Daily Times

Pakistan has recently taken initiatives for making durable peace with India by inviting its leaders for talks to resolve all outstanding disputes, including the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir. For example, in September 2018, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Mr Shah Mahmood Qureshi sought to have a meeting with the Indian Foreign Minister, Ms Sushma Swaraj on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly Session in September 2018, she first agreed but after a few days refused the meeting without any cogent reason.

Similarly, in November 2018, when the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr. Imran Khan took the unilateral initiative of opening the Kartarpur corridor for India’s Sikh pilgrims to visit Baba Guru Nanak’s Shrine in Kartarpur, at the time of the Corridor’s inauguration on 28 November 2018, Imran Khan also invited India’s Prime Minister, Mr. Modi to attend the upcoming SAARC summit that was to be held in Pakistan. In response, India’s Foreign Minister, Ms Swaraj negated any possibility of Modi attending the SAARC summit, stating that the opening of Kartarpur corridor is not linked with attending the SAARC Summit by India’s Prime Minister. It may be mentioned here that Mr. Modi is not only declined to attend the SAARC summit in Pakistan, since the last few years, he has also been trying to derail the holding of the summit by pressurizing India’s smaller South Asian neighbours for not attending the summit.

The Modi government’s vilification campaign of blaming Pakistan for supporting terrorism in India is meant to: mask India’s state terrorism and rampant human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir; to cover its sponsored terrorism in Balochistan, Pakistan; to deflect attention of the Indian people from the internal failings of the Indian government; and to isolate Pakistan internationally

Instead of accepting Pakistan’s peace initiatives, Indian leaders are still pursuing the geopolitics of undermining Pakistan’s power and international prestige by playing its many years old dramas of airing stories blaming Pakistan for supporting terrorism in the neighbouring countries. For instance, as published in the Times of India dated 4 November 2018, India’s Army chief, General Bipin Rawat, stated that attempts to revive insurgency in Punjab through “external linkages” were being done. He referred to Pro-Khalistan rally organized recently in the UK by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), that announced to hold the Indian Punjab Independence Referendum 2020, for Sikh rights to self-determination and said that the SFJ was being supported by the ISI covertly to foment trouble in the Indian Punjab.

The above mentioned attitude of India’s top leadership indicates that after becoming a strategic partner and a close defence partner of the US, India has gotten arrogant and is undermining Pakistan’s effort to seek a long lasting peace in South Asia by starting a bilateral dialogue process to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir dispute and all other issues. In this context, India has even failed to realize that both the countries are matching nuclear powers and India cannot harm Pakistan like it did in 1971.

The Modi government’s vilification campaign of blaming Pakistan for supporting terrorism in India is meant to: mask India’s state terrorism and rampant human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir; to cover its sponsored terrorism in Balochistan, Pakistan; to deflect attention of the Indian people from the internal failings of the Indian government; and to isolate Pakistan internationally. The Indian leadership does not realize that India has already badly failed in its campaign of isolating Pakistan. For example, at this moment, instead of isolating Pakistan, India seems to be isolated, as in the ongoing peace talks between the US and the Taliban, President Trump has requested Prime Minister Imran Khan to facilitate the talks and India has automatically sidelined.

Moreover, Indian Sikhs are completely alienated from India due to the religious persecution by the Indian governments since 1980s, when the Indian Army attacked the golden temple, a major holy shrine of the Sikhs. And since then, Sikhs started their indigenous peaceful movement to get independence from India.

In view of the above discussion, it can be concluded, that although Pakistan should keep extending its peace initiatives to India, it appears that India will continue to pursue its negative political objectives by negating Pakistan’s peace efforts. This is because India dreams of becoming a major regional and world power in view of the overwhelming political, economic and defence support being provided to it by the US and other major powers. Hence, apart from conducting its politics to establish peace with India for the good of the Pakistan and the South Asian people, Pakistan should focus on its economic development to become economically self reliant, and then India will listen to Pakistan.

The writer is an ex-Army Colonel, a former Research Fellow of Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), and Senior Research Fellow, Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad

Published in Daily Times, December 29^th 2018.