Wednesday, August 20, 2014

WILL INDIA-PAKISTAN PROXY WAR ESCALATE INTO A FULL FLEDGED WAR?

If I am correct, it was late Aldous Huxley, renowned writer and thinker, who in one of his essays had pointed out the fact that internal conflicts in a country on getting aggravated, under some pretext or another invents an issue or two to declare war on the neighbouring country, inorder to distract the attention of its civilians by injecting patriotic feelings into the blood-stream of all the conflicts-ridden country's citizens resultantly the civilian groups are poised to gather under one umbrella to take up cudgels against the victimized nation thereby forgetting the reasons for its internal conflicts.

Narendra Modi, before assuming the Prime Ministership of the nation took an unprecedented step of inviting the leaders of SAARC nations to take part on the august occasion of his swearing in ceremony which surprised and alarmed many a citizen of India. Former diplomats, intellectuals, international observers and citizens across the spectrum while welcoming and appreciating his historic stand but with a rider that the neighbouring nation of Pakistan with which India keeps a love and hate relationship upon partition of United India from which Pakistan was born in 1948.
The world witnessed four wars between the two nations, the bone of contention being the Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan still sticks to the position that Jammu and Kashmir belongs to it and continues to assert that unless and until J&K becomes its property it is determined to fight for J&K to the hilt.
Though it couldn’t win any of the four wars it has not backtracked from its stand on the ‘core issue’ of Pakistan.
After four defeats at a stretch, Pakistan came to the conclusion that taking straight on India is an ardous and herculean task, it started encouraging militants to infiltrate into the disputed territory of J&K from across the border and by providing the hard-core militants financial assistance and also arming them with sophisticated weapons. By the army providing them support under cover of darkness the militants belonging to Lashkar-E-Taiba, Hisbul Mujahideen, Jaish-E-Mohammed, Tehreek-E-Taliban Pakistan and a number of fringe groups infiltrated to J&K and which played havoc killing hundreds of civilians and destroying properties worth huge amounts.
In Pakistan, at present a democratic government under Nawaz Sherif whose party Pakistan Muslim League is in the saddle. Before Sherif, another government led by Asif Ali Sardari belonging to Pakistan People’s Party was holding the reins. But for namesake.
Frankly speaking, the so-called democratic govts were and are being run by the army and the militant outfits, Pakistan Peoples’ Party then and Pakistan Muslim League now, are under the remote control of the army and Inter Service Intelligence.
Upon the invitation of Mr.Narendra Modi to attend his swearing in ceremony Nawaz Sherif had reported to have reached a consensus by meeting the army head General Raheel Shariff and ISI (Inter Service Intelligences) head Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam to clear their misconceptions and misunderstandings.
After the swearing in ceremony, Mr.Modi and Mr.Sherif discussed various issues relating to bilateral relations. The bonhomie between the two was but short-lived. They had reached an understanding that the foreign secretaries of both nations would be meeting at Islamabad shortly and after discussions and deliberations the meeting was scheduled to be held on August 25.
In the meanwhile, Pakistan High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit and separatist leaders of J&K – Sayed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Omar Farooq to the annoyance of the govt of India decided to meet and discuss the issues pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir, which prompted the govt of India to cancel the meeting between Foreign Secretary level talks at Islamabad on August 25 forthwith.
Adding fuel to the fire since the last ten to eleven days Pak soldiers fired at Indian soldiers without provocation and the firing continues with India retaliating in the same coin.
In Pakistan Tehreek-E-Insaf led by former cricketer Imran Khan and a so-called priest Musheerul Khadri’s organization are holding a march to Islamabad demanding the resignation of Nawaz Sherif alleging that the elections held in 2013 in which Nawaz Sherif won a landslide victory was allegedly rigged.

That must be the cardinal reason behind the deliberate provocation of Pakistani soldiers to continue engaging in intermittent firing from across the border. Perhaps the govt of Pakistan may willy-nilly aiming another war against India fearing a military coup in order to divert the attention of the citizens owing allegiance to Imran Khan and Musheerul Khadri and join forces with Nawaz Sherif’s govt. 

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