Dr Ayesha Siddiqa Peace per se will not resolve issues of political stability and economic boom Will peace between India and Pakistan result in politico-economic dividends for the region? Not necessarily.
Or let's put it this way: sociopolitical and socioeconomic changes in both countries remain independent of peace.
How? Improving the conditions of the masses in the region was possible even without peace.
Let us not forget that the conflict in the region since 1971 has not been direct.
Indeed, between 1971 and 1989, when Kashmir began to boil, India and Pakistan went through a long period of cold peace.
It did not result in any meaningful sociopolitical or economic dividends.
This may not change, especially if the two sides decided to pursue their agendas more freely with an eye for vested interests rather than general good.
For instance, the Indian leadership could pursue its objective of turning India into a military power and focusing on its middle class while ignoring those placed lower on the social ladder.
Similarly, Pakistan's sociopolitical and socioeconomic progress could continue to suffer from the effect of military domination.
India has been toying with the concept of a trickle-down effect suggesting that economic development and steady financial growth would finally trickle down to the masses.
Pakistan experimented with this idea during the 1960s and while the economy showed signs of impressive growth, the politics of this growth led to one wing of the country breaking away.
This is not to suggest that India will break up but to make the point about the politics of economic development.
The corruption of the system and the treatment of the people are factors that could nullify economic progress; indeed, pit new actors against old, entrenched interests.
Continued obsession with military security could thus be a negative factor for India.
In Pakistan, the issues are even more complex.
The country needs to straighten its economy and it needs political certainty which has remained elusive because of the imbalance in civil-military relations.
Ejaz Haider's article last week (The cost of peace; TFT, January 23-29) correctly pointed out the glaring gap between the domestic political scene and the peace dividend.
Hence peace per se is unlikely to result in the correction of the civil-military imbalance.
For Pakistan, streamlining the politics of policymaking is even more important because without it there would be no real economic dividend.
But it's not easy.
The lack of capacity of the political leadership to play a proactive role in politics and dominate the military is compounded by the fact that the military has, over the years, built deep economic interests.
Hence the difficulty of convincing a military, which has expanded its political influence vertically and horizontally, to voluntarily surrender its power.
Although serving and retired military officers deny any connection between the military's economic interests and its political influence, their argument runs contrary to clear evidence of this linkage.
The millions of acres acquired for distribution to individuals and the land that is controlled by the military and its various welfare foundations (or even its other business activities) are privileges that are a necessary upshot of its political influence whether it is exercised upfront or through pliant civilian governments.
It is no secret that the military operates in all three major segments of the economy: agriculture, service and manufacturing sectors.
The businesses of the welfare organisations, in fact, represent the tip of the iceberg.
Far more happens under the umbrella of what could be termed small and medium enterprise (SME) operations, the numerous small and medium-sized business activities carried out at the level of units, divisions and corps.
For instance the Lahore Corps rents out shops at Fortress Stadium in Lahore Cantonment and at some places formations lease out state and military-controlled land to private firms.
I give these two examples just to explain the diversity of such operations.
The Pakistani model thus is a cross between the Chinese-Indonesian model where serving personnel are involved directly in generating money and the Turkish model where welfare funds are invested to generate profits that can then be re-employed for welfare.
These activities are not necessarily illegal except where the state land is traded for financial benefits.
In Latin America or other authoritarian-political systems in Far East Asia one comes across cases of one segment of the government acquiring the authority to dispose of state land at will and for the personal benefit of a few.
However, in the case of the distribution of agricultural land in Pakistan, the state has clearly delegated such authority to the military.
The military's system for distributing land is very methodical.
Generally, distribution follows a point system and land is allotted to personnel with the required amount of numbers.
While one has no objection to this methodology - after all, it is vital to follow an accepted system to secure the corporate identity of the organisation and make its members honour the organisation and what it stands for - the problem is that the military ends up taking greater privileges than other segments of society.
Even enlightened retired officers become uncomfortable when these facts are mentioned or any proposals made to reverse this system of patronage.
They try to argue that other countries also do this.
But when it is pointed out to them that this is incorrect, they reverse the argument to say that if other countries don't uphold the military's interests, this does not mean the Pakistani military should also follow suit! Of course, such privileges or economic interests are the effect not the cause of a skewed political system and come to symbolise the advantages a politically powerful group can enjoy.
But the issue is: does the political system correct the imbalance or is there any institutional mechanism available to do the same? Currently, there is no alternative mechanism available.
And that includes the judiciary.
A glance at Pakistan's constitutional history clearly shows that the judiciary cannot arbitrate these issues.
In the end, it is the dialectics between cause and effect - political and corporate interests complementing each other - that we see the continuation of a peculiar relationship between various stakeholders.
The military could live with policy reversals if the bulk of the officer cadre is comfortable with the idea of it being firmly in control of the policymaking process.
This means continued economic benefits for the military.
The General-President has already listed a set of internal threats that could become the rationale for the military's continued role.
Indeed, internal threats could serve to enhance the military's internal role and by extension reduce the prospects of correcting the civil-military relations imbalance.
The only hope, perhaps, lies in the next generation of political leadership finding a greater logic for Pakistan's existence and its security perception.
