It is to be seen in the latest trade figures released by the Federal Commerce Ministry why India is keen to the point of anxiety to increase its trade with Pakistan. It transpires that Pakistan had, in this financial year, up to March 31, run up a deficit of $950 million, and was heading to a deficit of $1.25 billion for the entire year. In 2009-10, in the comparable period, the deficit stood at $412.9 million, a high-enough figure which has been totally eclipsed by this years deficit. India is happy to have a neighbour with which it runs up a trade surplus, but Pakistan must look carefully at the extent to which its hard-earned foreign exchange is merely transferred to India, boosts its trade balance to the point where it begins to indulge its delusions of grandeur, and begins to believe the 'Shining India rhetoric it finds difficult to believe itself, amid the grinding poverty of its masses. Though Pakistan is open to any trading partner, the trade with India does raise certain concerns. The basic issue is whether Pakistan should engage in any trade with India, especially in agricultural produce, when India is using its illegal occupation of Kashmir to prevent the flow of water to Pakistan, causing it irreparable harm. In fact, when this is considered, the illegal Indian occupation of Kashmir is highlighted, an occupation it is continuing both in violation of the solemn commitments it made to the international community in the shape of the UNSC Resolutions on the subject, and of the inalienable right of the Kashmiri people for self-determination. It should also be a cause of concern for Pakistan that its trade with the only country with which it has been at war is of such a large size. This trade would, through the importers and exporters involved, create a lobby within Pakistan for peace with India at any cost. It also lends support to the arguments of those in the USA promoting the treatment of the entire region as one market, and reopens the old argument, made insidiously by the Hindu trader class and its political arm, Congress, that partition meant the division of a single economic unit. The government should not pursue the attempts of foreign interlocutors to forward this agenda, and should not just stop the trend of increasing trade with India, but actually reverse it. It can start by a shrinking of the list of goods which can be traded with India, a list which grows each year, to Pakistans detriment, even if individual traders benefit.