nurse grudges from a dark past.

Aiyar, who was invited by the Jinnah Institute, an Islamabad-based think tank, to speak on ‘India and Pakistan: Retrospect and Prospect’ said: “History may have divided us but geography binds us.”

In India, Agha learnt to develop menus in different ways, but she told IPS that she gained much more at a personal level. “I have met some great people I can call friends,” she declares.

Zohra Yusuf, a Pakistani rights activist, believes that “any kind of contact, even a highly competitive one” can contribute to a better understanding in the long run.

“While passions may be inflamed, during a tense cricket match, for example, face-to-face interactions helps remove prejudices about the ‘other’ to a great extent,” she told IPS.

In spite of hurdles thrown in by officialdom on both sides, such as denial of visas, requirements for visitors to report to police stations and restrictions on travel, people-to-people contacts seem to find their own way.

Thus, India’s tennis star Sania Mirza could marry Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, or the tennis duo of Indian Rohan Bopana and Pakistan’s Aisam ul Haq Qureshi could get together to start a movement called “Stop War Start Tennis.”

The Jang Group, a Pakistani media house, has joined hands with the Times of India daily newspaper in a campaign called ‘Aman ki Asha’ (Hoping for Peace) that, over the last two years, has relentlessly promoted peace efforts.

Aman ki Asha’s success depends on a plan to begin anew with the next generation of Indians and Pakistanis and get them to take the responsibility for “shedding the baggage of history.”

Stark facts such as the 250 million dollar daily expense in maintaining an electrified, barbed fence with floodlights and security equipment along the border are thrown at young participants.

The success of the Aman ki Asha initiative can be gauged by the fact that it was unaffected by the public acrimony generated during the difficult period after the terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008, carried out by a group of armed Pakistanis.

If anything, the peace show has been gaining ground. In 2010, ‘Chote Ustad’ (Little Master), a music reality show for young Pakistani and Indian singing and dancing talent, run by the Star Plus TV channel, turned into a huge hit on both sides of the border.

Rouhan Abbas, one of the Pakistani winners, returned home with a medal, a trophy, the prize money as well as a basketful of memories. He still misses the bonhomie that developed with young Indian participants at the show.

“The notion that India was our enemy was fixed in my mind, since I was little; that was completely erased after our Indian hosts showed us love and warmth,” Abbas told IPS.

There has, of late, been a definite thawing of the relations between the two neighbours, riding on the cultural front: enough for India to slip down to third position among Pakistan’s enemies, after the United States and Israel.

Shows like Foodistan can spread the message of brotherhood says Chakrabarti. “If you see participants from both sides and unless you are told you wouldn’t be able to tell who is from which side of the border,” she said.

“Because of travel and visa restrictions, we don’t know enough about each others’ cuisine and culture,” she said, adding that shows like Foodistan can help bridge that gap.

“It was a dark and dingy room, where an elderly woman asked me to take off my panties, made me sit on a low wooden stool with my legs parted and then did something…I screamed out in pain,” recalls Alefia Mustansir, 40, of her childhood experience.

A Bohra woman in traditional costume. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS

Her friend, Sakina Haider, remembers “putting up a good fight” before she succumbed. “I was told by my grandmother that I was being taken to the doctor to address burning in the genital area when soap went there while bathing!”

Both Haider and Mustansir have refused to have their daughters undergo circumcision or female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), the Dawoodi Bohras’ best-kept secret until young women from the community first began to speak up against it a few years ago.

Bohras, a sub-sect of Ismaili Shia Muslims, are a tight-knit community, with a majority residing in India and Pakistan, and estimated to number two million the world over.

An article in the Dec. 12 issue of the popular Indian weekly ‘Outlook’ says: “Khatna (circumcision) is a tradition the Bohras trace back to their origins in (north) Africa, one they continue with because they see this as an attempt to stay true to their faith.”

The Outlook article goes on to say that “most Bohra women and men even today would rather keep this practice a secret rather than question a custom that is now universally seen as a gross violation of a woman’s body.”

The World Health Organisation defines FGM/C as a procedure that “intentionally alters or injures female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” FGM/C, as practiced in some African countries, may involve removal of the entire clitoris and labia.

The practice persists in 28 African countries, as well as in some Middle Eastern countries with varying degrees of cutting or mutilation. African countries that have banned it include Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Togo, Uganda, Kenya and Egypt.

Bohras insist that their practice is not harmful since it is done with care and moderation. Many justify it as a means to curb a woman’s sexual drive and keep her chaste.

Haider finds that argument “highly problematic” and sees it as a way of controlling women.

Dr. Nighat Shah, former president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Pakistan, finds it hard to believe that a community as “progressive and educated” as the Bohras carries out this practice.

“Medically speaking,” she explained, “a little snip or clip (of the clitoris) may not affect childbirth, but it may rob the woman of sexual pleasure. It is a very sensitive tissue.”

Another gynaecologist and obstetrician, Dr. Shershah Syed, finds no medical benefit to support female circumcision. “I am no religious scholar, so if a community believes it is an Islamic injunction, I’d suggest the girls should at least be old enough to understand the reason so that they can make an informed decision.”

“Why do women’s sexual drives have to be curbed?” Haider asks. “Women who are not circumcised are not necessarily promiscuous!” she says.

A young Indian girl belonging to this Muslim sect, who goes by the name of Tasleem, has now found the courage to initiate an online petition asking the community’s high priest, Dr. Syedna Mohammad Burhanuddin, to have this “cruel, inhuman and undemocratic ritual” stopped.

The petition addressed to the 96-year-old prelate, who is based in the western Indian city of Mumbai, states: “Such a barbaric ritual has no place in a progressive community like the Bohras. So we pray to His Holiness to stop this misogynist ritual.” Mustansir and Haider are in a minority among Bohra women who refuse to accept the practice. Most still get their daughters circumcised because it is an order from the community’s high priest.

“I have blind faith in my leader. I believe there must be some goodness in this that there is so much insistence,” said Zahabia Mohammad, 38, mother of three circumcised daughters.

Mohammad conceded that her own experience was “gross” and “barbaric”, but justifies its continuation because “it is done in a very safe manner today by doctors.”

She was present for all of her daughters’ circumcisions. “It takes less than five minutes and the procedure is done under local anaesthesia. Just a very minute bit of the clitoris is clipped off,” she said.

She acknowledged she had little information on the rite except what was told her by an aunt “that the foreskin of the clitoris is unclean and circumcision is for the benefit of the women.”

She also concedes that today, with a deluge of information circulating against this practice, it is imperative to equip the community with information to enable them to make informed decisions.

“Not everyone will accept this blindly, not the next generation. They will question and prod, so it is important to prepare them,” she says of a rite that is kept secret from male members of the sect.

Tasleem told Outlook that genital cutting happens in all strata of Bohra society. “I’d say 90 percent practise it.”

Arwa Mohammad, who is in her 20s, signed the petition because “it’s archaic and nonsensical.” She was circumcised when she was seven by her grandmother’s doctor friend. “Just goes to show how this ritual perpetuates without anyone questioning!”

Married a year back, Mohammad was “not traumatised” for life for getting circumcised, but cannot comprehend the reason still. “I have friends who have been circumcised like me but have a high sex drive. On the other hand, she admits to “frigidity” in bed.

“The thought of snipping off a bit of a young child’s clitoris gives me the goosebumps,” said 37-year-old uncircumcised Amena Ali. She refuses to put her two daughters, aged six and eight – considered the right age band for circumcision – under the blade.

The petition, put up last October, has opened an animated forum for discussion on both sides of the border, perhaps for the very first time, within the community on a subject that was taboo.

“Initially, only the non-Bohras were signing, but once the media got into the act, many women from the community openly began talking about their painful experience,” Tasleem told IPS in an email exchange from India.

So far, Tasleem has been able to collect 1,059 signatures. “I will keep this going till Dr. Syedna bans it. Raising awareness is the first step towards solving the problem.”

“Whether the ritual will be abolished by this petition, only time will tell,” says Zainab Hussain, 49, but she feels the petition will make a difference. “They (community leaders) may eventually break their silence and give a plausible answer.”