SYED TAJAMUL ‘IMRAN’
‘Sustained peace in South Asia can only be achieved if the friction between India and Pakistan is removed.’ There is inherent mistrust which does not allow our political governments to remove the irritants. To top it all the bitterness of the past restricts both nations to move forward with a feeling of mutual respect. One substantial threat to peace in our region is Jingoism in every institution especially polity and media who rake up Nationalism and other sensitive issues to flare up the hate environment. Almost all media is susceptible to jingoism in face of the possibility of war and for earning cheap TRPS. Yet we can ill afford unrestrained media and other instructional jingoism at this stage when the future of South Asia is passing through a sensitive era.
The current government including previous Indian governments has been continuously blaming Pakistan’s Armed Forces and other agencies for sponsoring various acts of terrorism. Either these accusations are politically motivated or based on any substantial proof needs to be ascertained.
The Indian accusations leveled on India that it is involved in destabilizing Pakistan through alleged sponsorship of violence also needs to be evaluated. But we all need to understand that future of South Asia relies on prosperous India and Pakistan and both nations need to avoid jingoistic scenario.
Current political government of India has taken full advantage of Anti Pakistan slogans by further accentuating the feeling of hatred in Indian nation to gain political mileage. Before the recent elections BJP government has been reportedly sponsoring violence on its own soil like attacks on police station and military camp in Samba town of Jammu and Kashmir. While as on the other side Pakistani Media argue that Major General Sanaullah Khan in Swat was allegedly killed by Technical Services Division (TSD), which was set up to conduct covert operations in Pakistan with connivance of Afghan authorities. This fact was openly admitted by a former TSD operative in the Indian Express. “Various acts of terrorism have been sponsored by Indian government agencies Inside Pakistan while bribery and violence remains prevalent in Kashmir.” The same has been brazenly accepted by former Indian Army Chief and various reports have surfaced in Indian media while it continues to portray Pakistan as a terrorist state. India’s hegemonic designs to ascertain its dominance in the region are driven by Chanakian philosophy of trickery and deceit.
India has never accepted the creation of Pakistan and always endeavored it to collapse. The rhetoric generated against Pakistan by BJP in harmony with RSS (a Hindu extremist party) aims at gaining sympathy vote by Hindu junta. The violation of cease fire on LOC also aims to gain same objectives. Some sources believe that it also aims to destabilize military operation in North West to further aggravate the internal security situation of Pakistan. Recently, ISAF commander in Afghanistan endorsed the fact that Indian –Afghanistan nexus are harboring safe havens for terrorists across the Durand Line for assisting them to carryout acts of terrorism on Pakistani soil in order to destabilize any peaceful resolution of conflict between the extremist groups and Army.
According to one hypothesis, as a national policy, Indian government desires that Pakistani forces remain committed on its western front. If a peaceful resolution is reached between Army and various terrorist groups a situation may arise that these extremist elements start supporting Kashmir freedom struggle. Indian Media towing the official line has also been propagating a serious rift between Pakistani government and Army. If that is the case then why Army has been openly supporting governmental domestic and foreign policies and refrained from meddling in political affairs while receiving reciprocal support from the government.
If Pakistan is running proxy wars than why thousands of its military men have been martyred in the concurrent military operation. Pakistan at one stage was guilty along with the USA to nurture extremist outfits but now realities are changing as they are seriously tackling this menace which needs to be understood.
We need to understand there is one disturbing trend: the middle class, whose voice gets stronger by the day, is either ignorant on issues of foreign policy or excessively hawkish in its views. This is especially true of the public’s view of India’s and Pakistan’s middle class and all this can ruin us.
It is a fact that India is a regional power and it can also not be denied that Pakistan with strong defense forces and nuclear capability can face any formidable threat to its sovereignty. Sanity should prevail so that both countries may come to an agreement to resolve all issues peacefully for the benefit of coming generations and play their role in enhancing stability and progress of the region. In South Asia’ lies the need to create more empathy for each other’s country, especially between India and Pakistan.
India and Pakistan need to agree and understand that Imperialism needs to be fought jointly and fought vigorously, but standing on the shoulders of homicidal religious, political or social fanatics is neither an acceptable nor an effective strategy to do so for both nations.
(The author has its own views and is Student of MBA ,hails from Nazneenpora, village of south Kashmir’s Shopian district. He can be reached at syedtajamul09@gmail.com )