Mischief and myopia are Imran’s policy guidelines

Lt Gen Kamal Davar (retd)
First chief of India’s Defence Intelligence Agency

NEW governments, even in nations historically hostile to each other, usher in a ray of hope for peace and sanity in the region. Our ever-belligerent neighbour, Pakistan, however, appears to have failed to live up to this expectation of many in the subcontinent by its steadfast anti-India utterances and acts in the recent past.

The six-month-old Imran Khan government, despite having made some friendly noises initially, continues to persistently follow Pakistan’s myopic anti-India policies. The latest provocation has been the Pakistan Government-hosted event in the British House of Commons in London on February 5. The gathering was organised and addressed by known anti-India Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi — a favourite of the Pakistani deep state. That he is considered by some as a future replacement for Imran Khan should not surprise many on both sides of the border.

To keep the pot boiling in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has mischievously designated February 5 each year as ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’. It was a welcome step that the London gathering was officially ignored by the British establishment. That this small congregation — though it turned out to be a ‘damp squib’— was attended by a few notables, including British Muslim parliamentarians of Pakistani origin, does hold some lessons for the Indian Government. 

It is indeed a matter of satisfaction that India’s Ministry of External Affairs, including its High Commission in London, was proactive in contacting the British Foreign Office and advising the British High Commission in Delhi to prevent this anti-India conclave. However, it is understandable that the UK Government allows all such protests in a city which, over the past few decades, has transformed itself not only into a melting pot of cultures, thanks to Britain’s soft immigration policies, but has also emerged as a hub of global dissent. 

The Indian diplomatic establishment must thwart the machinations of the Pakistan Government which, now having received financial doles from China and Saudi Arabia to survive, has resumed its business of berating India. Pakistan is also upbeat as the US is encouraging it to play an active role in parleys with the Afghan Taliban. The US is of the mistaken opinion that even a dysfunctional Pakistan can influence the Taliban. The US, in an indecent hurry to exit Afghanistan, may create more problems for itself and Afghanistan by depending upon Pakistan. The scenario is not lost on strategic analysts, besides the beleaguered Ashraf Ghani-led Kabul government.

Peaceniks in India and Pakistan must realise that even Imran Khan’s hands are tied as he has to scrupulously follow the dictates of the all-powerful Pakistan army on his nation’s India and Kashmir policies. The Indian establishment, thus, must factor in its policies to deal with Pakistan that nothing will substantially change in the foreseeable future between the two nations. Thus, India should better be prepared for the worst. India’s comprehensive and coherent multi-pronged strategy must be geared to make Pakistan realise that its anti-India stratagems will come at a heavy cost to itself.

Even as the country will be busy with the General Election in the coming months, India’s security and diplomatic establishments should do their bit effectively for thwarting Pakistan’s machinations. Our security forces will have to be on high alert both inside J&K and outside to ensure terror-free elections. For that, contingency plans will have to be worked out to ensure a befitting reply to the Pakistan army and its terror-exporting tanzeems in case of any untoward incidents provoked by the rogue state.

Pakistan should also be unequivocally told that its continuing interference in India’s internal affairs, be it stoking terrorism in J&K or making abortive attempts to revive insurgency in Punjab, will invite retaliation. As India welcomes the initiative of opening the Kartarpur corridor, the nation has to ensure that the sinister ISI does not use the passage to influence our Sikh pilgrims. Playing the communal card, Imran Khan has stated that Pakistan has ‘the Mecca and Medina’ (referring to Nankana Sahib and Kartarpur gurdwaras) for the Sikhs. He has to be told that Guru Nanak is revered equally by all communities in India, including Punjabi Hindus, and permission has to be granted to them also to visit the Kartarpur shrine. It is amply evident that Pakistan is playing a double game.

Amazingly, it is only a laid-back nation like India which has not yet paid Pakistan in the same coin by exploiting the latter’s fault lines in restive Balochistan, Sindh and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Pakistan is well advised to grant political and equitable rights to the hapless and impoverished populace of PoK instead of provoking innocents in J&K. Pakistan’s record of human rights violations, especially in Balochistan, requires no elaboration.

Finally, Imran Khan has to get his priorities right and decide whether he wishes his nation to play his favourite game, cricket, with India or keep indulging in self-destructive endeavours with it. The immense dividends of neighbourly peace and harmony, not yet realised by both nations, will remain unattained if Pakistan pursues the stratagems of its deep state, which works for the perpetuation of its own unbridled powers and not for the country’s progress. The choice, thus, lies with Pakistan itself.