To solve its dispute with Pakistan, New Delhi should offer to buy ‘Azad Kashmir’ from Islamabad. For over 60 years Kashmir has been the major bone of contention between India and Pakistan. No talks of peace can take place without settling what has come to be called the ‘Kashmir problem’.

To solve this long-standing problem, could India offer to buy Pak-occupied Kashmir from Pakistan? The idea might not be as outlandish as it sounds. Land Matrix, a global agency which monitors the acquisition of land across the world, has listed India as being among the top 10 countries – which include China, the US, the United Arab Emirates and the UK – to have bought or leased land from foreign countries in Asia and Africa, primarily for agricultural purposes.

Since 2008, there have been over 840 deals where countries have purchased, or leased on a long-term basis, land in other countries. In 39 deals, Indian companies have reportedly acquired almost 13 lakh hectare acres – more than nine times the size of Delhi – in African and Asian countries, mainly to grow foodgrains, oil seeds and sugarcane.

Why is the Indian state investing in real estate abroad? Because, as in the case of China, rapid urbanisation and industrialisation is eating up agricultural land in India, jeopardising the country’s food security. A professor of agro-economics at IIM, Ahmedabad, has been quoted as saying that in the past 20 years, India’s net sowing land has been reduced from 42 million hectares to 40 million hectares, owing to urban and industrial expansion.

Running out of farmable land of their own, countries like China and India have been buying or renting land in other countries, a trend which has several historical precedents. What is now called Manhattan was purchased in 1626 by Dutch colonists from the Lenape tribe of Native Americans for the equivalent of $24 (which at today’s prices would be worth about $1,000).

In 1803, the US bought the 2,140,000-square km territory of Louisiana from the French for a total sum of $15 million, which worked out to less than three cents an acre. At today’s prices, the deal would still be a steal, at $234 million, or less than 42 cents an acre.

In 1867, the United States – which should more aptly be called the United Real Estates – bought all of Alaska’s 1,518,800 sq km from Russia for $7.2 million, which worked out to two cents an acre. Closer to home, what was then called Bombay exchanged hands from the ruling Portuguese to the British as part of the dowry Charles II of England got when he married Catherine of Braganza. Charles rented Bombay to the East India Company for 10 pounds of gold a year.

Citing these and other examples, New Delhi could do worse than offer to buy Pak-occupied Kashmir from Islamabad. All that land currently occupied by terrorist training camps could be put to profitable use by converting it into farms and orchards to feed India’s growing and hungry population.

How would India pay for the purchase of Pak-occupied Kashmir? It would pay with the 1,000 tonnes of gold buried in Unnao, UP, that sadhu Shobhan Sarkar has dreamt up.

Buying Kashmir a fantasy? Fine. But so is the gold.