Everything that brews in Pakistan may not be anti India despite the fact that anti-India ethos has been taught in that country ever since it came into being on 14th of Aug 1947. They do not really need it, with plentiful enemies within.
The slogans of ” Eid in Delhi” by Zia-ul- Haq, the “thousand day war” by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the latest “bleed India by thousand cuts” notwithstanding; it is their internal squabbles that are enough to keep Pakistan leadership engaged and struggling. India could have left them alone to crumple under her own weight. Unfortunately, more than Pakistan it is the Pakistan oriented ‘P’ centric small factions in India that have kept India on the tenterhooks from West and North West frontiers-mainly Kashmir part of J and K.
Knowing this, Pakistan has fully exploited it, for safe survival in her own perception. After all, strategic, policies are not based on ‘intentions’ but on ‘capabilities’-intentions can change overnight. That explains Pakistan’s military and nuclear options, her, self inflicted arms race, ‘offensive defence’ and unconventional pin-prick force multipliers strategy (call it insurgency/Jihad) is necessary for confrontationist smaller army; thus total thaw is not likely.
Internally, Pakistan has long history of breathing up the neck of democratic governments whenever in place. Direct and indirect military intervention in politics has been usual after a round of street violence or political stalemates. In 1969, General Yahya Khan replaced Pakistan’s first coup-maker, Field Marshal Ayub Khan after five months of protests. Whenever it was felt in General Headquarters (GHQ) that things were not going according to the taste of senior officers of the army, troops would move in or contrive to do so.
The result of the recent destabilisation is that Sharif’s declared agenda of economic reforms and peace with India is badly bruised, if not dead. The optimism about semblance of civilian dominance visible after the first transfer of power in Pakistan’s history from one civilian government to another, last year, is also petering off.
The Pakistani military does not realise that its meddling with narrow definition of the national interest makes Pakistan more unstable. A stable Pakistan; with own ‘traitors’ firmly contained would be in better interest of India and South Asian region.
