By Syed Qamar.
Given recent developments, it clearly seems that both India and Pakistan are experiencing the low ebbs in their relations. Undeniably,the scope of future relations between the two South Asian states largely depends on the peace building measures that the two neighbourly states adopt; yet the Indian constant ‘policy irritants’ serve to be the driving cause of undermining the prospects of foreseeable peace in a nuclear South Asia.
Since Mr Modi has taken the charge as the new Indian premier, some policy statements/remarks have badly affected the fate of relations between New Delhi and Islamabad. These Indian negative policy gestures are: the Indian unfair, unjustifiable and egocentric stance on Kashmir; the Indian policy of orchestrating terrorism in Pakistan; the Indian reservations regarding the Pak-China economic corridor; and last but not least the Indian criticism about Pak –US arms deal.
To start with the Indian policy on Kashmir: it is an acknowledged ‘international truth’ that Kashmir is a ‘defacto disputed territory’ between India and Pakistan, solution of which, yet requires to be sought in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. Yet the Indian policy for the last 67 years, has been of constantly denying this truth. India, which claims to be the second largest democracy in the world, has made gross human rights violations in Kashmir. Therefore this New Delhi policy in the Indian-held Kashmir has been the root-cause of the souring relations between India and Pakistan.
Gen Raheel Sharif while addressing the course participants at the National Defense University in Islamabad commented: ”Kashmir is an unfinished agenda of partition and Pakistan and Kashmir are inseparable”. ”While we wish peace and stability in the region, we want a just resolution for Kashmir in the light of the UN resolutions and as per aspirations of the Kashmiris to bring lasting peace in region,” the Pak army chief added.
Truly, the United Nations resolutions are yet valid on Kashmir. But to give a wrong colour to the meaning of the UN adopted resolutions on Kashmir, the Indian government has created a new propaganda that the lands of ‘Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan’ in Pakistan are the part of the Indian held Kashmir(IHK). So they(Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan) are also the part of the Indian territory-a glaring example of the Indian ‘mockery of international law’. By all fair reasons, this ‘hedonist mindset’ of the Indian establishment needs to be changed.
The current Indian venture—that in case of any future terrorist move in India, it would rebound to Pakistan thereby making a terrorist attack on the Pakistani soil —by all means indicates an unreasonable Indian attitude as a democratic state. Pakistan has already lodged its prompt protest regarding RAW’s devious part in supporting the non-state actors’ role in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s security and intelligence agencies have had gathered ample ‘evidence’ that India has been plotting the ‘proxy war’ in the provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa thereby also operating its ‘terrorist networks’ in Sindh and Punjab. And furthermore, the recently expressed Indian official stance– of recaliberating its ‘Cold Start Doctrine’ against Pakistan– seems an alarming strategic response since the adoption of such an Indian move shall pave the way for the inception of an ‘unconventional war or asymmetric warfare’ between India and Pakistan.
As for the Indian reaction regarding the Pak-China economic corridor, Narendra Modi’s remark— that it would be ‘unacceptable’—shows enough light on the ‘negative will and volition’ that the Indian premier reserves for it. Given norms of the liberal diplomacy, this Indian statement foils the very hopes that India may play any positive role in the development of economic activity of the region- an evitable imperative for healing the economic sufferings of people of this region.
As regard to the US-Pak arms deal, there appears no logical justification regarding Indian criticism against it. There are manifold precedents that the Indian governments have been making such arms deals with Israel, Russia, USA and France but Pakistan has never been crying over such developments since it honours the very ‘diplomatic decorum’ that the countries have the rights to sign such agreements.
To conclude the argument, one would like to raise the point that the growing climate of peace impediments between Islamabad and New Delhi is by no means ‘a good omen’ to the future of the South Asian region. Both India and Pakistan badly need to revamp the ongoing atmosphere of ‘mistrust and suspicion’ in their relations by giving the space to the peace diplomacy.
Islamabad’s desire to pace the scope of the relations on the ‘standard of equality’ is but a ‘justifiable demand’. Peace in the region– without peace in Kashmir– is impossible. The earlier the Indian realization of the fact that India’s ‘sustainable durable future in the region and its quest of attaining a fair global image’ is concomitantly related to its ‘peaceful co-existence with Pakistan, the better.
