Pakistan is in doldrums. Its economy has hit rock bottom, inflation is at a staggering level, food and fuel shortage is crippling life and finally, the Mujahideen has unleashed its wrath on the very nation that nurtured and pampered it for decades.
Few nations in the world have worked so diligently to undermine their own fortunes as Pakistan has since its birth in 1947, thanks primarily to its hatred, envy and intolerance towards India and absence of humanistic values.
But just as it happens to human beings in distress, the desperate Pakistani leadership has lost its balance, blowing hot and cold and making foolhardy noises just to reassure itself. That is why Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made placatory noises earlier but later did a somersault to please the domestic audience.
Last month, he declared that his country “had learnt its lessons” from the wars with India and that they want to live in peace with their neighbour. But he displayed his true colours several days later when he warned the world that Pakistan was a nuclear power and that even children know that India cannot look at it with an evil eye. “We will crush it (India) under our feet” he said. Have you ever heard such bluff and bluster from a nation which is on the verge of bankruptcy?
Further, despite its economic crisis, it persists with its laughable efforts to “liberate” the people living in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Its leaders organised ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’ on February 5, took out rallies and also passed a resolution in their national assembly seeking the “liberation” of Kashmir!
Pakistan’s Deep State has fed and nurtured the Mujahideen since 1947. The Pakistan military, the ISI and the political establishment supported and funded terrorist operations in the name of Islam, believing that a proxy war that would inflict “a thousand cuts” on India would bring the neighbour to its knees. In later years, many militant groups have sprung up utilising this licence to target internal “enemies” in Pakistan like the Shia Muslims and the Sufis, apart from the Hindus and others belonging to Indic religions.
Having promoted the Taliban, Pakistan is getting a taste of its own medicine with the emergence of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. In other words, the Frankenstein that Pakistan fed and nurtured has begun to devour Pakistan, even targeting those in uniform. Their handlers got the first big shock in 2014 when over 140 people were killed in a Peshawar school, of which 132 were children. This gory event was followed by suicide bombings which killed hundreds of people in later years.
However, what happened last month was something the Pakistan military and ISI had not signed up for. A suicide bomber cut through high-security police lines and blew himself up inside a Shia mosque, killing over 100 persons and injuring another 220. Most of the bomber’s victims were policemen. Now, Rana Sanaullah, Pakistan’s interior minister, has admitted that it was a terrible mistake to have created the Mujahideen and that the time had come for united action against terrorists.
But, this is just one little aspect of Pakistan’s attitude towards India. The history of terror and sabotage goes back 75 years. Pakistan sent infiltrators to Kashmir in 1947 with the hope of illegally occupying the border state. Pakistan once again waged war against India in 1965.
In 1971, as the people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) revolted against the regime in Rawalpindi, Pakistan launched fresh attacks on India on the Western front. Then came the Kargil War in 1999, when Gen. Musharraf sent in his soldiers to occupy the key heights in Kargil. Indian soldiers displayed extraordinary bravery, killed the intruders and regained those mountain peaks. But the Pakistan government refused to admit to sending the infiltrators and accept the bodies of their dead soldiers. The year 2001 saw the greatest assault on the symbol of India’s democracy when Pakistani terrorists targeted Parliament House in New Delhi.
But this is not the end of the story. Pakistan-trained terrorists set off bombs on Mumbai’s local trains, killing over 200 passengers in 2006.
Then came the deadliest terror attack in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, when hundreds of people were killed in two hotels, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, and several other buildings by a bunch of Pakistan-trained terrorists who came via the sea.
Given these acts of terror and sabotage, Pakistan must surely go down as the most perfidious nation in the world, and therefore unworthy of any compassion or help. The people of India should not forgive and should not forget.
Pakistan is desperately beseeching the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail it out of its current mess. The IMF is laying down strict conditions. For example, it wants the government to cut electricity subsidies and raise the per unit price of electricity. Secondly, it wants the government to increase the price of petrol and LPG. Petrol now costs Rs 272 (PKR) a litre and the price of LPG has hit the roof too. Both these conditions will have a crippling effect on the common man as inflation will cross 50%. Also, the IMF does not want Pakistan to utilise the bailout package to service its debt.
We must allow Pakistan to stew in its own poison. India, although a Hindu-majority state, should beware of succumbing to domestic bleeding hearts, which is a major failing of the Hindus for centuries.
It should never forget the wounds inflicted by Pakistan over the 75 years. Nor should it forget that although Pakistan is sinking financially, it continues to train and dispatch terrorists across the border into India.
Unfortunately for Pakistan, there is a tough-as-nails Narendra Modi government in New Delhi. This government is quite distinct from the Congress and coalition governments of the past which were humming and hawing and lacking the courage to take on a recalcitrant neighbour who is unworthy of friendship. That is why the Modi government has bluntly told Pakistan that talks and cross-border terrorism cannot go together.
Therefore, if Pakistan expects a “Hindu” response from the so-called “Hindu nationalists”, it will be in for a big surprise. It has to now contend with Modi’s ‘Naya Bharat’ in which there will be no misplaced sympathy.
A Surya Prakash
Former Chairman of Prasar Bharati and scholar of democracy studies