Pakistan’s long hesitation in accepting emergency aid from India for flood relief springs from deep hostility nurtured over time, thanks to the Pakistan military, says
G. Parthasarathy, former high commissioner of India to Pakistan, in an interview to Anand K. Sahay and Ramesh Ramachandran.

Q. After a long delay, Pakistan accepted India’s offer of aid for flood relief. Why do you think it was so reluctant?
A. Pakistan’s behaviour is neither surprising nor new. In the 1970s, Pakistan was short of wheat and short of money to import it. Moreover, its ports were blocked. When India offered to supply wheat across the Wagah border because its own granaries were overflowing, the offer was rejected. No official grounds were given, but I recall one Pakistani then commenting that he would rather die than survive on food supplied by India. This is the attitude in Pakistan, especially in its Punjab province.
They go with a begging bowl all around the world, seeking economic aid and military assistance from China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the US or the European Union (EU). But if there is a well-meaning offer from India, they would rather die than accept it! It reflects the deep-set prejudices against this country.
In the case of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), after some delay they accepted Indian aid because when no aid was reaching the suffering people, just across the Line of Control (LoC) Pakistanis could see how efficiently the Indian Army had helped and worked with civilian authorities to aid the victims of the earthquake in north Kashmir. There was genuine fear this would create a backlash in PoK, and in Gilgit and Baltistan, where there is already substantial sense of deprivation. If the roads in PoK break down, the access is only from our side.

Q. What is the situation in the other provinces?
A. The attitude in Punjab is influenced by the military because the overwhelming bulk of the recruitment is from there. In the other provinces — Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa — there is no virulent anti-Indianism.

Q. Do you suspect American pressure influenced Pakistan’s decision?
A. I have no doubt that they have accepted this aid after American pressure. But I would not be surprised if after accepting the aid they keep it in a godown and don’t utilise it. And if the aid is in the form of medicines and supplies, don’t be surprised if there is an effort to malign its quality.
This is with India. Otherwise, Pakistan is trying to strategically leverage the floods to seek benefits from the international community that have nothing to do with flood relief. They are asking for $54 billion international debt to be written off, and are also saying now that they won’t be able to carry out operations against the extremists in Waziristan as the troops are deployed in relief work.

Q. Punjab is about 60 per cent of Pakistan’s population. Such hostile feelings nurtured there — affecting even aid, as you suggest — can surely not be good for Pakistan’s own development trajectory, or its relations with India.
A. After the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the anti-India sentiment has been whipped up even more by the military, which is what counts in Pakistan, not the civilian government. The military shifted the focus from the terror strikes in Mumbai to what it claimed was a strong likelihood of an Indian air attack, the so-called Indian threat all over again.
Even on the river waters issue, Punjab being the upper riparian province is guilty of wasteful consumption, and this affects water availability in other provinces. Thus, officially the effort is made to divert attention from this and to blame India for withholding river waters. When foreign correspondents visited Kasab’s village to understand terrorism, the issue being sought to be played up by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa journals was river waters! Fortunately, the lower riparian provinces have not bought the argument.
This approach by the Pakistan military is all-comprehending, and affects all issues. That includes offer of aid from India.

Q. Now that the aid has been officially accepted and helps the people, will public perception toward India not move away from hostility?
A. The hostility is contrived. Hostility helps the Pakistan military perpetuate itself. So, emergency aid is not going to change established mindsets. Next time when a sewage pipe jams in India, Pakistan is capable of offering “aid” to fix it in an effort to show to its people it is as capable as India, and offers assistance.
Because there is technological and infrastructural backwardness in Pakistan, its rulers seek to project India also as being backward so that the local populace may not point a finger at them. This is why they don’t allow even business collaboration with India. If Indian products and technologies enter Pakistan, all the official propaganda will be seen as untrue. The mindset I spoke of affects all walks of life — business and aid.

Q. Are there in your view compelling internal political reasons that made the Pakistan authorities hesitant about Indian aid, such as being placed at a disadvantage in relation to those extremists who target the Pakistan military and the state?
A. The only reason I can think of, from the military’s perspective, is: why do anything that dilutes the hostility.

Q. Should India proactively engage in disaster diplomacy?
A. I absolutely believe that given our capabilities we should be willing to stretch out a hand of friendship and assistance whenever a national calamity befalls any neighbour. We earned substantial goodwill in Sri Lanka during the tsunami. The speed with which we reacted won us international acclaim.
But we should remember that there is a certain paranoia which prevails in Pakistan which we’ll have to learn to live with. While India’s offer of aid to Pakistan (which is always hostile to us) at a time of calamity leads the world to think that India acted in a mature and generous manner, we should be quite clear this would not lead to the Pakistan Army reining in Hafeez Mohammed Sayeed.

Q. Why do you think the international community has been so lethargic — even niggardly — in responding to calls for emergency aid to Pakistan, although the EU, US and some others have of late pledged decent amounts?
A. Internationally Pakistan is seen as a nation — and this is particularly the case in the Western world — that uses its self-inflicted difficulties to blackmail them on terrorism, economic frailties, or nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands.