Ayaz Ahmed :
It would not be wrong to say that India and Pakistan have lost a number of economic, political and security-related opportunities since 1947. The reasons behind losing such ample opportunities are largely attributive to the threatening outbursts of some hard-line Indian politicians and hawkish military officials and their mudslinging and saber-rattling against Pakistan whenever any terrorist and militant attack takes place there. Once again, without any credible evident at hand, the war-mongering Indian politicians and its highly-commercialized media have begun blaming Pakistan’s security agencies for facilitating and abetting the attacks on Pathankot air force base. How absurd is this for the world’s largest democracy to implicate Pakistan whenever it (India) miserably fails to maintain domestic foolproof security. Arguably, it spotlights that India is completely unwilling to foster and successfully conclude the course of amicable relations with Pakistan.
The Pathankot attacks can be safely attributed to the Indian neo-colonial and imperialistic designs in Kashmir and its failure to maintain domestic security. India should know that it can not continue occupying Kashmir by employing brutal and repressive force against the will of the Kashmiris and in contravention of international law and the resolutions of the UN Security Council. The country has deployed over 700,000 lethally armed troops in the valley who have not only killed thousands of Kashmiris, but also committed unspeakable human rights violations. Attacks such as occurred in Pathankot are just a backlash of what the Indian soldiers are committing in Kashmir.
Presumably, it is an oft-used incentive of political point scoring in India to accuse Pakistan of and blatantly malign its security agencies for all terrorist and militant attacks that happen in India. As seen, a large number of hawkish Indian political leaders levelled baseless accusation on Pakistan so as to whip up public sentiments against the neighbouring country. Such practices not only help them hide their failure in maintaining internal security, distract public attention from corruption and nepotism, but also refresh their chauvinistic credentials calculated to get re-elected time and again.
Whenever militant attacks occur in Indian, they pave way for the Indian security agencies to label the Kashmiri freedom fighters as terrorist and militants as Israel does to the Palestinians. Afterwards, under the garb of more security measures, the Indian troops resort to more repression and inhumane brutality against the stone-throwing Kashmiri youth. Such Indian military actions in Kashmir are a clear epitome of imperialism and colonialism existed in the 19th and in the early 20th centuries.
The Pathankot attacks would presumably leave obstructive impacts on the recently-revived bilateral dialogue between Pakistan and India. The friendly atmosphere created by the National Security Advisers’ meeting in Bangkok, Nawaz-Modi parleys on the sidelines of Paris climate conference, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit to Islamabad and Modi’s flying visit to Jati Umra – would soon evaporate given the hostile Indian politicians’ behaviour. Probably, India would again start dragging its feet on the one point agenda, terrorism, for bilateral talks. If India again shows intransigence on only discussing disruptive terrorism, it should be cognizant of this fact that it is not the Indians but Pakistanis who have thus far sacrificed gallantly more than 50,000 lives and over $ 100 billion on the war on terrorism. Moreover, it is not India but Pakistan that has employed its resources in the vigorous anti-terrorism operation, Zarb-e-Azb.
Furthermore, it is an open secret that the Indian security agencies have been clandestinely involved in fuelling the low-intensity conflict of Balochistan by providing arms and financing to the plethora of insurgent groups. Apart from this, during the course of operation Zarb-e Azb soldiers recovered large caches of sophisticated Indian-made arms and ammunitions in the terrorism-hit tribal areas. Pakistan should take up the matter of supporting terrorism with India so that the latter shun fomenting militancy, terrorism and insurgency in the region.
Indubitably, both Pakistan and India desperately need each other to reap rich economic and security-related dividends in the region. Even today, millions of people are living in abject poverty on both sides. For that, it is of paramount importance that both should bury the hatchet by keeping the disruptive past on the backburner for the time being. Equally important, both the countries should divert their adequate resources aimed at spending on the education and training of the youth rather than wasting them on arms. However, plausible spending on national defence should not be brushed aside.
The Indian side should take some extra and bold measures for amicable ties with Pakistan so that both can cooperate and coordinate in the much-needed Afghan rehabilitation and reconstruction. The Indian diplomatic missions on Afghan soil should be stopped from pushing instigated instability towards Pakistan. Arguably, spectre of Cold War between both the de facto nuclear powers in Afghanistan would further exacerbate the fragile Afghan security, thus leaving debilitating impacts on South Asia.
Both the countries need all out cooperation to make the TAPI gas pipeline a success by maintaining security in Afghanistan. Leaders of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India inaugurated the construction on the long-stalled natural gas pipeline with ground-breaking ceremonies held on December 13, 2015. The TAPI pipeline is slated to transport 33 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas from Turkmenistan’s massive Galkynysh field to energy-deficit Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The pipeline will provide Afghanistan with 14 million standard cubic meters a day (mmscmd) of natural gas, while India and Pakistan will each receive 38 mmscmd.
All security experts agree that the contentious bilateral issues of Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek are major apples of discord between Pakistan and India. As seen, Pakistan has always displayed its readiness and wiliness to negotiate and resolve these issues once for all. Now, the Indian government should show political sagacity by coming forward with an intention to sort out these lingering hindrances. Without solving these three stumbling blocks, no peace can be effective and long lasting for South Asia.
For durable tranquillity in South Asia, the ball seems to be rolling in the Indian court. It is imperative that the BJP government should come out of the tentacles of ultra right-wing organizations and demonstrate prudence and rationality in its approach towards Pakistan.