Daily Times

Almost all the global powers including the United States and People’s Republic of China as well as the key stakeholders of Afghanistan, namely the Taliban and Kabul government, have publicly and repeatedly acknowledged the painstaking efforts undertaken by Pakistan to forge lasting peace in the war-torn Afghanistan.

The peace parleys of Doha owe much to the sincerity and honesty of purpose demonstrated by all the important echelons and structures of the state of Pakistan which have always been on the same page when confronted with challenges and odds like the ones surfacing in Afghanistan one after the other.

The situation in Afghanistan has always remained highly inflammable so much so that even a trivial happening could trigger a full-scale battle, given the majority of locals’ oft-times’ reliance on the power of the gun to settle disputes and differences that had turned thisregion, volatile. Still, despite this volatility, Afghan society hasremained endowed with many points of convergence among different segments of the diverse Afghan populace like, for instance, same religion and similar socio-cultural patterns and ethos. This leads us to the conclusion that the volatile Afghanistan would have attained peace much earlier, had not India, its proxies and hybrid-war propagandists unleashed a series of mischievous machinations that painted India as a sincere ally of Afghans besidesnegatively- and falsely- painting Pakistan as an ill-wisher of all Afghan factions worth the name including the Taliban, Northern Alliance, other prominent warlords as well as the Afghan government.

The latest victory coming to Pakistan and Afghanistan through the Intra-Afghan peace talks at Doha, are being described worldwide as a big setback to India, its strife-fomenting agencies and its conspiracies and machinations

The Indian propaganda offensive, unleashed over a period of decades, with exceptional finesse, has been presenting proven lies as facts to an ignorant world or to an indifferent world. The main objective was to malign Pakistan by way of destabilization and balkanization of Afghan society. The strategy was based on the thinking that any crisis in Afghanistan would undermine Pakistan’s solidarity because Pakistan was Afghanistan’s next-door neighbour with a long, porous border, combined with the fact that Afghans enjoyed strong ethnic, cultural and religious affinity with the people of Pakistan . Actually, the Indian establishment and its sponsors (or accomplices) in the top political hierarchy have been considering Afghanistan as a soft underbelly of Pakistan, for a variety of reasons including, inter alia, the symbiotic relationship between Afghans and Pakistanis.

In this backdrop, the New Delhi strategists have always prepared strategies to put a wedge in Afghan-Pakistan affinity, side by side withworking on spoiling Pakistani Pushtoons’ close relationships with millions of Afghans sharing almost the same ethnic origin.

India has also been consistently using its business-related connections and like-mindedness with a few global powers as an ‘effective tool’ to obscure Pakistan’s huge financial costs/losses, in billions, and sacrifice of thousands of precious human lives in the Afghan war on terror that was not the making of Pakistan. Even the occurrence and recurrence of suicide bombings and related incidents of violence inside Pakistan (before Pakistan’s armed forces wiped out dangerous terrorists’ outfits) had their roots in Afghan situation and its spillover effect in Afghanistan’s adjoining tribal belt of Pakistan.

India’s years’ long propaganda war also tried to obscurePakistan’s benevolent handling of a very large chunk of around three million Afghan refugees whose vast majority is, to date, enjoying, almost all kinds of rights and privileges available to Pakistani citizens.

This entire situation can be likened to Pakistan riding a many-headed Hydra since Indian machinations were not only confined to mere propaganda offensives but also included anti-Pakistan moves like training and funding anti-Pakistan militants and providing them lethal weapons in addition to giving guidelines for sabotage activities inside Pakistan.

Some of these militants were provided training in India. Clear-cut evidence on these clandestine activities has come to the fore on a number of occasions. As such, these activities can’t be anymore termed as mere ‘covert’ operations. Now, with total exposure, the Indian moves have become more overt than covert. And then, what have the Indian consulates been doing in this direction, is a widely known fact that has also been reported time and again.

Even penetration into the rank and file of Pakistani state systems and institutional framework has been attempted repeatedly but Pakistani institutions have put up a tough fight against all these evils bombarded every now and then in the direction of Pakistan, sometimes directly and, at other times, indirectly, through Afghanistan as well as Balochistan province situated on the Pak-Iran-Afghan border.

These multifarious attacks have been coming every now and then during the last three plus decades. And, every time they were thwarted by the ever-vigilant structures of the state of Pakistan.

The latest victory coming to Pakistan and Afghanistan through the Intra-Afghan peace talks at Doha, are being described worldwide as a big setback to India, its strife-fomenting agencies and its conspiracies and machinations.

In fact, it is a victory of Afghan people against the forces of destruction as well as their facilitators and conspirators. But, at the same time, it is no less a victory for Pakistan whose years’ long sincere endeavours aimed at bringing about durable peace in the region and the whole world have, at last, borne fruit, as also publicly acknowledged by the top leadership of the United States and Afghanistan.

Pakistan has, however, never gone for boasting and bragging. Instead, peace has been vigorously pursued by Pakistan with perseverance and with faith in the destiny (of peace). It is, however, encouraging to note that Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has started an intellectual campaign to expose the real face of India and its nasty role in spoiling peace in the region, especially on Pakistan’s western flank.

A panel discussion was held the other day whose topic can be described as pragmatic and non-traditional. It was titled: “Decoding Indian Foreign Policy in the Regional and Global Context”.

The writer is a senior journalist and TV analyst