Sunday, January 11, 2009

The unending drama by Pakistan

If anybody is carefully watching the drama enacted by Pakistan, one would say that Pakistan has emerged as the best actor on the world stage. This drama by Pakistan -that of denial of everything that happened in Mumbai is far worse than Ekta Kapoor serial plots. At least in Ekta's serials, one can easily predict what the drama is and where the story is going to go. In case of Pakistan, it's the same story and has become predictable over the years, but there is no twist which is the highpoint of Ekta's serials.

Just observe the events. One day Pakistan says that people who committed the Mumbai carnage were "non-state" actors. Then they admit that Kasab is a "Pakistani". Then the PM of Pakistan denies this charge, but the National Security Advisor is sacked for his comments on Kasab. Pakistan says it can't hand over the terrorists as they don't have any extradition treaty with India. The next day they say they don't have any terrorists but it is itself being targetted by some external people. This claim is the most illogical, non sensical one I have ever heard. One day they say they have received evidence from India. The other day officials deny they ever received one. Our country is seen very lightly by them. This is the same country whose PM once called the Indian delegation as "Hindu dogs". It is the same Bhutto who once said, "Pakistan will wage a 1000 year war with India to get Kashmir". So, despite this we should forgive and forget everything.

Now, I ask myself, this country, every reader of this article -" How long can we keep forgetting and forgiving Pakistan?". They infiltrated our country, attacked us thrice, launched guerilla warfares, caused bloodshed in Kashmir and many more. My problem is not with the people of Pakistan, but the army, ISI and the government which always has been anti-Indian. Pakistan never learns any lesson. It is the same Pakistan which traded with China and gave away some portion of our Kashmir to China. Yet, we forgave Pakistan and yet many Indians want to forgive Pakistan.

So, if Pakistan is weak, have Indian leaders been tough? All the greatest PM's starting from Nehru to Indira Gandhi and from Vajpayee to Manmohan Singh have been committing strategic blunders with respect to Pakistan. India occupied the territory which Pakistan invaded, but Nehru went on to call the UN. He followed the policy of autonomy to Kashmir. The country still needs an answer - "Why should KAshmir be treated differently from the other 27 states? Is it just because it has Muslim majority?" If India is indeed secular, why apply such a logic?

It was in 1965 when Lal Bahadur Shastri asked troops to occupy PoK and we occupied quite a lot of area such as Haji Pir and Tithwal areas. But on the negotiation table ,Shastri was forced to give up that land at Tashkent. In 1971 Indira Gandhi asked troops to occupy PoK again and over 5000 sqkm area was captured. Everyone thought Indira can never compromise. She did compromise and gave up the claim over that area. Then Mr. Vajpayee. He too failed this country by not asking the army to cross LoC. There is unanimous agreement across all political parties that PoK is an illegal area occupied by Pakistan and it has to be given to India. Why not take that step which is right for us?

I ask the Indian media, people and politicians - why do you have to call 26/11 as India' s 9/11. Are the Mumbai train bombings of 2006, Mumbai blasts of 1993 not as tragic as 9/11? How can we as people be so forgiving in nature? It is too much to forgive people who are not fit to be forgiven. Is Indian life so cheap that someone can come and take it and we still want peace? We still should pursue the weak policy of peace. Forget these incidents, can you forget 1947, 1965, 1971, 1989, the burning of charare-mosque of Kashmir, brutal killings of Sikhs in 1999-2000. Should we keep forgetting all these and always think of peace?

The Indian government of today led by Manmohan Singh has put India to shame by sharing and handing over evidence to Pakistan. Pakistan will see the evidence, pick out the clues and have them recorded/stored so that they don't repeat these mistakes the next time they attack us. It indirectly means that handing over of the evidence is going to make them even better planners the next time so that they don't leave any clues.

Read this interesting article by a former diplomat, G. Parthasarthy (who was also Indian Ambassador to Pakistan who saw Dawook Ibrahim in Pakistan).

So, what are India's next options? According to me, India must cut off water supply to them, violate all water treaties, stop all trade, stop exporting anything to Pakistan, strip Pakistan of its "Most favoured nation" status, build up pressure on US to ask Pakistan to hand over terrorists )Pak has a treaty with US) to them so that India can get them via the extradition treaty India has with US (Will US do this? No way), revoke cultural and sports ties, stop the existing confidence building measures.

Will Pakistan ever learn from all these steps? No.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Editor

Mano said...

I agree with your points. Well all the governements that ruled India, right after independance has failed to take tough stand against Pakistan and reclaim our land, even though we got many chances. We devoted our time free Bangladesh, We should also had done same thing with Kashmir.

I agree with you that media should not call 24/11 as 9/11 of India. Our media is always under western media. We should have our own ideas and thoughts