In a country like Pakistan where internationally designated terrorists like Hafiz Saeed is considered a philanthropist, Masood Azhar a religious scholar, Osama bin Laden a martyr and Dawood Ibrahim a businessman, appointing Mishal Hussain Malik, wife of a convicted murderer and terrorist like Yasin Malik, as Special Assistant to Prime Minister for Human Rights and Women Empowerment should raise no eyebrows. Mishal’s claim to fame is not just the ‘dangerous liaisons’ of her and her family with the ISI, but also her perpetually teary-eyed face in public trying to drum up support for her husband, who has been sentenced to life in a terror-funding case.
Of course, her appointment to the caretaker cabinet by the military establishment is not just a gesture of solidarity for her efforts to keep agitating the Kashmir issue, it is also the Pakistani deep state’s way of thumbing its nose at India. Come to think of it, Pakistan can do little else except cocking a snook at India to show it is still in the game. That its menu of options on Jammu and Kashmir is being denuded is clear from the fact that from unbridled use of terrorism, Pakistan is now being reduced to trolling India.
It isn’t that the neighbouring country has completely given up on terrorism, but the costs of adventurism are escalating and the Modi government has injected an element of unpredictability in response. Add to this Pakistan’s own existential crisis—a failed economy, a fraught security situation on the Western front, and a polity that is deeply divided. To top it all, the constitutional reforms in Jammu and Kashmir have all but settled the Kashmir issue between New Delhi and Islamabad.
Even so, the signalling from Pakistan’s establishment is that it remains in the fray and isn’t ready to give up on Kashmir just yet. In other words, it will keep the pot simmering as best as it can. In that sense, Mishal’s appointment is a demonstration of intention by Pakistan’s de facto ruler, army chief Gen. Asim Munir. In a recent speech at the Military Academy, Gen. Munir said: “They will also get freedom from the clutches of brutal occupation forces just as Pakistan got freedom 76 years ago… No evil design can withstand the determination of the Kashmiri people, despite the communication blackouts, blatant use of the bayonets and turning illegally India-occupied Kashmir into the largest prison of the world”.
This is as much evidence as anyone needs to realise that Pakistan’s new army chief and cleric-in-chief (he embellishes his speeches with Quranic verses to give them greater gravitas) is as unreconstructed and unreformed as they come on Kashmir. Remember, he was the ISI chief when the Pulwama suicide bombing took place and he has spent a large part of his career on the Indian front. Not surprisingly, after he assumed office, there has been a slight uptick in terrorist activity along the Line of Control (LoC), especially in recent weeks. The response from the Indian side has been robust, including a rumour of an unacknowledged cross-LoC raid to pre-empt an infiltration bid—the Pakistanis have played it down by calling it a ceasefire violation.
While the Pakistan Army might think it has played clever by choosing Mishal, her appointment has not gone down well even with her husband’s outfit, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, which has distanced itself from her. Mishal is nothing but a factotum of ISI and has always towed the Pakistani line of ‘Kashmir Banega Pakistan’; her husband, however, has been a votary of an ‘independent’ Kashmir. Her appointment hasn’t exactly enthused the Kashmiri diaspora in Pakistan or in PoK either. On the contrary, the portfolio she has been allocated has only bred cynicism about the state of human rights in Pakistan.
The hybrid regime whose strings are pulled from the GHQ in Rawalpindi has made the country a black hole of civil liberties. There has been an alarming backsliding of political freedoms in recent months. Civil liberties and legal protections have been trampled under the jackboots of the military. But be rest assured, no one will ever hear a word from Mishal on the death of democracy in Pakistan. She will, of course, speak a lot about Kashmir; only it will fall on deaf ears because she symbolises Pakistan’s hypocrisy on human rights, political freedoms and civil liberties.
Sushant Sareen
Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation
Twitter: @sushantsareen