Daily Times

Pakistan was right to deliver a very strong rebuke to the Indian response to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), reminding everybody that Kashmir is not and was never a part of India. It is instead a disputed territory between Pakistan and India and recognised as such by the UN Security Council itself. It makes little sense, considering this background, for the Indian team to leave the General Assembly in protest against the PM’s mention of the Kashmir dispute. Pakistan is also right to point out that the only claim Delhi has over the occupied valley is that of a military occupier.

Clearly the Imran Khan administration has escalated the Kashmir dispute, especially at the UN, like never before. It has also forewarned the whole world against yet another false flag operation staged by India to tilt international attention in its favour. What is more, at least a few of Pakistan’s friends, like Malaysia, Turkey and Iran, have also made a habit of mentioning Kashmir in rather strong terms every now and then. Now it is only natural for more people in other parts of the world and at other important forums to ask questions about the nature of India’s occupation of Kashmir. Delhi will soon find out that it cannot disregard all questions forever as interference in an internal matter. Pakistan may not have the clout that India enjoys in the most important western capitals, nor the pull of India’s irresistible market, but it has brought what pieces it has to play with to just the right squares to exert the maximum possible pressure on India.

There is also something to be said about the PM’s warning about a possible false operation. If any serious analyst would look at the pattern of attacks that India claims were planned in Pakistan, it would become clear that they tend to come just when the government is under pressure at home for one reason or another. And the country’s rather savage popular media never fails to take the bait. Suddenly headlines oscillate only between claims of victimhood and threats. Then the cycle dies down, only to be repeated at some other point in the future. Now once again the government is under very severe pressure domestically. India is suffering some of the highest rates of daily coronavirus cases and deaths in the whole world. The Indian economy, too, has collapsed like few others, that too after unemployment broke a 45-year record just before the pandemic. Pakistan sees a familiar trend developing all over again. That is why it has warned the world against what might happen next. *