- Ultimately, India needs Pakistan and Pakistan needs India
In the wake of India’s failure to woo world support against Pakistan after the Pulwama attack, Pakistan has bounced back on the diplomatic front after almost one decade. It would be better to say that throughout these ten years, Pakistan faced the worst kind of diplomatic isolation ever as the world had literally refused to buy its narrative on regional and international events and rather Indian narrative was popular.
On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in India is facing hard times on internal and diplomatic fronts amid election season entering crucial stage. Successive election defeats in certain provinces have reversed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s march towards another election win as opposition parties are mending fences to put a strong challenge to Modi.
While the chips were down, Narendra Modi saw an opportunity in wake of Pulwama attack and within hours of the incident, the Indian regime held Pakistan responsible for the attack without any investigation and producing any evidence to back its claim. The world was alive to the situation and was watching everything.
Pakistan, under Prime Minister Imran Khan, is spearheading a robust diplomatic offensive which is working wonders for the country. It seems as if the government was working on all fronts to send its messages effectively to the world and foreign office, led by low-profile but hard working foreign secretary Ms Tehmina Janjua, has been working round-the-clock, keeping allies and friends abreast of the country’s efforts for peace and tranquility.
Whether it is the successful visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Islamabad or the diplomatic overtures by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, there has been total cohesion and coordination. There has been no distance between the Prime Minister’s Office and the GHQ – suggesting that all the pillars of the state are working in tandem to achieve the desired results.
Lobbying is a key norm in the US political system and lobbyists are hired by states to sell their narratives effectively
Prime Minister Imran Khan has been the engine of the diplomatic offensive and the cricketer-turned-politician has been working wonders.
Whether it was his tour to China, Saudi Arabia, UAE or Malaysia, Prime Minister Khan has left a positive mark on diplomatic as well as on economic fronts. He is marshaling his ministers well and the military leadership also looks satisfied over the gains of the new government.
The brief and concise address to the nation made by the prime minister on Indian threat following Pulwama attack was a novel piece of diplomacy. The message of peace and cooperation from Islamabad was received well by the diplomatic corpses and it had taken steam out of Indian rhetoric.
The recent visit of Saudi Crown Prince to India provides a litmus test for the successful diplomatic overtures Pakistan has made of late. Despite provocative media interactions and official meetings, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to even win a single comment from Saudi Crown Prince and his team to play on Pakistan.
The statement of US President Donald Trump was icing on the cake who asked India and Pakistan to deescalate the situation and resolve all issues through dialogue. Perhaps the State Department was returning a favour to Pakistan for its behind-the-scene support to Afghan Peace Process.
Former diplomats say Indian narrative on Pulwama has backfired. Ambassador Riaz Khokhar says India has no evidence to back its claim. “Modi government’s knee jerk reaction to accuse Pakistan is standard Indian approach and therefore it has zero credibility. This is 100 percent indigenous act resulting from ruthless genocide by Indian army,” he says.
Ambassador Abdul Basit said a false narrative cannot be sustained indefinitely.
“Kashmiris are struggling for their legitimate rights. India’s malicious and self-serving Kashmir policy is finally being exposed. India must understand it can delay freedom of Kashmiris but cannot deny them their right to self-determination forever.”
Ambassador Asif Durrani views Indian accusations against Pakistan a part of a retune matter.
“Indian accusations against Pakistan whether Pulwama or earlier have started giving diminishing returns especially when the world has become more sensitive to Indian atrocities in IHK. Use of pellet guns to blind innocent people, especially youth, and ‘half widows’ (whose husbands are missing for the past many years) are new tactics of Indian atrocities aimed at bludgeoning the Kashmiris to submission”.
He said circumstantial evidence shows that India is the only beneficiary of perpetrating suicidal attacks to ratchet up hatred against Pakistan and suppress the Muslims in India who are already seething under Hindutva onslaught.
“It is also meant to boost Modi’s sagging popularity in the forthcoming elections. Instead of threatening Pakistan with retaliation, PM Modi should work with Pakistan for a durable solution of the Kashmir dispute and spare the precious billions in improving the plight of hundreds and millions of their citizens suffering from abject poverty.”
Ashiq Hussain Bhat, a Srinagar-based scholar, says since UN report on Kashmir, India was cornered but the Lethpora car bomb gave them the chance to defame Pakistan internationally. He believes US does not mind if terror on a small scale continues in Kashmir.
“Ultimately, India needs Pakistan and Pakistan needs India. It would be better for them to shun historical hostility for a better future of their impoverished populations,” he says.
Indian rhetoric to sink Pakistan into diplomatic and economic isolation is not new for readers. Two Indian authors, Kriti Upadhyaya and Rahul Deans, coined a new term ‘economic strangulation of Pakistan’ a few years back, urging the Indian government to adopt measures that can be taken quietly to exacerbate Pakistan’s economic problems by hitting at its exports, especially textiles, which make up over half of Pakistan’s export basket, led by cotton products. The idea was floated through an article published in India titled, “Let us engage Pakistan in a new and non-diplomatic way”.
Effective diplomacy remained Pakistan’s strength till 1980s. However, past decade proved to be worse for Islamabad in terms of diplomacy. Throughout the past decade, Pakistan had virtually been turned into a whipping boy and the world would blame Pakistan from everything bad happening in the region. Whether it was the PPP regime under Asif Zardari or the PMl-N reign under Nawaz Sharif, both leaders put diplomacy on the backburner.
And there were reasons for this blame-game too. Pakistan, under former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had literally divorced its diplomatic corps and India was given a free ride to make diplomatic gains.
While Sharif did not appoint a foreign minister for most of his tenure, he also refused to utter a single word to counter the enemy’s narrative. At times, Mr Sharif though it better to serve the Indian cause by supporting Indian blames on Pakistan or by keeping a mysterious silence over certain foreign policy issues. While it was Ajmal Kasab and Mumbai attacks issue, Nawaz Sharif used media to blame Pakistan but when it came to the arrest of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, Mr Sharif preferred to keep mum.
Lobbying is a key norm in the US political system and lobbyists are hired by states to sell their narratives effectively. However, Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif hired US lobbyists for their personal cause compromising the national narrative.
Hopefully the new government would depart from corrupt practices of the past regimes and the country’s cause would be kept supreme so as ‘Naya Pakistan’ could prove to be a safe, dynamic and booming economic power for generations to come as promised by Prime Minister Imran Khan.