No better tribute can be paid to the intrepid soldiers and civilians still buried under the recent avalanche, and thousands more who were killed or injured due to the cold over the years in Siachin, than the recent recognition by the army chief General Kayani, that peace is in the best interests of the people and the environment. Earlier, politicians and the public alike amidst their sorrow at the tragedy in the Giari  sector, were unanimous in their conviction that the clash of national egos and needless deaths and human suffering in that icy wasteland must end. The Indian Minister of State for Defence, Mr Pallam Raju soon welcomed this emerging consensus in Pakistan, and seemed amenable to the logic of Pakistan’s view. So let peace talks begin between Pakistan and India to demilitarize the Siachin glacier and thereby save lives, economic resources and the ecology of that watershed region which is vital to the life support system of both countries.

 The proposition propounded by General Kayani, perhaps the first time by a serving Chief of Army Staff, was a more general one, that Pakistan and India should seek peace in order to pursue the economic well being of the people. It represents a step towards a welcome change in the national security paradigm. National security in terms of the capacity to defend the country against external aggression becomes meaningful only when individuals within that country have a stake in citizenship: this means an entitlement to democratic freedoms, education, health, food security, livelihood, justice, and protection from violence against an individual’s person. It is these rights flowing out of the fact of citizenship that enable human functioning. It is through the provision of these rights that a state acquires legitimacy and the citizens the will to defend it. The real strength of a country therefore lies in the well being of its citizens. The military which specializes in defense, can win respect from society and indeed internal motivation when it restricts itself to its constitutional role under elected civil authority of defending the national territorial space. This space can acquire substance only within the institutional structures that guarantee the freedom and well being of the citizens.

The essential fact about  the India-Pakistan problematique is that they have common problems of hunger, disease, illiteracy, communal bigotry and internal violence to a varying extent. Yet in maintaining a conflictual posture and spending disproportionate amounts on building military apparatuses of mutual destruction, they are constraining their respective capacities to provide the very economic well being to their peoples, which is the real basis of national strength.

The work of Dr Mahbub ul Haq suggests that there is a substantial human opportunity cost of military expenditure in South Asia. For example half the military expenditure of one year in the region could provide primary school education to 119 million children for a year, safe drinking water to 200 million people and medicines to 117 million people.

45 percent of children who embody the future of our countries are suffering from malnutrition, millions die of water borne diseases, even more are deprived of primary education. My work for the ILO on children in hazardous work shows that out of those children who are too poor to go to school, millions are engaged in labour: many are maimed, blinded, and struck with lung diseases and brain deformities related with poisonous emissions and physical hazards at work places. We are witnessing a mutilation of the innocents in Pakistan as well as India.

It is time to build a better future for the people of India and Pakistan, together through peace, economic well being and protecting the life support systems of our shared ecology. Pakistan is taking the first hesitant steps in this direction by opening up trade and talking peace. Demilitarizing  Siachin could be the next substantial step. Will India have the courage and vision to grasp the moment and take the peace process forward?