Editor’s Note: This article is originally published at www.thediplomat.com written by Tridivesh Singh Maini and Tahir Javed Malik
Whenever we talk of the need for regional cooperation in South Asia, including closer ties between India and Pakistan, scholars and analysts tend to cite the examples of the EU, North America and ASEAN. What is overlooked is that in the years between 1947-1965, both economic and people-to-people links between the two countries were stronger than they are at present. More than the partition of 1947, it was the 1965 war that disrupted relations. Five decades later, it is worth examining some of the key features of the economic relationship as well as human ties.