'Green Revolution thawed India-Pak ties' in late 1970s

ejazr

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'Green Revolution thawed India-Pak ties' - The Times of India

CHANDIGARH: While fight against hunger in South Asia is a big challenge today, threatening geopolitical stability of the region, cooperation amongst the neighbouring countries to fight poverty has time and again helped in keeping the nations engaged in the peace process.

India laid the foundation on this principle by exporting wheat seeds to Pakistan in 1978 to usher in improvement in relations just after India and Pakistan fought over Bangladesh. This was revealed here on Friday by the then Union agriculture minister Sujit Singh Barnala, now Tamil Nadu governor.

"Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug approached me saying Pakistan had an acute shortage of wheat seed and India, that saw a bumper crop then, could meet the shortage. I immediately said yes but wanted a go ahead from the then prime minister Morarji Desai," Barnala told The Times of India in an exclusive interview.

"Borlaug, an old acquaintance, immediately talked to Desai, who rang me up in the evening asking if India had sufficient stocks of wheat seed and I said we had plenty," the octogenarian leader said. Within couple of days Pakistan's food minister contacted Barnala and said that 1,000 metric tonne of seed were required. But India doubled the quantity on the condition it would be taken through Wagah border.

Pakistan agreed to the proposal and that is how the first fruit of the Green Revolution reached Pakistan to germinate seeds of trust for cooperation and better relationship. This step of India coincided with the then external affairs minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visiting Pakistan, first after 1971 war, to initiate friendship again.
 

pankaj nema

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Green revolution per se was not the only factor of the peaceful 70s

And sharing of seeds is no big deal

Even today there is a lot of trade between India Pakistan

Basically " all was quite" on the western Front for two reasons

After 1971 pakistan was convinced that it could not defeat India conventionally

Secondly POKHRAN 1 of 1974 had led to " Brown Pants" in Pakistan

Pakistan was busy in its internal turmoil There were too many internal problems in Pakistan

Mr zulfikar Ali Bhutto was engaged in a game of one upmanship with the army

But the PAK army was busy in crafting a new strategy called terrorism OR Death by a Thousand cuts to defeat India

Everything changed in 1979 It was the year in which Pakistan embraced JIHAD completely

The USSR invasion of Afghanistan and US desire to take Pakistan's help in driving out Soviets led to the massive military aid to pakistan
 

Yusuf

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Talk about them being "Namak Haraam". Sorry It may look like trolling but I am forced to say this after reading the article. ;-))
 

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