Modi is good for Pakistan. He will call spade a spade, avoid lame olive branches with useless rhetoric.
MELBOURNE: This is with reference to Kamran Shafi’s piece of December 6 “Choking on ourselves”. The writer has shown apprehensions about the BJP and Narendra Modi coming to power in India next year, as far as relations between Pakistan and its eastern neighbour go. Similar apprehensions were raised about the BJP coming to power in the 1990s and there were fears that the party would clear India of all Muslims and declare war on Pakistan.
What we witnessed was the total opposite with Atal Behari Vajpayee taking the initiative in normalising bilateral ties, and in fact, being more of a statesman than any of the Congress leaders in the past. Modi is good for Pakistan. He will call spade a spade, avoid lame olive branches with useless rhetoric and get down to business. In terms of decision-making, he will carry far less baggage than the lame duck Congress government and its dozen allies, and would not be accused of getting too chummy with Pakistan and start afresh.
Haris Chaudhry
Published in The Express Tribune, December 8th, 2013.
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