K N Pandita
First, the Pakistan army’s news spokesman came out for the first time after the change of guard at the highest level, with an open warning to India. He says Pakistan can carry on fighting deep in the Indian Territory. The warning came soon after the high-level talks between India and China were taking place.
Along with that Pakistan intensified attacks on India for so-called violation of human rights in Kashmir at various platforms of the UN. All this was followed by a reconciliation meeting between Imran Khan and the Shahbaz Sharif government in Islamabad. It may be an inconclusive meeting; that is not our point. The point is the circumstances and the environment that led to the holding of the meeting.
All this was a big mask over all that was unfolding in Pakistan’s political and military circles which we are going to unravel here.
As these developments were taking place, the news was leaked by a Pakistani news channel that the ex-COAS, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, had said in a closed-door meeting that Pakistan was not in a position to fight a war with India. He emphatically said that talks on resolving the Kashmir issue needed to be held with India.
Along with this, the news was leaked that Modi would be visiting Pakistan next month. The rabid Mahmud Qureshi (foreign minister in Imran’s Cabinet) rushed to Imran and asked him what the rumour was about. Imran laconically said that he was told India’s Security Advisor had been talking to some people in Pakistan but denied having been told formally anything about Modi’s visit. Pakistani television channel gave media hype to Hamid Mir’s disclosure of Gen Bajwa’s observations.
What General Bajwa had said was right. He did say and with conviction. Bajwa is an Ahmadi and hence carries a different mindset. Before his retirement, he visited the US and met with his old friends at the Pentagon. The US high and influential circles were willing to support his extension in service and also consider him for the Nobel Prize provided he somehow managed the settlement of the Kashmir issue. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s warning that India would take back all areas illegally occupied by Pakistan had been resounding loud in Pakistan army circles and it became a focal point in talks that Bajwa had with his friends in Pentagon.
The crucial point in this debate is the fast-growing massive anti-Pakistan mass movement in “Azad Kashmir” and Gilgit-Baltistan. Two things are significant in this case. One is that the movement is non-violent in comparison to a similar movement sponsored by ISI in Kashmir Valley way back in 1990 and which was fully armed and violent. The second point is that the leaders of the anti-Pakistan movement in both regions of POK (“Azad Kashmir” and Gilgit-Bltistan) declared to establish a secular and non-Islamic united State of Jammu and Kashmir. This had a very healthy impact everywhere in the world, and it was recognized by the prominent Western and Arab press that in PoK it is an indigenous movement and the allegations that India had sponsored it were nothing but rubbish.
As this political scenario progressed in the occupied part of Kashmir, another matter was given hype by Pak media and that was the forthcoming visit of Pak foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto to India for participation in the SCO foreign minister’s meeting. The Bajwa + Sharif group is highly interested in Bilawal visiting India and also having a one-to-one meeting with his Indian counterpart on the sidelines of the SCO meeting.
But the radicals and Imran Khan & Co have been plotting to scuttle the visit. The Pak army is ideologically divided. There is a radical group covertly patronized by the present army chief. This radical group is in cahoots with Imran Khan and the people on his bandwagon like Mahmud Qureshi et al.
ISI is the diehard group which has always played an effective role in scuttling any chance of the two countries coming close to resolving the Kashmir issue. So the ISI, in line with its history, undertook the Pak terrorist attack on an Indian vehicle in Bhimber Gali – Poonch sector in which five Indian soldiers were martyred. ISI expected that India would forthwith announce cancelling Bilawal’s visit on 4-5 May to New Delhi. We have marked that sections of “pro-liberal” press in India, underplayed the terrorist attack and the loss of precious lives but gave hype to Bilawal Bhutto’s visit and forcefully suggested to the Indian government to announce the cancellation of his visit for the reason the terrorist attack. But they were silenced by the shrewd Indian minister of external affairs who, while answering a question in a press conference, politely said that the invitation for participation in the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting was grounded in the Charter of the SCO and India would not like the Charter to be abused.
The point is not whether the Track II negotiations will succeed or fail. The point is that some reasonable and also influential circles in Pakistan’s power structure have come to realize that nursing unending enmity with an economically and militarily powerful neighbour with world-wide clout has boomeranged on Pakistan and the time has come when Pakistan must make an about-turn from that policy. India never seeks the disintegration and collapse of Pakistan because that would impact India’s security management. But India certainly wants a Pakistan minus terrorist ideology.
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