Give Kashmir to Pakistan: Don’t insult Indian nation time and again

Five: The highly disturbing and mind-boggling developments in the past 18 months have established that it has become customary with the custodians of the Indian State to cause insult after insult to the self-respecting Indian nation by ignoring all the invectives and epithets that the emboldened and determined Pakistan uses against India.

This, despite the fact that Islamabad and its Army consistently say they are committed to protecting its “ideological frontiers,” and employ Islam as a “policy tool in Pakistan Army’s weapons arsenal.” This, despite the fact that Islamabad consistently uses hard and provocative language to insist “Kashmir is the core issue”; “Kashmir is an unfinished agenda of partition”; and that it will continue to give unflinching diplomatic, political and moral support to the Kashmiri Muslims’ right-to-self-determination-crusade based on their fixation with Jinnah’s two-nation theory.

This, despite the fact that Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani says that the “Pakistan Army is an India-centric institution”; despite the fact that Pakistan continues efforts to export deadly terror to India; and notwithstanding the fact that Islamabad continues to permit the founder of Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Saeed, to threaten India almost everyday with jihad, aimed at destroying and breaking up our country.

Our political masters continue to allow Pakistan to humble, insult and taunt the Indian nation everyday, notwithstanding the fact that the Indian nation comprehensively defeated Pakistan in 1947-1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999, and that the Indian nation can show Islamabad its rightful place in no time considering the might and commitment of the Indian Army.

Pakistan crossed all limits on February 7, when Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi openly insulted the Indian nation to the extent he could, and at a time when the meek custodians of the Indian State were making passionate pleas for resumption of talks between the two countries, taking a complete U-turn from the policy of no-talks-till-things-get-better.

Addressing a rally at his hometown Multan, Qureshi ridiculed India: “India, which till the other day was opposing the suggestion of India-Pakistan talks and saying that it will have no truck with Pakistan, now wants talks with Pakistan… India had to agree to hold talks with Pakistan under international pressure. Pakistan can defeat India on the issue of Kashmir and on the Indus waters… Pakistan hasn’t knelt… It didn’t kneel. Pakistan held its ground.”

What was the response of the Congress which leads the UPA coalition at the Centre? Its national spokesman Manish Tiwari shamed the Nation: “Nothing should be read in the Pakistani claim that it had scored a ‘diplomatic victory for itself with India proposing the talks… You (media persons) cannot look at the issue in an incremental manner… Our priority remains that South Asia and India remain terror free. It will be appropriate to allow the (dialogue) process (with Pakistan) to continue and unfold…”

The attitude of the Indian Foreign Office, headed by the uninspiring SM Krishna, who doesn’t know the A B C of foreign policy, was no different. A senior official in the Foreign Ministry told media persons (in response to the pertinent query that the Pakistani Foreign Minister had poured venom on India) that “it would not be appropriate to react to statements (made by) Shah Mahmood Qureshi in a public rally when the two countries are planning to restart parleys and discuss serious issues”.

Had any neighbour of China used such language against it, Beijing would have retaliated the same moment and showed its belligerent neighbour its rightful place. That’s the way genuine states protect and promote their geo-political and economic interests. 

But Congress and the Indian Foreign Office swallowed these diplomatic insults happily and humiliated the Nation. Defence Minister AK Antony joined the queue and virtually snubbed the critics of the resumption of dialogue process with Pakistan at this point in time, roaring: “New Delhi has taken a conscious decision to hold talks with Pakistan…”

It needs to be noted with a deep sense of disgust that Pakistan took several days to respond to the Indian offer of talks, and when it responded it said in unequivocal terms that during the scheduled Foreign Secretary-level talks in New Delhi on February 25 it would rake up all issues, including Kashmir and the Indus waters. It should also be noted that it was the Prime Minister’s Office that issued a clarification about the delayed response from Pakistan. Has the PMO become the Pakistani mouthpiece?

How did Pakistan react to the ever yielding the custodians of the Indian State? Just one instance is self-explanatory. Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the visiting Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas in Islamabad on February 13 that the “people of Palestine and Kashmir are fighting for their just right to self-determination” and that “peace will remain elusive in South Asia and Middle East unless the main issues of Kashmir and Palestine are not resolved”. Thus, the Pakistani Prime Minister equated Kashmir with Pakistan. The response of the custodians of the Indian State was expectedly meek: “We are watching the situation and talks would go on”.

The story doesn’t end here. Pakistan has made it loud and clear that it considers Kashmir the core issue and will raise it with full force at the meeting between the two Foreign Secretaries. The Indian Foreign Office has decided to discuss cross-border terrorism and infiltration as well as issues relating to the Mumbai carnage. Nothing wrong with that.

But nothing has emanated from the Foreign Office to even remotely suggest that it would ask Islamabad to quit the Indian territories the Pakistani invaders illegally occupied after rape, murder and pillage in 1947. Courtesy Jawaharlal Nehru’s wrong judgment on men and matters. Nothing has emanated so far from the Foreign Office that could remotely suggest that India will exercise absolute right over the Indus waters which are legitimately Indian, and minimize the flow of these waters to Pakistan to teach Islamabad a lesson.

Actually, this was the most opportune time for India to withdraw its hand of friendship to Pakistan saying enough is enough; saying it has been left with no option but to punish and penalize Pakistan for exporting terrorism to India and killing and maiming Indian nationals. But our political masters have something different in mind: They want Pakistan to inflict more humiliations on the Indian nation because they have neither the capacity nor the necessary will to take on Pakistan.

The question is not whether the scheduled meeting between the two Foreign Secretaries will help Pakistan achieve what it wants to achieve. The question is the shameful manner in which the custodians of the Indian State are dancing to the tunes of the Pakistani rulers, thus humiliating the Indian Nation and lowering its prestige in the eyes of the international community.

It is a matter of grave concern that while the Pakistani military establishment, which unlike the Indian Army, shapes and moulds the country’s foreign policy, looks at New Delhi not “through political prisms but through strategic perspectives,” keeping in mind its long-term geo-political interests, the custodians of the Indian State, including those controlling the Foreign Ministry and Defence Ministry, are groping in the dark, behaving irresponsibly and meekly and practically allowing the Indian barge to drift towards the rocks.

(To be continued …)                 

The author is Chair Professor, Gulab Singh Chair, Jammu University, Jammu