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| Rival Pak leaders running race projecting their India friendly outlook | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Sep 12
In the excitement and media concentration over dethroned Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief's return to his country and his deportation back to Soudi Arabia leading to wide spread protests in Pakistan, one important aspect that has been missed is the change in the rhetoric of Pakistani politicians about country's relations with India. Whether it is Nawaz Sharief or another former Pak Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and even the incumbent ruler of the country, President General Parvez Musharraf, all appear to be running a race to create the impression that they are for friendly relations with the neighbouring country, India and that if they come to power they will pursue India friendly policies and make every effort for the two closest neighbours, created out of United India sixty years back, to come closer to each other become friendly, in the mutual interest of both. It is in sharp contrast to the past mindset and rhetoric of Pak politicians, who would woo their masses by projecting themselves to be the bitterest foes of India. In this regard Zulfkar Ali Bhutto's pledge of a thousands year war with India, soon after he was record from his exile abroad, to lead the country, after Pakistan's defeat in the Indo-Pak war, needs be recalled.
On the eve of his aborted return for stay back in his own country after six year of exile, Nawaz Sharief was at pains to emphasize that the Kargil incursion by Pak forces in 1999 was the betrayal of the faith reposed on him by the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who forgetting the till then prevailing bitterness and hostilities between the two countries, had extended his hand of friendship to Pakistan by undertaking bus journey from New Delhi to Lahore, in Pakistan and visiting Minar of Pakistan. While publicly admitting that Vajpayee's hurt over the betrayal by Pakistan was justified, Nawaz Sharief stressed that it was the then Chief of the Pak army, General Parvez Musharraf who had conceived, planned and executed aggression in Kargil, without the knowledge of the Prime Minister of the country. Benazir Bhutto too has on various occasions emphasized her belief in maintaining friendly relations with India, for the two countries to jointly march forward towards progress and prosperity, instead of wasting their energies and resources by remaining hostile towards each other. General Parvez Musharraf's claimed conviction about the dire need of India and Pakistan living in peace and joining hands in the march towards progress is well known.
The politicians in their utterances in fact represent the prevalent view point among the people in their country and try to impress upon their electorates of their identifying with the urges of their masses. The India friendly overtones and gestures by various leaders of Pakistan in fact reflect the minds and thinking of the common man in that country, who has realized the futility of over half a century long animosity between the two peoples who were one nation only sixty years ago and who have common future and common destiny. At the same time there is no denying the fact that the mindset and psyche of ill will and hostility between the people of India and Pakistan was the creation of the politicians, who had their own axe to grind and serve their own interest in the continuous stand off, as a result of misunderstanding and mutual distrust, having its origin in the bloodshed coming in the train of partition with independence of the sub continent. The rulers in Pakistan, with Mullah-military nexus being a dominating force were particularly interested to perpetuate a wrong impression in the minds of their people about the ill intensions of the government of India and its people towards the sobering Islamic state of Pakistan, the creation of which they had opposed. Since democracy never got deep roots in Pakistan, which remained most of the time under the rule of military dictators, they always tried to keep their people in illusion and wrong impression about India, with a view to perpetuate their hold over the masses and continuously exploit them. But the circumstances in that country and in the world as a whole contrived in such a fashion that the illusion among Pakistanis and wrong notions under which they were living had to be over.
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