Still at it
Hamid Karzai has clearly not lost his not so subtle touch when it comes to Pakistan. And since Modi is practically rolling out the red carpet for anybody who’ll hop on to his new Balochistan bandwagon, no prizes for guessing where Karzai is these days and what he’s saying. And, just for clarity, when he speaks now of Balochistan – ever since he became president, actually – his reference point is the Quetta Shura, not his refugee days much earlier when his family found sanctuary in the same city. Either way he’s chosen this particular point, and the glare of New Delhi, to express solidarity with the Baloch.
Modi’s maneuver of lining up the like-minded seems all the rage in that camp. There was more than enough overlap with Dhaka. And Kabul has never really needed much outside incentive anyway. It’d be a fair bet to expect someone knocking on the door in Tehran soon to milk the Chabahar deal a little more. Perhaps that explains our own foreign security advisor, and then the foreign secretary, shuttling to Tehran recently. Islamabad has not been known for preemptive diplomacy in a while, but it’s never too late to re-start.
While Modi’s means are crystal clear, it’s hard to see any novelty in the ends he’s trying to achieve. Sure, they can get together and point fingers at Islamabad all they want. But they are hardly trying a tactic they haven’t already employed; with dubious results at best. Eventually they will have to come to the table. And India’s own atrocities in Kashmir have brought that day closer. Sure, Pakistan could have found a more potent forum than OIC, but there is growing unease about Kashmir in the international community despite India’s posturing. The Modi maneuver is a delaying tactic at best.
The editor has a strange sense of direction of focus. The focus should not be on what Modi is doing and who is jumping on his bandwagon, they are are doing what ever it takes to satisfy the requirements of their national interest. The onus is on the government and prime minister of Pakistan, and that should be the real focus, on how to respond to this emerging hostile front against national interest and security of Pakistan. The focus should be on the Prime Minister who seems to have become deaf and dumb, he cherishes Modi’s friendship instead, the man and his RSS sworn to wiping Pakistan from the face of this earth.
What’s sad is that it takes comments from Modi or another foreign leader to get Pakistanis to even think about Balochistan. The Baloch people have been left to languish without development, while the main development efforts are in Punjab. The only effort by Punjabi-dominated elites is to bring in more Punjabis for colonization. The same situation prevails in Pakhtunwa and in Sindh. When even the voices of Pakistan’s human rights community are being silenced, then what future do non-Punjabis have with Pakistan?
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