A first reaction to this question for many will be, how can we even think of helping Pakistan, the rogue country that has always treated India as its sworn enemy and to conquer which the Pakistani politicians, Army and a large section of their populace have pledged their lives to Allah ?
Ture, the above behaviour of Pakistan does suggest that India should leave it to its own woes and sink into oblivion. But there is another side to this issue that we need to consider in the present context :
a)India has a unique opportunity to settle decades-long lingering issues by offering to rescue Pakistan from its present woes and realpolitik suggests that we must take advantage of this opportunity. We should not fritter away this opportunity as Indira Gandhi did after the 1971 war or as Lal Bahadur Shastri was forced to do after the 1965 war.
b)Even more important and troubling is that if Pakistan is left to its woes, it will very likely break-up into at least 3 countries Baluchistan, Sindhistan and Rest of Pakistan (of which a portion will be cobbled away by the TTP). Should such a situation develop we will have a huge “refugee influx” of the Pakistani majority Muslims pouring into India for safety, and life saving access to food, shelter and medicines. This is something that India can ill afford – in terms of logistics as also in terms of a huge increase in Muslim population of the country which beings its own myriad problems for any country (witness what is happening throughout Europe).
Hence, India should consider offering assistance to Pakistan PROVIDED
1.Pakistan agrees and hands over, physically and unconditionally, entire POK and Gilgit-Baltistan area back to India.
2.Frees all Indians in Pakistan Jails including all military and or civilian personnel arrested/jailed after the 1965 and 1971 wars.
3.Agrees to hand over a 3 Km Wide corridor from the Indian side to 1 Km beyond the boundary wall of Gurudwara Guru Nanak Sahib Darbar as an Indian enclave in Pakistan, fully under the physical, legal, political and economic control of the Indian government with no involvement of Pakistani Govt there whatsoever.
4.Agrees to permit India to rebuild all major Mandirs/ Temples/ Gurudwaras/ Buddhist Shrines destroyed in the cities of Pakistan like Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Islamabad etc up to a maximum of 50 such Mandirs/Temples/Gurudwaras/Shrines and permit unrestricted to access to them to Hindus/Jains/Sikhs/Buddhists to visit these places and practise their faith unhindered and without any restriction whatsoever. For this purpose a 500 Metre Radius area around each such place should be kept free of any Mosques to avoid any communal clash. All expenditure for such reconstruction will be borne by India (be it the Indian Government or private entities from India)
5.Agrees to make Baluchistan a separate country.
6.Agrees to shift all its Nuclear arsenal/assets to South Pakistan, at least 200 Km away from the Afghanistan border to avoid any of these weapons and associated weaponry systems falling in the hands of Taliban Terrorists.
7.Unfettered road/land and air right of way for Indian goods to be shipped to Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan etc.
8.Dawood Ibrahim, Hafiz Saeed, Syed Salahuddin, Sajid Mir and others involved in terrorist attacks in India to be handed over to India for trial.
If the above is accepted, then India should extend the following assistance :
a)An immediate transfer of US $ 10 billion of which $ 7 billion will be used to repay all loans from China and the Mid-east countries in some reasonable proportion with effort being to clear the Chinese Loans to the maximum extent
b)The balance US $ 3 Billion will be a credit line used to buy essential items of daily consumption from India like Petrol/Diesel, pharmaceuticals/ medicines, food grains and vegetables.
c)A second tranche of US $ 5 Billion will be given after 6 months of which $ 3 billion will be used to repay all loans from China and the Mid-east countries in some reasonable proportion with effort being to clear the Chinese Loans to the maximum extent
d)The balance US $ 2 Billion will be used to buy essential items of daily consumption from India like Petrol/Diesel, pharmaceuticals/ medicines, food grains and vegetables
e)A third tranche of US $ 5 Billion will be given after 6 months of which $ 3 billion will be used to repay all loans from China and the Mid-east countries in some reasonable proportion with effort being to clear the Chinese Loans to the maximum extent
f)The balance US $ 2 Billion will be used to rebuild roads, dams and railroads for which only Indian companies will be engaged for this work.
g)At the end of these 12 months when India has already extended a loan of US $ 20 Billion, there will be a detailed review of how the money has been spent/deployed, how much Pakistan has attracted FDI and inward remittances from overseas Pakistanis, the efforts that the Pakistani Government has made to recover amounts from the money that has been illegally transferred/stashed abroad and then a timeline for repayment will be decided as under :
1.Minimum US $ 100 million every month, starting from Month 19, or earlier, (i.e. after 18 months from the first loan disbursal).
2.If these payments happen in a regular and timely fashion for the first 6 months then at the end of the 24th month, Pakistan can draw upon a further instalment of US $ 5 billion which will be exclusively used for building Hospitals, Schools, Pakistani campus of Indian educational institutions (with the same names) like AIIMs, IITs, IIMs, NIITs with full academic freedom and unrestricted student selections and faculty appointments with the understanding that a minimum of 60 % of the students admitted will be Pakistani citizens.
3.Thereafter, after another period of 6 months, Pakistan must start repaying US $ 200 million per month for a period of 6 months and there after at the rate of US $ 300 million per month from the 31st month till the completion of the total repayment. For every 12 months of unbroken and timely repayment, there will be a remission of US $ 100 million. Thus Pakistan should be able to repay the entire loan in a period of 8 years (Principal amount only) Depending on the interest charged, this period may, in actual fact go up to 12 to 15 years.
h)Similarly, at the end of this 12 month period of “unbroken and timely repayment”, India will extend the MFN status to Pakistan on a full reciprocal basis i.e. only if Pakistan also extends the same MFN status to imports from
India.
i)At the end of 24 months if all repayments have been made in time and Pakistan’s economy has stabilised somewhat, India may, at Pakistan’s request and acceptance, extend its UPI Payment system in Pakistan and build the backbone for its operation in Pakistan free of cost. This above can be used as a trial balloon to see how Pakistan responds. The conditions are tough but not unrealistic nor unfair and will only work in favor of Pakistan though, admittedly, it may feel that its geo political power has been weakened. Against such a “feeling” will be the reality of a much stronger and more stable economy which can help Pakistan gain respect and acceptability in the comity of nations.