What Is Needed In the South Asian Region Is a Normalisation of Relations between the Two Nuclearised States - India and Pakistan
By Khaled Ahmed
October 24,
2020
On October
15, terrorist attacks in southern Balochistan and Waziristan killed 20 Pakistani
troops, including an officer. In Waziristan, of the former Tribal Areas, the
Pakistani troops were guarding the frontier with Afghanistan. In Balochistan,
terrorists who were killed by the Pakistani security forces attacked a convoy
of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL). Add to this regular
aggression on the western border, and the daily routine of cross-Line of
Control (LOC) rocket-fire on the eastern border with India, and you have a
pincer of assaults on a state that is currently proving to be politically
unstable too.
Supporters of the Pakistan Democratic Movement take
part in an anti government rally in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2020.
Protests took place in a campaign against Prime Minister Imran Khan to force
him step down over what they say is his failure in handling the nation's ailing
economy. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
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The
following day, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) held its “mammoth” rally
in Gujranwala, demanding the removal of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)
government of Prime Minister Imran Khan. Gujranwala is a stronghold of Pakistan
Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN), whose leader Nawaz Sharif is in exile in the UK,
convicted at home of corruption and money laundering. Gujranwala, like most
cities in Pakistan, hates PM Khan for the rise in food prices, thanks to the
government’s incompetence. The procession of the grand opposition, from Lahore
to Gujranwala — led by Sharif’s daughter Maryam — has become popular because of
Khan’s incompetence at controlling price rise.
Imran
Khan’s popularity has sagged because sugar and wheat shortages brought pressure
on a population already haunted by the coronavirus pandemic, floods and locust
attacks. His habit of using a language of violence against an opposition, which
everybody agrees was most corrupt when in power, has not helped. Yet, the
question of rough language will remain at the root of the decline in his
popularity. The political discourse in Pakistan is set low because of the
savage vocabulary used against each other by its politicians.
Pakistan
was supposed to be a “revisionist” state on its eastern and western borders. It
challenged the “occupation” of Kashmir by India and used covert war and “jihad”
against India for years to the point that in 2020, not a single politician in
India will speak in favour of “normalisation” with Pakistan. This was once,
ironically, mooted by a BJP leader — the great statesman, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The other side of the “pincer” is the western border called the Durand Line,
which Pakistan is in the process of wire fencing to prevent cross-border
terrorism in “sensitive areas”.
The
conflict with India has taken a more ugly turn under the BJP government of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On August 5, 2019, India revoked the autonomous
status of Jammu and Kashmir. It also revoked Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian
Constitution. On the Pakistan side, Imran Khan was determined to pursue a
conciliatory policy towards India, unconsciously reviving Vajpayee’s “status
quo” doctrine of “normalising” India-Pakistan relations. Unfortunately,
Pakistan’s belated attempt to change tack on Kashmir came too late.
On the
western border, Pakistan was encouraged by the international community to
become a part of the world movement against the Soviet Union and its Afghan
policy. It began nurturing the “non-state-actors” of jihad and used them across
both borders, east and west. In the process, it allowed “international terror”
to base itself in Pakistan, while fighting the Soviet-supported governments in
Kabul. Two provinces of Pakistan, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, were
sacrificed to this westward policy; but the Tribal Areas in the north were
allowed to be literally occupied by international warriors. Today, the Tribal
Areas and Balochistan are giving “external trouble” to Pakistan by a mixture of
foreign and indigenous elements.
Corruption
has always been the main flaw of a state made unstable by its unrealistic
revisionism. Imran Khan has added to that an abysmally low-grade political
discourse. What takes place on the TV screens of Pakistan, when the hired hands
of abuse go at each other’s throat, is also at times seen on Indian TV
channels. What is needed in the region is a normalisation of relations between
the two nuclearised states attacked by a pandemic that may not go away for a
long time. Whatever may be wrong internally with Pakistan, it is ready for a
normal, mutually beneficial relationship with India, which will be more
beneficial for India’s economy, whose natural outreach is westward, through
Pakistan and Afghanistan, to Central Asia.
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Khaled Ahmed is consulting editor, Newsweek
Pakistan.
Original Headline: Struggling on eastern, western borders, Pak
has hit a spot of political turbulence
Source: The Indian Express
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