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| Crisis in Pakistan, Advantage India | | Kashmiri Secessionism -- II | | Rustam
JAMMU, Jan 18: As mentioned, Pakistan is in a very difficult situation. The executive is up in arms against the judiciary and the vice-versa. The executive has openly challenged the Army and the Army has paid back in the same coin. Prime Minister Gilani has virtually incited the people of Pakistan to rise in revolt against the Army and he has done so in the name of democracy. The Army has reposed its full faith in the judiciary and created a situation that would surely make them work together so that Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari are reined in and showed their rightful place.
Pakistan has witnessed many upheavals in the past, including three coups engineered by the Army. But Pakistan has never witnessed the kind of anarchy and political instability it has been witnessing since May 2, 2011 and more particularly since the last few weeks, when the Army directly took on the Pakistani President and Prime Minister for their alleged hobnobbing with the United States against the Army. The case in point is the secret memo that sought the American's support against the Army which, according to Zardari, could bring off a coup against the civilian government any time.
It's not only that Pakistan is gripped by political instability of an extreme nature. The social and economic situation in Pakistan is also very serious. The Pakistani society is witnessing a worst form of upheaval. The Pushtuns, the Baluchs, the Sindhis and the Punjabis are pulling in different directions. The Sunnis, Shiite Muslims, the Ahmediyas and other Muslim religious sects in Pakistan are up in arms against one another. The Muslim society is also caught between the crossfire of those favouring democracy and those seeking to Talibanize the Pakistani society and polity. The Pakistani economy is in shambles. The only silver-lining perhaps is that the political class in Pakistan and bulk of the Pakistani media is expressing itself in favour of a democratic polity, as against the dictatorship of Army. However, it is difficult to say if the protagonists of democracy would be able to hold their own against the Army and the radical Islamists. Their fundamental problem is the people who are at the helm and against whom there are very serious charges of corruption.
All in all, it can be said that Pakistan is in serious trouble and that the Pakistani leadership is sitting on its ruins. Pakistan may collapse. Differences are so sharp and irreconcilable and the situation so volatile and uncertain that it would not be an easy task for anyone or any institution to keep Pakistan intact. Remember, Pakistan was formed out of the areas where there was no demand for Pakistan. It was basically the Muslims of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who had demanded partition of India on communal basis saying they belonged to a separate nation and that they could not live with the majority Hindu community. Again, it is important to note that those from India who migrated to Pakistan in the wake of the communal partition of India have not been adopted by the Pakistanis. Those who migrated to Pakistan are called Mohajirs. They are concentrated mostly in the Sind province of Pakistan.
There are commentators in India who have expressed grave concern over the fast-deteriorating situation in Pakistan and opined that the instability in that country is not in the interest of India. They have also expressed the view that the developing situation might help radical Islamists to capture the nuclear Pakistani State and went on to say that such a development would pose a live threat to the territorial integrity of India. There is no need for the Indians to feel that perturbed. At the same time, the authorities in the country need to modernize and strength its security grid across the Indo-Pak border and along the Line of Control and watch with vigilance the unfolding developments in that rogue and failed state, the epicenter of global terrorism. Those who say that destabilized Pakistan is not in the best interest of India are only exaggerating things. It hardly matters for India if Pakistan is stable or instable. For, there is no fundamental different between the civilian rule and dictatorial regime in Pakistan when the issue before it is India and its Jammu and Kashmir. India has seen Generals like Ayub Khan, Yahiya Khan and Pervez Musharraf and it has also seen "democrats" like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharief. India has also been seeing the present incumbent Gilani since the last four years. There is no difference. The Pakistani political establishment and the Army are anti-India by nature and conviction and they want India to break into smithereens. There should be no doubt about it and, hence, the need for a military and defence preparedness on an unprecedented scale to meet any threat and defeat it. The Indian nation and the Indian Army are quite capable of defending the territorial integrity of India. We have done so at least four times before 2000 and we have been defeating the Pakistani insurgents in Kashmir and elsewhere since 1989.
The fact of the matter is that the destabilized Pakistan is not that dangerous for India; it is the stable Pakistan that creates more problems for our country. This is what our experience has been.
It is also time for the Kashmiri secessionists and those demanding autonomy and self-rule to very seriously ponder over their stand on India and the Indian Constitution. Such an exercise on their part has become all the more imperative in view of what has been unfolding in Pakistan. It is for them to exercise a choice between the fundamentalist and crumbling Pakistan and the liberal India. At the same time, however, they would do well to remember that whatever they are demanding is utterly unacceptable to the Indian nation. Leave aside the Congress and similar other outfits. They are not the chief determinants; the Indian nation is the chief determinant and everyone knows what it stands for. (Concluded)
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