Dear Editor,
Apropos your editorial, “Give peace a chance” (August 21, 2018), if we use cricket terms, we can say that after the skipper of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif retired hurt, Pakistan has got a new captain in Imran Khan. We have fond memories of healthy and sporting competitions between the two all time great all-rounders namely India’s Kapil Dev and Pakistan’s Imran Khan. Can we now see such a healthy competition between the two neighbouring countries at the diplomatic level?
India and Pakistan need to wage an all-out war against poverty, hunger, malnutrition, unemployment, child labour, illiteracy, tuberculosis, malaria, dengue and other diseases in their own countries and not against each other.
Indeed, both India and Pakistan should start a healthy competition in human development.
India and Pakistan are the backbenchers in the class of human development.
The former is at 131st position and the latter at 147th in the Human Development Index rank. It will be highly beneficial for the people of both the countries if welfare diplomacy can be launched to get at least at par with Sri Lanka’s 73rd rank in Human Development.
To achieve it, India and Pakistan need welfare diplomacy and not a warfare one between them.
Indeed, new welfare diplomacy is the need of the hour. The bottom line of it will be to say the truth loud and clear that in the case of conflict, it is the weapon sellers who always win at the cost of the people of both the countries. Indeed, any war in general and Indo-Pak war in particular are nothing but staging of Aesop’s story of a monkey winning the bread while two cats fight for the same.
Yours,
Sujit De,
Kolkata