Bygones be Bygones, eh?
Recent statements by both Imran Khan and Pakistani Army Chief Bajwa are quite interesting. They are both talking of peace with India or atleast hinting at it in so many words. Is the period of bonhomie with China over. Is Pakistan hedging? Do they realise that China does not really like Islam as is clear by their treatment of Uighurs. May be giving too much of their country to China may not be that comfortable in the future.
Pakistani dopehead PM said that his basic issue with India is Kashmir, and trade between the country should happen.
Pakistan’s defacto chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa went even further and said that ‘it is time to bury the past’ with India
So what should India make of it? Many peaceniks in India and media obviously lost it and collectively sighed. They all but said that Modi should forthwith reciprocate such a dovish coo from across the border and immediately open a dialogue channel and resume the cultural fests that were suspended after few terrorist attacks in places like Pulwama and in other places.
Jokes aside, we need to be chary of taking Pakistan’s hand of peace. Pakistan is a very strategically conscious state, and it does not do anything without any ulterior motive. In fact, i would say that Pakistan has an even more sinister hidden motive than the one that is obvious to every one of us: it’s financial precariousness. However, don’t ask me what that is. I am not a RAW sleuth.
Pakistan is not a good country. It is a failed state. And when I say it is a failed state I do not posit the theory that it’s about to collapse; or its balkanization is imminent. Far from it. It’s a very strong state when it comes to protecting its creamy layer of humanity. It’s the poor of Pakistan who are given the Islamic Kool-Aid to drink while the elite imbibes alcohol and enjoy other luxuries. I remember the old cliché about Pakistan: It is basically an Army that has a State. In no other country, the military gobbles up a major chunk of the state’s budget without showing any corresponding military achievement. This is the same army that lost the entire eastern wing of the state in 1971. So much for Pakistani Army being the pride of the nation as many Pakis are wont to say to their Indian interlocutors. Jokes on the poor sods who hate India for religious reasons while the Army is leeching off on them, jeopardizing their life, their children’s future, whatever. Pakistan never was, and never will be in taking a single inch of Indian controlled territory in Kashmir through Military means.
Pakistani economy is in doldrums. It is surviving on few crumbs of money thrown to it by the IMF. It really cannot afford to be blacklisted by the FATF (currently it is in the grey list, kind of like a purgatorial category).
India has also not covered itself in glory in the Modi years. Being better than a failed Pakistan is not really an achievement. In Modi’s Prime Minister ship, Country’s Defense Budget may have increased overall but as a percentage of GDP it has actually gone down. In a way, India needs a ceasefire with Pakistan because Line of Actual Control needs Indian Army’s attention from hereon or else India will have to suffer more Salami slicing from the Chinese.
The two-front war situation is something we should avoid at any cost.
But Pakistan cannot be trusted. So examine and brood on the hand of peace proffered but be very careful about the double teaming by India’s two nuclear armed adversaries. India neither has economic muscle nor the military heft to take on both at the same time. Time to get real.
May be the larger Pakistani hidden reason need not be expanded upon in the present post. I cannot really give words to my ideas without making a larger point on South Asian Muslims and their mentality and beliefs. So maybe I should let that idea simmer in my mind. In the future, I will be in a position to condense it, and make it worthy of being readable.
