In this Sunday’s Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper are two opeds. One by Cyril Almeida, who I regard as one of the finest English-language journalists in the world. It is entitled, “Stop it, please”. No, not that stop it. In it, Almeida states that under Nawaz, the possibility of peace breaking through with India was not exactly high.
So then why did the Pakistani army get rid of Nawaz? He goes on to imply that if peace did seem to break out, the Pakistani army could always resort to a coup.
I have dinner with Pakistani friends most every night. To a man they hate Nawaz. And they are all Punjabis. I ask them if Nawaz was nailed on corruption, what about the supposed king of corruption in Pakistan, Zardari, who is roaming free as a seagull? Then the real reason comes out. Nawaz tried to be friendly with Modi, whom many Pakistanis regard as a killer.
Another oped by Munir Akram, a former Pakistani ambassador to the UN, is entitled “Normalising ties with India”. Akram’s columnists are typically a rant against India, and this one is no different. The whole tone is how Pakistan is the peace-loving aggrieved party, and India the aggressor. Given the title, I was expecting a more balanced article, but Akram’s intention seems to be to rile up Pakistanis, and Indians.
He says that Pakistan has always been open to a dialogue with India, but under Modi, India made normalisation conditional on Pakistan disavowing its claim for Kashmir, as well as accepting culpability for 26/11. What rot and nonsense! Narendra Modi didn’t travel to Lahore and embraced Nawaz with any preconditions in mind. That Nawaz allowed Modi in is what has irked the Pakistani army so much and directly led to Nawaz’s downfall.
Akram cites how close Russia has become to Pakistan. Yes, these two erstwhile mortal enemies have inched closer, but that is only because India has spurned the Russians for the Americans. Now that Modi has just met Putin in Sochi, it seems that Indo-Russian ties are on a course correction.
Akram raises India’s sponsorship of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Baloch rebels. While there might be some credibility in the claim of the support to the Baloch, India’s support of the TTP is utter hogwash. The TTP is an offshoot of the Afghan Taliban. Its primary goal is to take over Pakistan and impose orthodox Sharia law there. Were it to succeed, Pakistan’s nukes would fall into its hands. It will not restrain itself from using them against Hindu India. India’s support for the TTP would then be entirely self-defeating.
Akram also talks about how Pakistan will not act against its terror outfits (Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizbul Mujahideen) until India stops its repression in Kashmir. He’s got it wrong on two counts: the Lashkar, Jaish, and the Hizb are the ones sowing terror in Indian Kashmir, which consequently invites strong-arm tactics from India.
Second the Lashkar, Jaish, and the Hizb are not just implicated in terror activities in Kashmir, but all over India. It’s an almost proven fact that the Lashkar was behind 26/11, and the Jaish behind the Parliament attack of 2001. So linking these terror outfits to just Kashmir is being obtuse in one’s approach.
Akram brings up the water dispute too. This has been arbitrated by an international panel, which has given a clean chit to the Indians. Pakistanis seem to be barking up the wrong tree when it comes to water. Their own experts have admitted that their water management abilities are woeful.
So, there. You have a scribe in Almeida, who takes on the “boys” (Pakistani generals) regularly and earns their ire on a regular basis. And then you have Akram, a man who plays to the gallery in Pakistan and incites hatred against India week after week. Whoever made him an ambassador needs to have his head examined.
No matter whether they are “good”(Almeida) or “bad”(Akram), for Pakistanis, it’s all about India.