EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

The best CBM yet

India and Pakistan have taken their re-engagement another commendable step forward with the meeting between the two Foreign Secretaries. Considering the difficulties in relations since the Mumbai 2008 attacks, each official interaction must be seen as an important incremental step in the rebuilding of bilateral relations, to which there is no alternative. As Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao rightly said, it is time that “a vocabulary of peace,” rather than an ideology of military conflict, determined the way the two countries view each other. These talks capped a series of meetings between officials held since March, following the pattern of the Composite Dialogue process but without calling it that. That these discussions were able to pick up threads abandoned after the Mumbai attacks, including those on relaxing the visa regime and concessions to improve bilateral trade, is encouraging. The Foreign Secretaries discussed the possibilities of more Kashmir-specific confidence-building measures, or CBMs, and the scope for improving those in existence now. Also taken up were CBMs to mitigate the nuclear shadow over the subcontinent and the excessive military build-up on both sides, as was the issue of terrorism. That both sides had to agree through a joint statement to the “cessation of hostile propaganda” is telling about how far this had gone and should be cause for introspection in the news media, which often provides a platform for such propaganda. But what was uplifting was the acknowledgment that “the people of the two countries are at the heart of the relationship.”

Last week, one Pakistani demonstrated that nothing is truer when it comes to India-Pakistan relations. Ansar Burney's act of mobilising funds to free not just the Pakistani sailors held by pirates on the m.v. Suez, but also the Indian ones, has provided exemplary substance to that phrase ‘people-to people contact.' The subsequent mid-sea scuffle between the Indian and Pakistani navies as the rescued ship was being escorted to Karachi only reiterated the truth that the peoples are more capable of civilised engagement than the two states. The human rights activist's decision to help the Indian hostages is all the more heart-warming, considering the hostility he faced from the Pakistani media the last time he assisted an Indian in March 2008, when his efforts led to the release of the death-row prisoner Kashmir Singh from a Pakistani jail after a 30-year-long incarceration. Worse was the shabby treatment meted out to him by India, which deported him from the New Delhi airport in June 2008 on the unexplained ground of “inadequate documentation.” Evidently, Mr. Burney carried no grudge about this. He has shown by deed that humanism is the best CBM.

Impact will be harsh and wide

It is easy to guess why the central government waited so long before increasing the retail price of diesel, LPG, and kerosene. These petroleum products are far more politically sensitive than petrol, the price of which was allowed to rise last month. When New Delhi finally squared up with the substantial and sustained rise in global oil prices, the revision in prices announced on Friday was sharp and painful to consumers: diesel up by Rs.3 a litre, kerosene by Rs.2, and cooking gas by Rs.50 a cylinder. The repercussions will be harsh and wide: an increase in the price of diesel, the economy's main transportation fuel, will push up the cost of food items, including fruits and vegetables, eggs, and many other perishables that are moved largely by truck. A hike in transportation costs usually has a cascading effect on food prices. In the context of high inflation, especially food inflation, this is extremely bad news for consumers. The calculation may be that LPG is the fuel of choice of the middle classes rather than of poorer sections but it is clear the Rs.50 price increase is deeply resented. As for the increase in the price of kerosene — the poor woman's fuel — there have been reports that a significant proportion of the fuel obtained from the public distribution system is being diverted for adulterating diesel and other more expensive fuels. But how does this make the price hike any less burdensome for the poor families that rely on kerosene for their daily cooking?

Faced with increases in global oil prices three years ago, the United Progressive Alliance government claimed it strove for equity, apportioning the burden among the stakeholders: the consumer, the government, which levies and collects taxes, and the public sector oil companies. This time too it claims to have softened the blow on consumers by scrapping or reducing customs and excise duties on petroleum and its derivatives, in the process forgoing some Rs.49,000 crore of tax revenue. The oil marketing companies say their “under recoveries” will come down by Rs.21,000 crore. Restructuring petroleum product prices may be an acceptable longer-term objective but any sharp increase in the retail prices will be hugely unpopular in a country where the basic needs of hundreds of millions of people are nowhere close to being met, notwithstanding the high economic growth rate. The government ought to take a major share of the blame for failing to meet this challenge from the standpoint of the people and with a longer-term policy perspective.