Kanti Bajpai in This Week in Asia has peddled geo-economy first and geopolitics later between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan, who have gone to wars on the Kashmir dispute at least three times. Critics and many independent observers DesPardes has been talking to for years, remain skeptic about resolution of the Kashmir dispute. There are a lot of if and but and when, they say.
According to Dr. Syed M. Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst, “Kashmir is ground zero of the new world order”. His comment on “New World Order” last year was recently discussed by Prof. Adil Ajam in a talk show last week. “New” rules will define the new world order, said Mr. Najam, who is Dean, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University.
The Kashmir valley is south-western part of Third Pole -the water tower of region’s 3bln +/- inhabitants. That includes beside China, India and Pakistan.
Bajpai, while suggesting front-ending geo-economy (as in the case of Middle East thru Abraham Accord), says “Virtually every bilateral problem they had before 1964 – except Kashmir – was solved diplomatically, including a landmark 1960 agreement on sharing the waters of the Indus River that both have since honored, even in wartime”.
He suggests India and Pakistan “start small, take heart from history”.
Bajpai remains silent on Kashmir, the biggest issue that the world body (UNO) in 1948 recognized also a dispute warranting plebiscite in the pristine Muslim majority valley.
There are reports of demographic changes being made in the valley, and some stage of “genocide” amid unconfirmed reports of a middle-eastern country having agreed to make huge investments (geo-economy) in the disputed (geopolitics) territory.
