JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: The prime ministers of both India and Pakistan pledged at the end of last week’s Saarc summit in Maldives to resolve all their outstanding issues by peaceful means. However, opposition parties in their respective countries did not take this well and have strongly criticised the governments of both countries on this issue. The BJP took Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to task for calling his Pakistani counterpart, Yousaf Raza Gilani, a man of peace. In Pakistan, several right-wing/religious parties have said that they plan to protest the grant of Most-Favoured Nation status to India.
The truth of the matter is that it’s not only the right-wing religious parties on both sides of the border that are opposed to any movement towards a lasting peace but also their respective military establishments. In Pakistan, banned terrorist organisations, and especially those with a clear anti-India agenda, are allowed to work in Pakistan under false names. As for India, its army has recently put up a public challenge to the authority of the chief minister of Indian Kashmir who wants to lift from parts of the state a law that provides extraordinary powers to security forces to make arrests and conduct operations.
Both India and Pakistan, especially their hawks, need to learn from China, which, in its history, has had border/territorial disputes with Taiwan, Vietnam and India but did not allow this to come in the way of increased trade with them. Those who advocate military rule in Pakistan or even its dominance in the state of affairs should ask themselves if past military intervention and rule achieved anything.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, November 15th, 2011.
