Joint session: PM Nawaz asks India to give up doublespeak

Warns Delhi against any misadventure; calls Kashmir a ‘smouldering volcano’

ISLAMABAD: Amid a cacophonous chorus of warmongers in India, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif sent a loud and clear message to Delhi: Pakistan harbours no aggressive designs against anyone, but we will strike back — and strike back hard if our national security is threatened.

Sharif also advised his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to match his words with action, if he really wanted to wage a war against poverty, unemployment and illiteracy in the South Asian region. “We cannot expect to harvest flowers in a field where we sow gunpowder,” Sharif said while addressing a joint session of parliament on Wednesday.

The sitting of the two houses of parliament has been convened to discuss India’s war rhetoric and unabated rights abuses in Indian occupied Kashmir. “You [Indians] can blind unarmed Kashmiris with your pellet guns, but you cannot blind the history,” he said as the house echoed with a thunderous applause.

In a speech on September 24, Modi challenged Pakistan to go to war against poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and infant mortality instead, saying “let’s see who wins those wars”, India or Pakistan. Sharif said the Indian leader should match his words with action if he really means what he says.

“If India desires joint efforts against poverty, then it must not rely merely on rhetoric, but take practical steps,” he said while pointing towards India’s contradictory approach. “The goal of poverty eradication cannot be achieved by passing through fields of explosives and blood,” he added.

Sharif opened the debate in the joint session of parliament that continued unabated for three hours with lawmakers censuring the government for its lack of clarity on the Kashmir issue and foreign policy failures.

The premier said there could be no peace between Pakistan and India unless the lingering Kashmir dispute was resolved. “The supreme sacrifice rendered by Kashmiri freedom fighter Burhan Wani has shone fresh spotlight on the Kashmiris’ struggle and brought it to a decisive juncture,” he said.

“Disfiguring faces of Kashmiris and firing bullet shots at them cannot reverse this movement,” he added. “India cannot deny the inalienable right of the Kashmiris, which it had pledged seven decades ago.”

Sharif recalled the steps taken by his administration to highlight the Kashmir cause at the international level. He also referred to his speech at the UN General Assembly where he called upon the global community to help resolve the festering dispute. “Kashmir is smoldering like a volcano and needs urgent attention,” he added.

The prime minister also accused Delhi of running away from talks and whipping up war hysteria in the region. “We have done everything to bring India to the negotiating table, but each time our peace efforts were thwarted,” he said. “An environment of perpetual tension and conflict should not be the fate of South Asia.”

The Modi administration blamed Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad for the Sept 18 attack on an Indian military camp in Uri, Indian occupied Kashmir, in which 18 Indian soldiers were killed. Sharif regretted that Delhi pointed accusatory finger at Islamabad without an iota of evidence.

After Sharif’s speech, opposition leader Syed Khursheed Shah took the rostrum and censured the government for merely playing on words. “Had we done something useful after previous such meetings, then India would have never threatened us the way it is doing now,” he said.

The Kashmir people would not have been suffering, had we exploited previous opportunities, he said, referring to earlier peace overtures of successive governments, in particular that of military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

He singled out the government for its foreign policy failures. “India is not going to war with Pakistan, but it is isolating us diplomatically,” he said. “Five countries, including two Muslim states, refused to attend the recent Saarc summit which was scheduled to be held in Islamabad.”

He regretted that it had been more than three years since the government came into power, but it could not appoint a full-time foreign minister. He advised the government to learn from the aggressive foreign policy of PPP founder chairman and former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto.

Shah also raked up the Panamagate scandal in his speech. The bill of inquiry the PPP and other opposition parties have tabled in parliament should be cleared to do away with financial corruption in the country once and for all.

JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a staunch ally of Sharif, also came down hard on the government for its failure to properly highlight the Kashmir dispute. He suggested that the government send emissaries to all continents to shine fresh spotlight on Kashmir.

He suggested that Pakistan seek help from OIC and other forums because India and the US were out to sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Senator Sirajul Haq said it was Pakistan’s failure that a person (Modi) who was once a persona non grata was receiving awards from Saudi Arabia and befriending Iran. “It is our diplomatic failure as we could not project the Kashmir issue in an effective manner,” he said.

Qaumi Watan Party’s Aftab Sherpao said that India’s diplomacy was more effective which was why it was heard internationally. “We should be doing the same and avoid following traditional reactionary approach in handling such issues,” he said.

The joint parliamentary session will continue today (Thursday) where a unanimous resolution is also expected to be passed on the Kashmir issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 6^th, 2016.