DOST KHAN
JAMMU: Bhartiya Janata Party’s national spokesperson Sheshadri Chari generated euphoria among social network users by saying in a debate on a national television channel, “No Pakistan, no problems for India and the world”. He was participating in a panel discussion over Parvez Musharraf’s Kashmir rant and open admission of Pakistani incitement to people of Kashmir for waging war against India. What missed the attention of viewers was, however, the revelation Chari made while stating that a section in the present dispensation at New Delhi too was holding this view. Sheshadari Chari might have got provoked by most inflammatory remarks of the Pakistani panelists, all retired army officers, who threatened of and flaunted over their country’s atomic capabilities and taunted Indians as “Dhotiprashads” but the fact remains that realisation is fast growing among well meaning sections of Indian society about the vulnerability of a rogue nation in the immediate neighbourhood, which was a threat to peace in the sub-continent as also the world over. He went ahead by saying that Pakistan needed to be erased from the world map. This may not have official sanction of the National Democratic Alliance government but Indian intelligentsia has been forced to think over undoing the wrong done in 1947.
Pakistan apologists in India are dismissing rants of General Musharraf as his attempts to make himself relevant to the Pak society, as he is facing multiple charges of treason and murder. Believe them and they will swear that moderates are taking over hawks in the Pak society. They were even vouching for giving space to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief citing the browbeating of Pakistan Army to elected representatives as a reason. However, Nawaz Sharif spoke the old theme of Pakistan in United Nations General Assembly a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his debut speech in the world body. The tragedy with Indian opinion makers is that they are more concerned about survival of democracy in Pakistan than the rogue nation’s overt and covert support to terrorism against India. They pitch for strong Pakistan for lasting peace in the region but the fact remains that existence of Pakistan stands to bash India and to keep the Kashmir issue on boil. So long this tendency persists; peace shall remain eluding the region. In fact, it has potential of threatening the world peace at large.
The villain of Kargil and the so-called peace-pigeon of Agra summit, Parvez Musharraf has not left any margin for his country to deny its involvement in Kashmir terrorism. He exploded the myth of Kashmir terrorism as indigenous. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has aptly countered the general by tweeting: So Pervez Musharaf believes Kashmir needs to be incited at regular intervals. What happened to this being “an indigenous struggle for Azadi” In a television interview, he gave an outline to what extent Pakistan can go to extend ‘moral and material’ support to secessionists and terrorists sponsored by his country. He said “We have sources (in Kashmir) besides the (Pakistan) army. People in Kashmir are fighting against (India). We just need to incite them. In Kashmir, we can (in lakhs) fight with the Indian Army from both the front and back…We are Muslims. We will not show the other cheek when we are slapped. We can respond tit for tat”.
The venom spilled by Parvez Musharraf should not surprise Indians at all. This is the mindset of Pakistanis whether in power or out of it. They have been speaking this language for the past six and half decades. The third generation of Zulifikar Ali Bhuttoo even wants to establish his political career on Kashmir. He minced no words while repeating what Zulfkar Ali was infamous for… “will fight a thousand years war with India to get Kashmir”.
In this context, Sheshadari Chari was perhaps the first Indian politician, and that too belonging to the ruling party, who called spade a spade. He was forthright in offsetting the ‘combat yells’ of Pakistani analysts while saying those speaking Musharraf’s language were not civilized. He reminded Pakistanis how Pakistan lost its one part in 1971 because of atrocities committed on their own people. He also recalled the harassment being meted out to a significant population in Pakistan even now. Sheshadari described Pakistan a failed state, saying the people of Pak occupied Kashmir and Baluchistan were suffering. He stressed the need for liberating these people as also PoK from the illegal occupation of Pakistan. This is growing realisation in India’s new political class. Today if Chari feels ‘No Pakistan, no problems for India and the world’, the day is not far when the international community will also say so…rather more vociferously.
