I Think of Kashmir And Regard Cricket with India as A Jihad: Imran Khan
By G
Parthasarathy
Aug 06,
2020
Whenever I
analyse the policies of PM Imran Khan, my mind goes back to meeting Imran, the
cricketer, when I was India’s Consul General in Karachi in 1982. I had hosted a
reception for the visiting Indian cricket team led by Sunil Gavaskar. Members
of the Pakistan cricket team also attended the reception. The Consul General’s
residence was located opposite the residence of Benazir Bhutto. She was then
under arrest, ordered by military ruler, Gen Zia-ul-Haq. (Dawood Ibrahim now
lives royally in the nearby Defence Housing Society). Imran devastated our
batting in that series. Gavaskar and Mohinder Amarnath were among the few
batsmen who read and played Imran’s devastating reverse swing consistently and
confidently.
Karachi was
a cosmopolitan city, where one could chat with Pakistani friends over drinks. I
asked a friendly Pakistani commentator what motivated Imran to bowl with such
venom. I was told that when Imran was asked why he bowled with such fire
against India, he replied: ‘I do not regard it as a game. I think of Kashmir
and regard it as a jihad.’ Imran’s reverse swing came into play, primarily
after lunch and tea breaks, when the ball was in the pockets of Pakistani
umpires! Scratching one side of the ball was known to make it swing. Gavaskar
and others had noted this.
At mercy: A protege of the army, Imran Khan will be discarded when it so
chooses.
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Pakistan
has produced great fast bowlers like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shoaib
Akhtar, who played tough and hard. But unlike Imran, they never treated the
game as a ‘jihad’. They were friendly to Indian players. Imran’s politics was
moulded by one of the founding members of his Tehreeq-e-Insaf Party, Lt Gen
Hamid Gul, who was a hardcore Islamist and a former Director General of the
ISI. Gul played a key role in backing militants in Afghanistan. He also backed
militancy in Punjab and J&K. Imran was voted to power with the backing of
the military establishment and the ISI, who were finding that PM Nawaz Sharif
was trying to act independently on relations with India and Afghanistan.
While his
predecessors looked the other way, as the ISI backed the Hurriyat and militant
groups in J&K, Imran made no secret about his kinship with the Taliban,
Hurriyat, and militant Islamic groups, like the LeT. It is not surprising that
he is now set on conferring Pakistan’s highest civilian honour, the
Nishan-e-Pakistan, on Hurriyat patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani. India had
political space in the past for contacts at the highest levels in Pakistan.
Pakistani prime ministers kept contacts open with their Indian counterparts. We
are now dealing with a Pakistani leader who makes no bones about his backing
for Islamist militancy. He even described Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of
the 9/11 strikes on New York, as a ‘martyr’.
While he
may pretend to be in charge of foreign policy, it is the army chief Gen Qamar
Javed Bajwa, who calls the shots. Bajwa actively participated in efforts for
President Trump to end US combat operations in Afghanistan, before the US
presidential elections. When Imran met Trump in July last year, he became the
first Pakistan PM who was accompanied by his army chief for a White House
meeting with the President. The public profile of Bajwa, whose tenure was
extended by three years, till 2022, has risen steadily.
The army
now directly calls the shots on developments in Afghanistan after Bajwa made an
impromptu visit to Kabul and met President Ashraf Ghani on June 9. The visit
was at the behest of US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. Diplomatic practices
and pretences have now been discarded. It is Bajwa and not Imran who leads the
effort for Trump on troop withdrawal. It matters little to Trump if what
follows after poorly planned American withdrawal is a return to civil war in
Afghanistan, as the Taliban are not given to sharing power with others.
Moreover, the Taliban are not trusted by the non-Pashtun population.
It is
evident that the army is determined to cut an obviously incompetent Imran to
size. The high-profile former army spokesman Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa has now
been appointed as Imran’s special assistant for information and broadcasting.
He is now Imran’s de facto spokesman. He has also been appointed chairman of
CPEC authority. In short, he not only speaks for the government, but also
controls the massive funds flowing into the project. There are reports
suggesting that Bajwa was appointed after Xi Jinping indicated that he was not
satisfied with Pakistani decision-making in CPEC.
The
marginalisation of Imran and the civilian government is evident in other areas
also. The army now plays a decisive role in the National Command and Operations
Centre headed by the federal planning minister. The executive head of the
command centre, Lt Gen Hamood Uz Zahman Khan, is an air defence officer.
Meanwhile, the National Locust Control Centre is headed by another Lt Gen.
Imran, a long-term protege of the Pakistan army, has become the army’s puppet.
He will be discarded when the army so chooses. The Chinese have known this for
years. They are reconciled to the fact that civilian leaders like Imran are
dispensable.
India is
right in not rushing into a formal dialogue with Imran. He is not only pathologically
anti-Indian, but also is merely a front for the Pakistan army. In these
circumstances, it may be worthwhile to open an unannounced and appropriate
channel of communications with the Pakistan army. One cannot realistically
expect much to emerge from such a back channel, especially given tensions in
the Kashmir valley and Ladakh, but a ‘back channel’ for communication, or
dialogue, has its own utility, even in difficult times, and particularly during
tensions.
G
Parthasarathy is Chancellor, Jammu Central University & former High
Commissioner to Pakistan
Original
Headline: No more than dummy PM
Source: The Tribune India
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/i-think-kashmir-regard-cricket/d/122562