Lahore, capital of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province and the beating heart of the country, has been enveloped in deadly smog for several days. On November 2, its AQI reached 1,067. As a result, the next day the government closed primary schools for a week, advised families to keep the elderly and young children indoors, stopped work on brick kilns and advised transporters to stop using emission-emitting vehicles. polluting smoke. However, construction activities have not yet been suspended. Smog also covered areas in the center of the province.

Pakistan’s Environment Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said on Sunday that easterly winds from Amritsar and Chandigarh, which are expected to persist for about a week, had pushed the AQI to over 1,000. She told the media that his ministry would write to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry. suggest that joint negotiations be held with India to resolve the smog problem. Moreover, the media admits that the problem is caused by the burning of crops in Punjab, diesel fume emissions from vehicles and the operation of brick kilns.

Earlier, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on October 10 called for “smog diplomacy” between the Indian state of Punjab and Pakistan’s Punjab province to tackle a problem common to both . While addressing a meeting organized to greet the country’s Hindu minority on October 30, i.e. the eve of Diwali, Maryam Nawaz raised the issue of smog and told the gathering that she proposed writing to the Chief Minister of Indian Punjab, Bhagwant Mann. , on the issue because “until the two Punjabs come together, (they) will not be able to tackle the smog problem”. She also said it was “not just a political issue; It’s a humanitarian issue.” She also said about 30 percent of the smog came from India, but added that the winds did not know there was a border between the two.

The fact is that the smog problem concerns both India and Pakistan. Both countries are taking measures to control this problem, which poses a great danger to human health. Reports indicate that crop fires in the northern states of India are fewer this year than in the past, but the AQI levels in the northern states and the National Capital Region are very high and , despite the efforts of the central and state governments, the problem has been resolved. air pollution is not controlled. Pakistani media reports that authorities are taking criminal action against those who burn garbage, but it is clear that these measures have not alleviated the problem.

It is also undeniable that smog from one country enters the other depending on the wind direction at that time of year. The question is whether the two countries can really take joint action; what can be ruled out from the outset is that this matter could be handled jointly by the two Punjabs. Maryam Nawaz may be well-meaning and may have an affinity for the ancestral village of Amritsar where her grandfather hailed from, but this issue will necessarily have to involve the two national governments recognized by Marriyum Aurangzeb.

The question is whether, in the current state of India-Pakistan relations and Pakistan’s continuing hostility towards India, it is possible to even begin talks that will involve meetings of environmental experts from both countries to understand their individual problems with increased air pollution at this time of year. Maryam Nawaz is right that this is a humanitarian issue, but it can be argued that all issues that impact the safety and security of people can ultimately be termed as humanitarian issues. It is therefore appropriate to examine the question: what is the scope of humanitarian issues?

In 1998, India and Pakistan agreed on a dialogue format – called the Composite Dialogue – which involved three distinct categories of issues, although they were not officially designated as such. The first category concerned humanitarian issues. These included involuntary border crossings, fishermen straying into the territorial waters of the other state, prisoner exchanges and visits of people in one country to places of pilgrimage in the other. The second category included areas of possible cooperation such as trade, and the third concerned issues where there were differences, such as terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir and Sir Creek. A discussion of smog would necessarily fall into the second category. This is not a question of semantics but of the nature of the structure of the Indo-Pakistani dialogue.

The dialogue process has not taken place for over 12 years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attempted to initiate dialogue in 2015. In December that year, ahead of his visit to Lahore on Christmas Day that month, the two countries agreed to begin a bilateral dialogue process global essentially based on the categories of the composite agreement. Dialogue. The Pakistani military sabotaged this effort during the Pathankot attack in January 2016, and relations reached a crisis point after the Pulwama terror attack in February 2019.

However, what froze relations was Pakistan’s reaction to the constitutional changes in J&K in August 2019. Pakistan severed all cooperation mechanisms, including trade, and the high commissioners were also recalled by both countries. Foreign Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Pakistan last month for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) heads of government meeting went smoothly, but there is no sign that bilateral relations will return to normal. normal in the near future.

In fact, the likelihood of further problems is high because after the formation of the Omar Abdullah-led government in the UT of J&K, terrorism increased in the territory. This is partly because the Pakistani military does not want to give the impression that J&K is returning to normal to gain strength in the international community. Under these circumstances, the chances of a return to normalcy between India and Pakistan are difficult to imagine. The only positive point is that the February 2021 ceasefire continues to hold.

There is no doubt that India and Pakistan belong to the same territory and will therefore have to bear the brunt of climate change. This situation will be exacerbated by anthropogenic activity and population growth in both countries. In fact, the population growth rate is alarming in Pakistan. With its economy in ruins, there will be a continued influx of young people to be indoctrinated into extreme versions of the Islamic faith and anti-Indian sentiments. This does not bode well for cooperative efforts of the type that Maryam Nawaz envisions.

One last point. It is worth noting that Pakistan is trying its best to present itself as a moderate Islamic country where minorities are safe. The presence of Maryam Nawaz at the ceremony preceding Diwali illustrates this effort. It is particularly striking that the banner behind her, as she spoke, was in Urdu and, roughly translated into English, read: “Minorities are our crown.”

Nothing could be further from the truth in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

The writer is a former Indian diplomat who served as India’s ambassador to Afghanistan and Myanmar, as well as secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The opinions expressed in the article above are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Firstpost.