If India really aspires peaceful relations with Pakistan, it must do away with its practice of back-stabbing politics
LAHORE: The status quo in Pakistan presents a bleak scenario. ‘Circular crisis’ is perhaps, the right term to describe the inexplicable sequence of events that the country is witnessing. As if the instability caused by the dharnas, the polio crisis and the reemergence of terrorism was not enough, we now face border skirmishes with India. The unprovoked firing by the Indian military at the Line of Control (LoC) bursts the idealistic bubble of Indo-Pakistan peace talks. Every bullet that finds its way into Pakistani territory reiterates the claim of political gurus, who had predicted the escalation of tensions between the two nations following the election of Narendra Modi as India’s prime minister.
India has a habit of blaming us for initiating firing at the LoC, but why should we believe such claims when we know quite well that powerful lobbies in India have still not been able to digest the very creation of Pakistan. How can we blindly accept that Modi does not harbour anti-Pakistan sentiments when he bears a history of being an ardent supporter of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which played a vital role in destroying the Babri Mosque in India? How can we forget the horrifying scenes of the Gujarat tragedy in which innocent Muslims were brutally killed and that, too, when Modi was chief minister of that state? How can we forget Modi’s stance on Kashmir, which he presented at the UN General Assembly just recently? How can we forget India’s role in the Balochistan insurgency? Isn’t this all indicative of the level of hostility that India has towards Pakistan? It is ironic to note that India aspires to acquire the membership of the UN Security Council, but its acts negate the 1948 resolution passed by this very body, which stated that a plebiscite was to be held to determine whether Kashmiris wanted to accede to India or Pakistan. Sixty-seven years have passed, but we see no signs of this plebiscite ever being held, even though Jawaharlal Nehru promised to hold it.
India needs to accept the reality that Pakistan will not back away from its stance on Kashmir. It is our duty to ensure that our Kashmiri brethren, by virtue of their right to self-determination, have the freedom to choose the direction their future takes. If India really aspires to have peaceful relations with Pakistan, then it must do away with its practice of back-stabbing politics in the region.
Maria Qibtia Sikandar Nagra
Published in The Express Tribune, October 11th, 2014.
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