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| No tears on Musharraf's exit | | | Nirbhay Jammual
Jammu | Aug 20
Even though Gen.Parvez Musharraf hung his boots gracefully not a tear was shed either in Pakistan or in Kashmir.If not anybody else Syed Ali Shah Geelani,who has been heading pro-Pakistan lobby in Kashmir,demonstrated that he was with the rising and not with the setting sun when he announced publicly in Srinagar on Monday that Musharraf had deceived both Pakistan and the people of Kashmir.By saying so Geelani expressed in public the anger Jamait-e-Islami leaders in Pakistan had against Musharraf.If political analysts and intellectuals in Pakistan and India debate on the plus and minus points of Gen.Musharraf they will find him having more plus than minus points.If he was the author of Kargil conflict of 1999 he happened to be the first Pakistani leader who had smoothened Islamabad's relations with Delhi.No doubt India was the first to initiate peace process but the credit needs to be given to Musharraf for having responded to those peace initiatives resulting in the four-year long lull on the LOC.
Ask people in Akhnoor,Samba,R.S.Pora,Hiranagar and Kathua sectors they would not hesitate praising Musharraf for having silenced Pakistani gunners whose intermittent firing and mortar shelling used to cause displacement of several thousand families.Imagine their plight when from 1999 to 2004 several thousand families,engaged in producing wheat and rice for the people in the Jammu region,had to live like refugees in tents and in thatched huts.Scores of houses in Pallanwala,Panjtoot,R.S.Pora and Hiranagar bear the bullet and shell scars.They have gone back to their villages and find that there has been no restrictions even on their night movement.Musharraf responded to India's initiative on throwing open Srinagar-Muzffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakot routes for traffic which facilitated a hassle free people to people contact.Even the American print media has confirmed that it was during Musharraf's rule that the relations between India and Pakistan had become normal.
It was during his rule that the largest ever groups of Indian prisoners had been set free which had encouraged India to respond in equal measures.Indian political analysts are of the opinon that had not Delhi shown signs of dither many more problems between India and Pakistan would have been resolved during Musharra's rule.Not only this:by responding to the US directions Musharraf had facilitated better Indo-US relations with the result the Bush administration kept pressure on Musharraf for ending his support to crossborder terrorism.He carried out some cosmetic exercise but did not oblige US administration fully as he could not halt infiltration of militants into Jammu and Kashmir nor did he demolish the training camps being held on the soil of Pakistan.Whatever follies he committed he could be considered as an architect of modern Pakistan because he saved his country from what analysts in 1999 called economic disaster.By giving Pakistani soil for the Americans for setting up their bases required for carrying out ground and aerial strikes against the Talibans in Afghanistan he managed to receive huge monetary and military aid from the Bush administration.He tried to show himself as a liberal opposed to those who are with the Al Qaeda or the Talibans but in reality he tried to buy peace with them.And simply carried out mock attacks on the Al Qaeda. Will the civilian regime in Islamabad keep alive Musharraf's policy towards India or harden its stand.Future events may determine it because history bears testimony to the fact that whenever Government in Pakistan feels itself in some soup it plays the Kashmir card effectively to divert peoples' attention. |
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