After imran takedown, time to bring peace to J&K
India’s skilful takedown of Pakistani PM Imran Khan’s jingoistic rant at the United Nations General Assembly while invoking the right to reply underscored the point that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Recalling his open admiration of Osama bin Laden in the past, Indian diplomat Vidisha Maitra challenged him to counter the fact that Pakistan provides sanctuary to 130 UN-designated terrorists and 25 terror entities. Hauling him over coals for loosely using words like pogrom, she reminded him how Pakistan’s genocide of its own citizens in the east led to the creation of Bangladesh.
She rubbed his nose further in the dirt calling him Imran Khan Niazi, which brought back brutal memories of General A A K Niazi who was responsible for the 1971 mass murder and under whose watch Pakistan lost territory in the east. In his UNGA speech, Imran tried to position Pakistan as a victim of the power-play between the former Soviet Union and the US in Afghanistan, but facts show otherwise.
For example, in his book, Pakistan between mosque and military, former diplomat Husain Haqqani cites evidence to prove how it was Pakistan’s civil and military leaders who had repeatedly offered assistance to the US to make their country a staging ground for jihad in exchange for aid, and not the other way around. Imran’s attempt to internationalise Kashmir by claiming there could be a bloodbath once curbs imposed after the reading down of Article 370 are off in the Valley, and warning of a nuclear conflagration were seen as needlessly alarmist by the global community.
With world opinion firmly behind PM Narendra Modi on any rearrangement in Kashmir being an internal matter of India, he now has the difficult task of restoring normalcy in the Valley, parts of which have been lockdown for close to two months. Like Abhimanyu, entering the Kashmir chakravyuh was the easier part. The challenge is to exit it equally artfully, proving doomsayers wrong while restoring peace. The world is watching. And so is the Constitution Bench that will hear appeals on Article 370 from October 1.