Defence minister Rajnath Singh perhaps made the most persuasive argument to Pakistan to mend its ways, saying India could have provided much more aid than its USD 7-billion IMF package had our neighbour dialled down India-faced terror. IMF loans are loaded with conditionalities that Pakistan admitted would involve a painful transition, including killing 1.5 lakh government jobs, shutting down six ministries, merging two and right-sizing the rest, and increasing tax revenue.
That does not read like a prescription to improve the ease of living in the immediate future. India, in contrast, was the first responder when the Sri Lankan economy suddenly collapsed after the Covid shutdown, by quickly extending USD 4 billion in aid. Sri Lanka has since stabilised and successfully conducted an election.
By its own admission, Pakistan is bleeding internally, having lost 80,000 soldiers and civilians to terror in two decades. The terror sanctuaries it incubated in Afghanistan to control the neighbour have gone rogue and are haemorrhaging it.
As a result, Pakistan’s economy has taken a USD 150-billion hit, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told the UN General Assembly last week. Instead of making amends, Sharif sought to create a false equivalence between Kashmir and Palestine, accusing the Indian security forces of excesses in the region.
He made the claim in the teeth of the ongoing J&K elections, which by all accounts is the most peaceful and participative in recent memory. Foreign minister S Jaishankar was acerbic in his UNGA address about Pakistan’s wrong policy choices.
“When this polity instils such fanaticism among its people, its GDP can only be measured in terms of radicalisation and its exports in the form of terrorism... It can’t blame the world; this is its karma,” he sarcastically observed. Jaishankar went on to add that the only unfinished bilateral agenda was the return of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to India.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the popular mandate in Kashmir is to end central rule, restore the assembly and statehood, create employment and give wings to the people’s aspirations.
Pakistan must understand that it has zero leverage against India as its separatist proxies are no longer in play. In fact, some of them have entered the national mainstream. The best antidote to Islamabad’s fulminations is J&K’s quick development to create jobs for its youth and help realise its Davos-like potential.