T the highest quarters in both Pakistan and India, it is recognised that despite the weight of history, unless there is peace, development and prosperity in the region will be hard to achieve. This is the lofty rhetoric. But reality in the down-to-earth details, where it affects ordinary citizens, has different implications.

These relate to pettiness. Nowhere is this more evident than in the visa and travel regimes on both sides. Earlier, India was in the news, when it denied permission to some Pakistan High Commission officials to visit Kolkata to attend the World T-20 Pakistan-India match. Given that these officials were already in India, it would have been reasonable to expect the courtesy to be extended; but it was not to be. Pakistani officialdom is not much better. As reported yesterday, an Indian theatre group that was to arrive in Karachi for participation in the International Theatre and Music Festival at the National Academy of the Performing Arts, which receives funding from the federal government, is encountering last-minute delays in receiving visas. Their performance, scheduled for tonight, has been cancelled pending resolution of the issue.

These are only the most recent of the countless examples where Pakistan and India score points against each other through their travel regimes. What chances are there for the normalisation of ties when even people such as sports fans, theatre persons, musicians, etc, cannot be tolerated? For the government to outright deny visas would be unfortunate enough. But much like the fishermen from each other`s territory that Pakistan and India routinely arrest and hold hostage to politics, travel to and within both countries has become a game of stringing applicants along, with meaningless bureaucratic hurdles put down wherever possible. Further, if persons highly visible in the public domain, such as diplomats and cultural representatives, are treated in this manner, the run-around given to the ordinary can only be imagined. It is time for rationalisation.

Pakistan and India cannot continue to pay lip-service to the normalisation of ties while indulging in such pettiness.