By Tirthankar Mitra
Shehbaz Sharif, on taking charge as prime minister of a new Pakistani dispensation has raked up the Kashmir issue even as he finds himself presiding over a precarious economy with the country’s situation worsened by sharp polarisation and a fraught security system. Pakistan in so many words is in choppy waters.
This is why Sharif who occupies the seat of power with a fractured mandate for his own party notwithstanding has raised this issue. Delivering his maiden address after taking over on Sunday he waved the red flag before the people of Pakistan hoping it will get a sympathetic hearing in the course of which other issues would be lost track of. His mind still being clouded with the schemes to get PPP’s support on government formation it has not occurred to him that the issue is a lost one in present backdrop. The series of problems the Pakistanis are facing obscure it now.
The problems Prime Minister Sharif is facing need long term solutions. Yet he needs to reassure himself, his party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, his supporting party Pakistan People’s Party and the populace that he is on the “right track. The Pakistani Prime Minister seems to have missed the wood for the tress as his take on Kashmir is a pointer. Large segments of leaders in Pakistan are calling for restoration of bilateral trade with India.
Suspension of bilateral trade hurts Pakistan more than it does India. But Sharif raking up the Kashmir issue chose to overlook it and walk along a path which appeared to him as familiar Pakistan desperately needs a new direction. The task for Sharif is cut out. It is to restore a modicum of internal stability. Steps need to be chalked out to bring the economy on an even keel..
Focussing on the economy first one is aghast to learn that budget deficit remains large and inflation is high. The Pak government does not have the money to manage the annual external sector gap for a next few years.
A short term arrangement with IMF ends in March. Pakistan’s external creditors including China are reluctant to lend more money or restructuring past loans till it enters into a longer term agreement with the IMF.
To turn a corner in the right direction requires further belt tightening not only by the common man but also by the articulate and influential elite. The PML(N) paid a heavy price in the recently concluded election for its dispensation’s austerity measures and now it’s supporter PPP wants to dissociate itself from pain-inducing measures
But all the same, the PML-N is ready to repeat the same to keep Imran Khan led Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf at bay. Such measures are expected to turn around the economy in two to three years. Internal security situation in Pakistan has gone for a toss. A sharp rise in terror attacks by Tehrek-e-Taliban Pakistan and Baloch groups are on a rise.
There is nothing to write home about the external security situation of Pakistan .Relationship with India remains on a tense stand-off. Meanwhile trouble has called on the Sharif dispensation from a quarter it least expected. Tension has mounted with Afghan Taliban, an erstwhile protege of Pakistan..Issues of recognition of the Durrand Line as the border between the two countries together with reining in of terror activities of TTP from Afghan soil sticks out like a sore thumb in the bilateral relations.
Reverting to the relation with India, Sharif will belatedly realise that he had reduced his government’s negotiating space. Such space has already been shrunk by Pakistan’s internal preoccupation. The government’s will to deliver remains constrained by the army. Political consensus necessary to move forward constructively with India is negated by highly polarised political environment.
Bilateral ties are at a standstill at LoC ceasefire agreement of 2021. Pakistan’s internal complications make a case for expanding the tactical thaw with India; yet it has a hiccup in the wake of Sharif’s take on Kashmir. (IPA Service)
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